Dark Holy Elf

Assassinations and genocide happen in real history too, for very human (if evil) reasons. The assassination of the previous apostle is obvious. She herself was extremely popular/powerful, and her heir was an infant... i.e. there was effectively no apostle to oppose the senate once she was out of the way. This let the senate amass a lot more power than the otherwise would have. Lekain spends most of the years leading up to the game as the de facto ruler of Begnion. I can think of at least two reasons for Lekain to instigate the Serenes massacre: It gives the people of Begnion someone to blame for the death of their beloved leader (lest they otherwise suspect the actual perpetrators). It allows many herons to be seized as captive slaves. Recall that Lekain and every prominent member of his coterie is profiting immensely from the slave trade, of which herons are the most valuable. All of these link directly back to their wealth and power. Yep, I definitely agree with this and went through a similar development of thought myself.

Framme's a lot like Vander. She plays a useful, unique role early in the game and doesn't need to take many resources (kills, mainly, in her case) to play that role. Then she transitions into a "might as well" filler role around chapter 7-11 as you get others who do her job better, but not so many that Framme won't still see use. And finally there's little reason to use her past Chapter 11 unless you like her (hello Ivy, hello Pandreo). I agree with lenticular that she's likely better than Vander in the lategame, but on the other hand I'm inclined to say she's not quite as useful early. 6/10.

According to in-universe speculation, which is probably correct, the Agarthans don't want the war to end. It makes sense; once the conflict is ended, then folks like Hubert and Lysithea will turn their full attention to hunting them down. If you assume the Agarthans don't just want revenge, but also want to control the surface world, then the war dragging on gives them more opportunities to start building up their shadowy power structures within the various nations again. Or that's the best I've got, anyway.

I would agree that Thales is a mediocre villain but not really an outright joke. I think he exists in an awkward space where he has to be competent in some ways (the way he has basically gained control of the Adrestian Empire at the start of the game as well as destabilizing the Kingdom) but also distinctly not in other ways (terrible use of the javelins, getting himself killed at Derdriu). To some extent this is necessary because Thales's on-paper position at the start of the game is so strong, he almost has to bungle his starting hand such that he always loses. Of course, Kronya and Solon are also both impulsive and make poor decisions as well... Cornelia seems to do a bit better generally. To some extent I sympathize with getting him one route out of seven where Thales actually feels like the primary antagonist. I don't care for his role in that route because the magical brainwashing is a bad trope in a vacuum and an even worse one in this game (since if he could do that, he would badly want to do it on every other route as well). I think it's certainly possible the devs were trying to make him more of a threat, but my suspicion is that the writers of Hopes had marching orders that no route could ultimately focus on lord-versus-lord, so Thales staging a coup on Edelgard was one way to make that happen. Yeah, I actually quite like the Begnion senate! A lot more than the Agarthans. I think it's partly because they feel very real to me. Lekain is a conceited blowhard, but he has political savvy, lots of power, and access to fancy magic besides, and this combination makes him incredibly dangerous; he manages to accomplish many terrible things in his life before he is finally stopped. The other thing I like better about the senate is that every terrible thing they do, they do for an understandable and human reasons - to gain power and wealth. The Agarthans frequently do evil things for no stated reason except that they are evil. There are speculations about what the point of e.g. Remire was, but the Watsonian explanation is simple: they do it to show the player They Are Bad. Also agree that the javelins of light are an excellent example of what Etrurian Emperor is talking about.

I've occasionally done it just because, at least on Maddening, the green unit version of Hanneman/Manuela is quite a bit better than the recruited version, so having one of them as a green unit does make the map a bit easier. Of course the map is absolutely doable with both of them at base stats as recruited units, but still, it's a thought, especially if you know there's at least one of Hanneman/Manuela you aren't planning to use in any capacity (and you don't care about their free intermediate seal). Check out unrecruited Manuela's stats on this map, for instance: Too true. Though I think culling a bunch of the total chaff and making one or two extra new ones that have real thought put into them would be a fine trade.

