[Wave 3 and 4 DLC Info Leaked (Famitsu) (SPOILERS)]

I am curious about the supports conversations, both for the lore and to know if they will be focused only on the new playable characters, and also about the Paralogues and what they can tell about Fodlan. And also in that vein, Abyss Mode and its characters. Things better be really interesting here.

 

Also, curious about what the new classes will be about.

[What are your thoughts on Edelgard? *SPOILERS*]

10 hours ago, LilyRose said:

On the VW route I don't know if you would consider that as being a control freak or just having absolutely no trust in humans, because to me it felt like she didn't think she owed Claude any answers. She was much more willing to talk in SS because she's talking to her own people (Seteth, Flayn and Byleth) as opposed to the inquisitive little human (Leader)man. She only really told Claude as much as she did at the end because she knew that she was dying.  

 

Yes, and... Nah, sorry, but that's not a trait I find worthy of praise in a ruler, that way lies so many troubles it hurts.

 

10 hours ago, LilyRose said:



I have never understood why people think that Rhea is ruling Fodlan? There is big difference between ruling and leading. Once she decided to setup the Empire as the sole political entity on the continent she gave up ruling as an option. She certainly leads the people of Fodlan (some more than others) but she does it from a religious, moral, mouthpiece for the all-seeing Goddess standpoint not directly political. The most political power that we know she wielded is in negotiating the peace between the Empire and Loog but that was to end what she hates most, a large-scale war. Sure, she has an army and has sent her Knights to defend Fodlan from invaders or squash threats to the Church but we are never shown that Rhea took a hands on approach in the day to day lives of the people. If we consider what we know about Rhea's views on her position I think it is highly unlikely that she would ever be interested in direct rule of Fodlan, she didn't even seem to like being the Archbishop, it was certainly more a duty than a passion for her. And I don't know how fair it is to assign a role to someone who never planned on doing it in the first place and then when they don't do it, to call them a failure. 

 

Because yes, for me Rhea is ruling, with a 'hands off' approach to the day to day stuff, but from the moment she stayed along, and collected all that power within that Church so she would have the means of her policy, it became ruling for me. And from that moment, she became accountable for the failings of that rule. She used the religious and morale tools (and some more personal thingies which can be leveraged into power if needed, like 'witness for each new emperor crowned in Adrestia', or 'Holy Kingdom of Faerghus'), plus the knights as a scalpel for excision of the rot she spots, but it is still her vision she is trying to enforce, so for me, it is ruling. Especialy when, as you said, she has the power to broker negociations between kingdoms. A difference is that I see these wars not as a proof of her not ruling, but as a sign that the order she posed centuries ago is straining and crumbling under the weight of different changes (and Agarthan interference) and her being unable to use the levers of power she created for herself to do more that damage control. She saw that as a duty, but that was still (failing) ruling, and the cloning is her acknowledging that she is unfit for that rule... But because she can only imagine her mother as better than her, the attempts at a pretty mad scheme keeps pilling up, and while she obsess more and more on that, Fodlan rots further.

 

10 hours ago, LilyRose said:

Edelgard is brainwashed and she is too arrogant to even consider that as a possibility. TWSITD have been whispering in the ear of various Empire nobles for centuries. All of this "knowledge" that Edelgard thinks she has is obviously tainted by their influence. Do I think that if they face-to-face tell her something that she is likely to believe it, no.  But do I think that the "history" passed down in her family that she believes has been warped by them, yes. 

 

Well, I do remember some people saying it was involving knowledge of the Hrelsvegr family alone too, but I can't just find where it was said (and would like to know the where, just like I would like to know if that 'Southern Church' really existed). My guess is that Child Edelgard pulled up a Claude after the experimentation, and yes, the Agarthans probably seeded materials showing the Church's foul play with history and the likes, enough to make them look like shadow rulers, which... Rhea is for me. And well, I guess after that, Edelgard probably decided that unlike Claude, she wouldn't go further because with that foul play, she estimated the pass was lost anyways, and irrelevant to a 'now' where the Church and the nobility they were partenered with were strangling the continent, while being unable to fight off bad things like the Agarthans.

