Enduin

So I'm probably reading/listening into this way too much, but does anyone else hear some noticeable differences in the VO from the trailer? I'm fairly confident these four lines are all spoken by Edelgard given their general likeness in delivery as well as the subject matter in each feeling shared, but line 1 to me sound a good deal younger and less mature than the others , while 2 & 4 are nearly identical and don't sound as young, but then 3 sounds significantly more mature and older. I would really love for there to be a time skip or rather the story takes place, and is properly shown to occur, over the course of many years with the characters visibly maturing and developing as both the plot and time progresses. 1. "God ahead, give me order. It's time to measure your worth as an Instructor." 2. "Such a brutal, irrational world we live in. Some believe the crests, tokens of the Goddess's power, are necessary to maintain order, but they wrong teacher. The crests are to blame." 3. "Do you dare to walk this path with me? One misstep and we fall to our ruin. So take your first step, it's now or never!" 4. "I will return here someday, my teacher. Promise me, that you won't forget me." It's probably nothing and just the difference between more serious and impassioned deliveries that are causing the differences, but maybe not. At the very least 1 and 4 sound miles apart, with 1 vs 2/3 also being rather noticeably different, but a bit less so, and then 2/3 vs 4 being a bit less noticeably different than that.

Since FE6 the games have averaged like 50 playable characters, not counting DLC/Spotpass stuff. That's a lot of characters to write for and it showed in Awakening and especially Fates that it's hard to manage and maintain quality at that level, not even taking the S Support issue into consideration. So I'd also like to see NPC S Support options to be limited to 1 or 2, with few exceptions so they can hopefully make those relationships develop a lot more naturally and believably. But I would also like to see the Avatar able to S Support nearly everyone, with the only exceptions being a couple of hetero/homo only NPCs and maybe a few others for possible plot reasons excluding them. I think most players care a lot more about pairing up their Avatar rather than pairing up NPCs. Then just have like 6-8 normal C-A Rank supports for NPCs. That's still a butt load of content, though it shouldn't be much more than Awakening and far less than Fates and hopefully more targeted. Fates averaged 5 Non-Romantic supports and 13 Romantic Supports per first gen characters(10 for second gen). That's insane. Awakening averaged 3 Non-Romantic and around 11 Romantic for first gen characters(8 for second gen). So not much better. So trim that down to an average of 10 total supports and flip the ratio of Non-Romantic to Romantic.

Great write up, this has been my general belief about the story as well What I really hope is that the Church isn't Evil with a capital E, but more so that they are just really zealous and fanatical to a major fault and won't/can't see the error of their ways. I really like the theory I saw on here or Reddit that the "Crests" from the Goddess aren't simply emblems or tokens imbued with divine power of some kind but are actual relics/weapons made from her very bones and remains. The chief evidence for this is the bone whip blade we see in the trailer that the barbarian/highlander Leader uses to devastating effect, but which we also see this supposed Seiros, or Church Leader, embracing in a very creepy and eerie manner. Kind of like she's embracing the very bones of her Goddess. The idea that the Goddess is dead is great to me as I really would like a game where the main antagonist and final boss isn't possessed by Evil itself or Yin to some purely good Deities Yang, but rather just a messed up person. Let the gods be dead, or at the very least in the background, and let the people and their own imperfections and motivations rule/ruin the day. Have Seiros and the Church/Kingdom just be a group of fanatics that revere these regalia made of their dead God and have taken whatever Dogma they follow too far, twisted and corrupted through years of dominance and power, with just a bit of every day greed, lust for power and megalomania coloring that. I really don't want a whole "the Church and religion is just a lie and a front for something nefarious" or "the god is actually evil and tricking/possessing everyone." Rather "Hey the Church is out of control and doing more harm than good and have lost sight of whatever mission and message the Goddess may have bestowed upon us." But we probably won't get that. There's way too much stuff in the trailer that hints at Deities or higher beings of some kind are going to play a role and that there's probably some big bad Evil pulling some stuff behind the scenes. Even if they do try to subvert expectations by having the Church and this Seiros maybe not be the good guys.