I think lenticular already did a good job of addressing this. But I'll add that the core question of Three Houses is whether Edelgard's actions are justified, so it's not surprising that discussions tend in that direction. In this case, your initial question centred on whether or not Crimson Flower (the most Edelgard-centred route) change the facts of the game, which is a stone's throw away from "do you think Edelgard is justified on CF but not on AM/VW/SS". I don't think this is at all a fair characterization of anyone participating in this thread. I will happily describe Edelgard as a morally grey character whose actions deserve to be scrutinized, even if, at the end of the day, I feel she was overall correct. As someone who has been involved in the Edelgard / Black Eagles fandom, I think the characterization you're describing is quite rare. Edelgard isn't supposed to be a perfect paragon the way someone like Marth is, and that's actually a large part of why she is so popular. That said, while I wouldn't say Edelgard did nothing wrong, I will speak out strongly when wrong things are attributed to Edelgard which she, provably, did not do (e.g. the claim that she lit Bernadetta on fire, or that she trusted the Agarthans for history knowledge). And there are at least as many starting fights who have not played Crimson Flower.

My experience with Clanne is putting a lot of effort into him to get him exp (he was actually the MVP of several earlygame maps for me on my first run), only to get someone who is a lateral shift from Celine and Citrinne at best. The speed is certainly nice, but at least on Maddening he's going to have pretty serious issues one-rounding things anyway. The ancient well has improved him, though, since he can now use Sword Power + Levin Sword, and as a bonus he can do good damage with physical swords too, unlike other mages trying to mimic him. Works in Mage Knight or Griffin Knight, according to taste... Mage Knight is probably better for him since his magic is so low he needs all the help he can get there. It does feel like almost anything he can do, Chloe can do better; she's got a generally similar-but-better stat build and starts in a great class instead of a suspect one (not to antihype Mage generally, but a Mage with 1+10% true magic is not great). And unfortunately the resources needed for Clanne to really shine are quite contested. Another difficult unit to rate but I think seconding 4/10 seems fair.

Rosado would have the lowest effective level then, since the ?? is 18 in his case. Not sure if that matters. Veyle would also have by far the highest, which is worth keeping in mind in case there's a bonus for using an engage attack and/or bond exp gained. Your observation with Alfred does suggest that Astra Storm matters, whether it's due to being an engage attack or number of hits.

I don't know how it works. I agree it's definitely not just who gets the most kills. I've observed that sometimes units who see a lot of combat get MVP even without getting lots of kills or the most damage. My guess is several factors contribute to MVP, but I'm not sure which or in what proportion. Just idle thoughts here, since to emphasize, I don't know how MVP is calculated: presumably Marth is higher levelled than this enemy Warrior, so there's a good chance that a kill/revival stone break on Marth is valued more highly than one on the Warrior. I think we can rule out the Warrior's higher HP mattering. Similarly, it's possible that thief kills are also more highly valued (or perhaps obtaining a dropped item is)... in fact I'd say it seems quite likely that at least one of these is true, given your observations. Characters at Level 20 still gain experience, it just doen't count towards their next level. You can observe this in the fact that their SP still increases (which is based on the exp they would get). I'm not sure if gaining more exp matters, but if it does, and Rosado had a lower internal level Alear and Veyle, it's possible Rosado actually gained the most and that's why he's MVP. It's also possible that gaining bond exp counts toward MVP. Engage Attacks generate more bond exp than regular attacks (even if capped, I imagine the game would still calculate the number) which would advantage Rosado and Veyle in this situation. It's possible that each successful hit counts toward MVP in some way... Rosado had five, nobody else had more than two. If you want Alear to get MVP (and you haven't just decided to proceed), have you considered trying to have Alear kill the thief instead?

My favourites are Shez and Corrin because they both have pretty clear personalities and get meaningful interactions with other characters. They're not very "avatar"y but I don't care since I'm not that into avatars. And to varying extents I dislike all the others. Marc, Kiran, and Byleth are silent player stand-ins, which I'm not a fan of as a rule. Marc and Kiran can have some extra demerits for being "Choose your gender... j/k the canon name is obviously male" (and in Kiran's case, the default design always looked pretty male to me, too)". Robin is... bland/dull and over-praised. So's Alear. Kris feels out of place and a bit spotlight-stealing in addition to being bland/dull. I made this list without thinking of gameplay... but I have opinions on them in gameplay too. Except Kris. Corrin (gets a lot of customization without feeling overpowered) Alear (has a unique, supporty role which I think fits the avatar-type characters well) Shez (has a neat unique class which is fun) Byleth (not really unique at all, but not egregious) Robin (kinda overpowered in a very generic way, just ends up doing anything and doing it better than anyone else, aside from earlygame Frederick; it kinda feels like weird fanservice).

I agree with everyone else but I take a slightly more favourable view of Vander overall. Only real thing I want to add is that... almost all the Really Good units in the game join in Chapter 11-15. Additionally, deployment slots suddenly contract in Chapter 12 compared to Chapter 10-11. If the player has advance knowledge of these two facts, she will plan to drop several units following Chapter 11, probably four or five. And given that, shouldn't we plan for one of those units to be Vander? Toward the end of Chapter 1-11, other units are starting to pass him if promoted, but unpromoted? That's much more competitive. And the units Vander is competing with for that ninth and tenth deployment slot in Chapter 10-11 won't be promoted; there aren't enough Master Seals for that. And Vander compares favourably to most unpromoted units even at this point. Consider base Vander vs. base Diamant. Vander has +8 HP, +2 res, +2 move, and access to Hand Axe/Revanche; Diamant has +2 str, +5 spd, and better accuracy). Is Diamant better than Vander in this comparison? It depends how you feel about mobility vs. speed; I'd say it's close and hard to say. But my point is, I'm not at all convinced one should drop Vander for someone like Diamant, Amber, or Jade in that role of "unit to use until the end of Chapter 11". Obviously Vander isn't the only unit who might serve this niche (e.g. Framme is very much in the same box), but since there's room for about four or five of them, I would expect him to be an objective pick more often than not. So in summary, he's your best unit in Chapter 1-3, still has a good case in 4-5, is above average in 6-7, and is respectable-albeit-doomed filler in Chapter 8-11. I think there's too much positive feeling there for him to not get at least an above average score. I'll give Vander 6/10 but agree with everyone else that he's tough to rate.

I haven't thought about or analyzed this game nearly as much as Three Houses so I'll probably have less to say. Some scattered thoughts: Alear's stat build is kinda underwhelming, though not terrible. Their only really noteworthy stat is speed, and even then, they aren't as fast as Chloe, Kagetsu, or Merrin (who all have generally better non-speed stats too). Their strength is kinda average, as is their bulk, and the magic is kinda underwhelming. Liberation's slightly better than an iron sword but not great, I basically agree with the argument that it's not worth investing into deeply. Wille Glanz might as well not exist. I agree with lenticular's list of neat protagonist advantages, which go a long way towards upping Alear from "meh" to "actually above average". In particular, supporting everyone is nice, as is convoy access (increasing their staff utility if you go that route), as is Engage+ even if it's only for a few maps. On the other hand I'm not very impressed with the starting Marth hype, you can move him off of them as early as Chapter 4, well before they're anywhere near Mercuius, so they get no hype for that as anyone can benefit from it. Honestly they're a somewhat underwhelming user of Marth early since they can only Break Defences with one weapon, while a lance- or axe-user will be able to do it with two. I agree that keeping an emblem (maybe even Marth) on Alear is a good idea but that's mostly because they're forced so it makes sense to favour them over e.g. Vander or Clanne long-term, but that doesn't actually speak to anything uniquely good about Alear. Dragon typing is... interesting. IMO the main reason to use it is Byleth, Rally Spectrum (and how it automatically applies to Goddess Dance) is indeed cool. I'm not sure if it's the best path, but it does save a Second Seal so it's at least a thought. Otherwise you're probably doing staff and/or combat with Alear. Wolf Knight is a nice class to make use of speed, Griffin Knight marries physical combat ability and convoy staff access, I imagine they're fine as a Wyvern / Warrior since anyone is generically solid in those and the sword proficiency is tempting in Wyvern. None of these options really pin ears back though. Great personal skill. Camilla's near-identical ability was already good, but the overall lower power level of personal skills in Engage makes this one stand out even more. Overall I think they're pretty good. If you could bench them I would certainly consider it, but there's enough advantages to get a decent score. No idea what score scale I'll be using for this game, but 7/10 leaves enough space for the units I consider superior while also acknowledging that Alear is clearly above average thanks to their unique advantages.

Largely agree with the list, though I'll talk about different games since I remember different ones in general. One of the best weapons in the game Path of Radiance - yeah I can agree with forging and "effectively no weight" elevating it slightly above the other top-tier showings. Main knock is eventually most of its users get Hand Axes which are even better, but Marcia/Tanith/unpromoted Oscar all make incredible use of this. Sacred Stones - Compared to Blazing, your lance-users generally hit better AS with the javelin; in particular Wyvern Knights take only a small penalty from it, unlike Falcon Knights. Seth and your fliers can't use Hand Axes, so this stands alone at the top for many of your best units. Blazing Blade - A little worse than the above two (paladins can use hand axes, fliers eat a stiffer weight penalty) but still excellent. Radiant Dawn - Might be underrating it slightly? RD enemy stats are buffer than the above three games though, so there are fewer things javelins will kill. Still obviously great, and the lack of forge limits mean that at its most dominant it is crazy good in principle, though in practice I use Hand Axes a lot more. Very good 5. Engage - I don't really feel like it dominates the way it does in the above games, just because the game is more player-phase focused, but otherwise it still has the "no real flaws, extends your range and that's awesome" feel. Not much to say really. 6.. Awakening - When I first saw the javelin's stats in this game I was ready to talk about how nerfed it had been... but it honestly still ends up very useful because you can use it to activate support attacks. 7. Genealogy - That weight penalty hurts, making it hard to double with (though not impossible). Of course, some units (like Quan) aren't doubling anyway, so this weapon just rules in their hands. Still, the free weapon switch elevates this weapon a fair deal - both switching away from it (so you can double on enemy phase and/or not be doubled, I suppose) and switching to it (to counter archers/mages). 8. Fates - Intsys figured they hadn't nerfed it hard enough in Awakening and doubled down, giving it a -5 AS penalty and a "can't double" tag, so it's even worse than FE4 as far as effective weight goes. That said... still useful for the way it activates attack stance. 9. Binding Blade - The low hit is a bummer, but sometimes unreliable chip or counter damage is better than none at all, and that's what this weapon still allows. It's weak in the earlygame but scales well as the game goes on, especially if you go to Sacae where a Wyvern Lord with the Delphi Shield can abuse the AI of the nomads and one-round them with this. Actually mediocre 10. Three Houses - Bows are cheaper, more accurate, and provide the same range, as well as more damage unless you have Lancefaire. Javelins can counter at 1 range, of course, so if you want to counter enemies with 1-2 (actually not that common since archers no longer qualify, mostly just some mages), it's still your best bet... until Close Counter and later, Retribution Basically the niche of this weapon is largely crowded out, though not entirely; I would not call this a bad weapon and I still often use either it or the Hand Axe on my units who I decide to not invest in bow rank at all. But easily the weapon's worst showing out of games I feel qualified to comment on.

It came up in the previous thread, but I generally disagree pretty strongly that a story being "predictable", or knowing the story in advance, is a bad thing in most cases. When I went to watch Shakespeare plays in my home city's Shakespeare festival, the free program handed to attendees at the door always spelled out the story in advance. Did this reduce theatre-goers' enjoyment of the plays? Seems unlikely, seeing as the festival kept doing it year after year (costing them valuable space on their free programs) and their attendance numbers kept rising. Plenty of movies, books, etc., are a big enough part of popular culture that people know the ending and even some other story beats before experiencing them (Shakespeare, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, 1984, etc.). The reception of these works does not seem to suffer from this. To me, the main place where it's useful to not know things in advance is not about the plot beats themselves, but about the feel of mystery. Obviously, mystery stories themselves are all about this, and generally these are the stories we agree to try not to spoil for others, but any story can invoke this sense of mystery. I have fond memories of wondering about these mysteries in various stories and certainly if I knew all the answers in advance, I would never have been able to enjoy these speculations. But even then, at least for me, I'm generally wondering about story points that have already been hinted at. Wondering about e.g. how the murder was committed in various Ace Attorney stories, or even about who the Flame Emperor is, are fun because the work had me interested in those questions. I'm rarely just wondering about "what will happen next in the story". Regarding prequels, I feel they also kinda prove my point. We often know the major story beats of a prequel, and that's okay! Take the Star Wars prequels. It's a pretty common sentiment that Revenge of the Sith is the strongest movie of the three, even though it's also the most predictable since (at least if one is familiar with Episodes 4-6) we know where the story will end! We know Palpatine will take over the Republic and become Emperor, we know Anakin will turn to the dark side in Palpatine's service and get injured enough that he needs some strange body suit, we know Yoda and Obi-Wan will live and go into hiding, we know Padme will give birth to twins and then die. That said, we don't watch the movie because it's a list of things that happen, we watch it to see how and why the characters make the individual choices they do, to consider under what circumstances that good people (perhaps including we, the viewers) might end up going down terrible paths, and/or just to watch some cool fight scenes.

How on earth do you come to that conclusion? They're frankly necessary if you want to use a child character obtained late in the game; I can't imagine trying to throw a 20/1 character into the last few maps of Conquest (really anything from Takumi on), that sounds awful. Even midgame, they're nice for saving you money; if I unlock a child character around e.g. chapter 17 or so I often just wait a map or two so I can promote them for free. Only if you unlock a child character relatively early (and/or their paralogue has extra incentives to do early, like Ophelia's) does it makes sense to forgo this option. Mm, I'd say Cavalier is still very good in Fates: 7 move, two weapons, Elbow Room gives them great all-around stats in the majority of situations, and Shelter is great utility especially thanks to its synergy with Dance. There's no question that the characters who join in Cavalier would largely be worse if they joined in other classes. I must say, I'm not sure what your issue with Dark Knight is, or why you think it's nerfed from Awakening (the only earlier game that had it, so I imagine that's implicitly your point of comparison, unless you're bringing in all cavalry mages?). Its stats are basically the same in Fates as they are in Awakening, relatively (a little slower, I suppose, though slightly tankier), but "no Nosferatu" is a far bigger downside in Awakening than it is in Fates. I have definitely seen DK suggested more often in Fates class discussions than I have in Awakening, personally. Leave it to Reddit to disappoint. I basically agree with you, I think Peri is quite solid. While I'm not sure about her vs. Silas in a tier sense thanks to Silas's early contributions, I do think Peri is overall better in their shared availability; I value her extra speed more than his extra defence by a fair bit. Her skill also has wonderful synergy with Dance, or even just some clever enemy phase shenanigans. Xander is obviously extremely good when he exists. It's always interesting to think about what he'd be like without Siegfried, but Siegfried is functionally part of him and is very good.

Yep, that's correct. I've used this for quick comparisons / considering which units to use for certain builds: Engage Numbers . There's a page of true bases. I would consider most somniel mini-games to be far too slow in terms of reward:time to consider seriously. Things I would personally consider are the ones which are very fast, i.e. cooking / forging / well / leisure activities / picking up ore from your army of dogs. But I wouldn't personally consider wyvern ride or fishing. That said I don't think it's a big deal if each voter considers slightly different things. The nice thing about a community project like this is that we don't need to agree on every little detail.

Sounds good, I'd participate. I agree with most of your rules. The only one I might quibble slightly is no cooking. I don't think it's a big deal either way, but I'd personally assume cooking is occurring, but not being rigged, so you're at the mercy of the RNG for specifics. Tonics provide the same type of boost as cooking anyway, so it doesn't make much difference in practice. Any feelings on fixed mode vs. random? If it's not too much work I'd recommend putting the character's true bases along with the bases in their starting class, since it helps for direct comparisons post-reclassing.

Ah well, there are those differences in politics again. For what it's worth, I know who I personally consider the most frightening people in the world right now, and Edelgard is not the 3H character who reminds me of them. I acknowledge you feel differently then me; I offered my view not as an attempt to get the last word or call you wrong but just so you understand my position. That said, I'd really prefer to keep the discussion away from this side of things because I don't think we'll convince each other of anything on this front. As such I'd like to agree to disagree on this aspect of the discussion. Why would she need to? She already has church presence (clergy, churches) in Adrestia, is earning significant donations from their nobles (note that Arundel stopping them is unusual), and is a legally required witness to Imperial coronations. For goodness' sake all the most powerful people of the land willingly put their heirs in her charge for a full year, and they can be assigned on missions to fight the Church's enemies at Rhea's say-so. It's clear she still has significant power in Adrestia in the present day, at least among the nobles, who derive spiritual justification for their power from Seiros's teachings. Rhea kills people who threaten her authority on multiple occasions (sometimes while framing them for other crimes, as a treat). I believe that if Edelgard had started calling her and her religion a pack of lies designed to maintain Rhea's own power, that yes there's a very good chance Rhea would have brought war to her (and don't think she doesn't have the troops to do it. The Empire is successfully invaded by the Knights of Seiros and their allies in multiple timelines, once even without the help of Byleth). There's a reason that there's a veritable parade of people, most of them some degree of sympathetic, who raise arms against her over the course of the two games. Either you think every one of them is stupid, wicked, or manipulated, or you conclude that they have reasons to believe that less violent measures to get the Church to cede power won't work. And I'm never going to buy a claim of "everyone who opposes [ruler] is stupid, wicked, or manipulated", even for rulers I have a high opinion of. Keep in mind that merely setting up the Southern Church earns Rhea's ire, earning "relentless censure" and an assassination attempt on the new bishop even before the war. I don't think this is an stupid or over-the-top reaction on Rhea's part either, to be clear! She's held onto power for centuries and I highly doubt Edelgard is the first secular ruler who has tried rebelling against the Church's authority in some way, given what actually happened in the real life history this game is referencing; we can conclude she that however uninterested she may or may not be in wielding the power she has, that she is good at holding onto it.

Probably my traditional answer to this question would be Yuna. Introverted and socially awkward, it's fun to watch her grow to become the person who delivers the absolutely banger "I will do it without false hope" speech and overthrow a tradition which accepts an awful status quo. She also has what I considered, at least at the time of the game's release, one of the more genuine romantic relationships in JRPGs; you can easily see what she and Tidus see in each other. Their ending is absolutely beautiful too. From the same game, I think Auron, Wakka, and Tidus are all excellent as well. Probably my favourite cast overall. In FF7 I really like the big four PCs (Cloud, Barret, Tifa, Aerith) and most of my enjoyment of FF7 Remake came from the fact that yes, the writers got these characters and gave them more time to shine and interact. I'll give a particular shout-out to Barret, who passionately rejects the status quo and fights for a better world, even understanding and taking responsibility for the suffering he causes. I may have a type. FF13 is the third main FF where I like quite a few of the characters... all of the PCs, really, the story is about how they handle their shitty situations and it's a great character study. I'm not the biggest fan of FF9 in general, I'll second the nods for Vivi and Kuja. And I'd be remiss not to mention my OG favourite Celes, who isn't as deep as some of the later characters but sure gets some great moments, and Squall, whose inner monologue is so delightfully teenagerish that I can't help but smile.

There's a thread with a bunch more ideas here if you'd like to check it out.

Fair enough. I'm not sure further discussion on this specific topic between the two of is gonna be useful, because we obviously have very different views on the subject which go far beyond what is relevant to the topic at hand (I have a pretty different view on revolutions than you, and in particular what history might have been like if there had never been any). I appreciate your thoughts and the conversation, so I say this with no ill will, but I think we're remarkably far apart here. To add onto this, Edelgard also expresses an unequivocal desire to not kill Rhea if possible, in both games. Now obviously she puts Rhea in a pretty shitty situation where she might reasonably choose to die rather than surrender, but that's an awful lot like what Roy did to Zephiel, Micaiah to Jarod (she explicitly spares him once, even!) or Dimitri/Claude/Byleth do to Edelgard, for that matter. True. Just replace all the weapon skills with things like Rhetoric, Writing, Economics, Public Speaking, Philosophy, Politics, etc., and you could even keep the same skill system! Can't believe I failed my Orator exam on a 93% chance, what a waste of a Master Seal. Hopes establishes that the Crest of Macuil has bearers, yep. Caspar's father is also established to have one, unshockingly, and I've always felt it was strongly implied that Caspar's brother did too, though it's never stated outright. Keep in mind that realistically, Crests would have to be spread out, and certainly aren't tied to one family (e.g. Bernadetta and Hanneman aren't closely related, Linhardt does not consider Flayn a possible cousin, etc.). We don't knew who received Crests exactly, but even if each Saint only gave their Crest once (highly unlikely, as Rhea does it multiple times, and doing so would certainly be an advantage in the war), that person could easily have thousands of descendants by the time 1200 years pass. That's a lot of people who at least have a chance to bear a Crest, and we know Crests skip generations. So I'd assume there's a quite a significant number offscreen. Certainly, assholes like Emile's father, Dorothea's father, and Hanneman's brother-in-law seem to think they have a non-negligible chance of having Crest children if they choose the right partner, and Emile's father ends up being right.

I mean... how do you think social structures change? Pretty much every major change to social structure in history is either the result of a violent conflict, or the threat of one. Privileged classes historically do not cede power just because the underclasses defeat them in a debate with facts and logic. Even if you want to argue that I'm understating the amount of social change that can be achieved peacefully... this is a Fire Emblem game. It is a game about violent conflict. It might be nice to write a version of the story where Edelgard and Claude discuss their ideas at Garreg Mach's philosophy club and then co-author a manifesto which wins over so many nobles that any violence is unnecessary, turning Fodlan into a socialist utopia. But then people would probably complain about the shocking lack of gameplay in the Switch Fire Emblem game.

The Agarthans are responsible for none of the examples I cited. I'll also specifically circle back to the example of Hanneman's sister, where he says in his support that knows his sister is "far from the only victim" of similar circumstances. So even just confining this to noble-on-noble abuse (and not the presumably more common noble-on-commoner), there's a lot of rot for Edlegard to see and use as motivation. Hanneman, of course, basically has the same motivation as Edelgard, so if you're going to argue one of them is delusional about the state of the world, you'll have to argue both are (and others besides). As for the bolded part, well, two things: You basically seem to be suggesting that changes to social structure are pointless, when that's clearly not the case in our own world? We have made a ton of progress socially in the last few centuries and at every turn, it is people actively pushing for social change that made it happen. Kings and lords didn't just give up the great power they once held in our world because they felt guilty. Even if you personally adopt such a defeatist attitude, it shouldn't be hard to accept that many people do not, and in particular that Edelgard does not. Even if she were 100% wrong that her reforms will improve society, it's entirely reasonable that she believes she is right. I might be misunderstanding you, though, so if you feel I have, do clarify what you meant in the bolded section. Silver Snow skips a month in the calendar (the month corresponding to Gronder in AM/VW), to VW and SS's final chapters take place at the same time. Obviously Azure Moon has reasons to be different, yeah.

Well, keep in mind, lots of terrible things are been done in the name of Crests, and Crests are formally backed by the Seiros religion. Rightly or wrongly, Edelgard deals with her trauma by lumping in her own suffering with that of Dorothea and her mother, of Hanneman's sister, of Mercedes/Emile/their mother, of Marianne, of Sylvain, etc. (not their specific cases literally, she wouldn't have known about all of them, but the implication is that such cases are relatively common). If I was going to put on my psychoanalysis hat, I could point out that she is decidedly unable to fight back against Thales at age 12-17, but she is able to begin working towards tearing down an entire system that she feels led to her suffering. And Edelgard explicitly prefers to do something instead of sitting around waiting for a miracle, or placing her fate in the hands of others. It's one of her defining traits. Honestly, I don't particularly agree with the thesis that CF received less attention anyway. Sure, it got fewer videos, which makes sense if the videos had to be commissioned early in development. But otherwise, CF gets more unique maps than any other route, a huge number of support conversations and monastery dialog which only exist in that route, etc. Like, say for sake of argument that one of Silver Snow or Verdant Wind, and all the assets needed for it, was completed entirely before the other (disclaimer: this is not how game dev works, but let's run with this as a thought experiment). How much more effort would be needed to create the other? Far less than was needed than to create CF. If you're like me and play SS last, then the total amount of new content you get on that fourth playthrough consists of one map, zero supports (except one optional S support), two videos, a handful story scenes, and I believe exactly one chapter with unique monastery content. Yeah, the game is definitely super vague about this one, though there are certainly reasonable ways it could unfold. If I had to write it, I would have Edelgard convince her uncle that she wanted to give Rhea a public show trial before handing her over to them, and then instead spirit her away to a secret location known only to Hubert and his most trusted underlings. Of course they would have to keep her secret under the scrutiny of five years of investigations by both the Agarthans and the Knights of Seiros, and keep Rhea herself from breaking free as @Jotari notes, but it's far from the only thing that manages to remarkably remain in stasis for five years during the timeskip. I subscribe to the theory that a secretly held Rhea is insurance against the slitherers just having Edelgard assassinated. With Byleth (seemingly) dead and Rhea either dead or in their possession, the Agarthans would have no need for a super soldier who has already stated a desire to kill them. Thales could potentially coup Edelgard and name himself Emperor and do... whatever the hell he plans to do if he wins (speaking of things which are frustratingly vague!). But with Rhea a threat to break free, Thales can't take that chance, at least if you assume that a Crest of Flames super soldier is needed to challenge Rhea. (And Thales certainly seems to believe so.) This would also explain why the Agarthans are working on a zombie Nemesis; he exists to replace the "insubordinate" Edelgard. Now, why said zombie wakes up on only one route, that I can't answer, beyond invoking the type of Doylist argument you've made yourself: they wanted SS to and VW to have different final bosses.

Yeah, I definitely agree with this. To be honest I have some issues with the javelins of light in general; they are supposedly very powerful but the slitherers never use them to accomplish anything useful. In fact, the only purpose they end up serving in the game's plot is they're (at least arguably) how the location of Shambhala is discovered. If we want to talk about Hopes retconning away things that are unpopular... it basically just never acknowledges the javelins of light exist at all, and to be frank the story is better for it. This is a bit of a tangent but I strongly agree with you on this one. Most of us go to watch a Shakespeare play knowing how it ends (and some of the plays even tell you how they end at the beginning of the text, e.g. Romeo and Juliet) but that doesn't devalue them one bit. For sure, but this particular point that we're discussing comes up before the "What if" parts really start taking shape. The question is "did Edelgard intend to betray the Agarthans on non-CF timelines, if given the chance". I think the answer is clearly yes within the text of Houses anyway. But I brought up Hopes because when you see her planning to do just that in literally her first "private" scene in Hopes, you either have to argue that the same writers are retconning their own character, or you accept that this is the what Edelgard always would have done if given a chance (just as when she gets the chance in CF). (And why would the writers retcon Edelgard in the sequel, of all people? She was massively popular already.) That's fair. I'm not sure I fully agree, though. I do think the torture does inform her worldview; it means Edelgard has personally suffered from the Crest system she so despises, so gives her a personal stake in things; characters are more compelling when you can trace reasons for their views, instead of the writers just saying "this character thinks X". I do think you're right that it's also partly to gain player sympathy, too, though.