 

10 hours ago, LilyRose said:

 

And this is where we majorly disagree. You're acting as if Rhea sat in Garreg Mach watching the world come undone and did nothing at all. That's not true. The Church has tenets (that she obviously wrote) damning the greed of humans, the abuse of power, the violence and all of the other general bad behavior. The Church is against discrimination and warns against the strong abusing their power over the weak. There are very few societal problems that an army can fix and there are only so many times she can send her Knights out to depose noble families before the rest of the nobles band together to fight the Church leading to a devastating war. Also, I think we really should examine just how much of the toxic nature of Fodlan's society is due to crests or Rhea's action/inaction.

 

Yes, and when these tenets are not enacted, they lose their value, and her structure looks like it is complicit through inaction. Again, that was likely a real long term processus, it must have been possible to set up a not even necessarily violent example in the past, and keeping enforcing it, because a law not enforced lose all value.

And Crests... it might be my studies in history speaking, but I things happening like this: Nobles use Crests as proof of divine right to rule to reinforce their power, while pointing out they can do that because they are descendants of the sacred heroes, the 10 Elites, and that clearly if that was an abuse like pointed out in the text, the Church would condamn them. Rhea clearly doesn't. The strategy extends to the entire noblity, with Crestless echelons playing up that they take their orders from the goddess-mandated ones. Cue roughly one thousand years of a social class being told it has a divine right to rule, with a tangible sign of that favor... The entitlement and corruption it would breed, boy oh boy. And when the Crests start fading, they need to keep them going at all costs, because they hammered 'Crests as diven favor' for centuries, if they go now, the people could see that as a sign of Goddess' defavor, and bam insurrections. And the longer it would go, the longer they would get to think of the Church which collaborated with these nobles for so long, and if they are associated with them so closely, maybe they share that disapprobation from the Goddess... And welp, the pre-war Fodlan doesn't look that nice, with rampant banditry everywhere (hell, Alois and Shamir's paralogue. The ruling house of the Alliance can't defend its own capital, its trade harbor and main money maker, against bloody pirates alone. Society isn't in a good shape if things like that crop up).

 

10 hours ago, LilyRose said:

 

So taken all together the countries around Fodlan don't seem to be doing any better than Fodlan, yet they don't have a crest system and Rhea has no influence at all. The common denominator in all of this is not Rhea, it's humanity. The reason why these societies are toxic are because humans are toxic. And unless you are willing to kill all of the humans (which is probably what Macuil would suggest), hold them in a vice grip of authoritarianism (Edelgard's route, which would work up to the point where they revolt) or have a Goddess or someone Goddess-like deal with them (which is what Rhea believes). And at the end of at least 3 of the 4 paths Rhea's thought process is right (though of course her methods for achieving that were wrong). Byleth is Sothis-like in terms of power and it is her power and influence that changes Fodlan's society for the better. 

 

You know, 'Humanity Fuck No' is not any better than 'Humanity Fuck Yeah'. By that logic Rhea's system isn't any better as opposed to what you think, because it sunk too. And welp, it takes its comlpete and total failure and someone actually cleaning up the root of her mess to admit it, but she admits she borked her rule of Fodlan. And Byleth, is just Byleth. Yes Sothis gives him some limited time travel, but that's it, not the behemoth magical power of Sothis nearly wiping out the Agarthans and healing Fodlan all by hereself. Just one person, and the people standing with him. These are these people who fix the mess, not the Goddess herself, who very pointedly 'disappears' before the war starts. And because that war pretty much torn the corrupt structures present apart, so something new, and not rotten to the core to the point a leader of half the continent can declare war against the pope and not swim through uprisings, desertions and the likes within her ranks, can be created. Hell, that's why Azure Moon outcome is the one I am the less trusting. The Agarthans are still there to rock the oat as a group, and Rhea has not eaten the humble pie of Verdant Wind and Silver Snow, so I fear that on that route, after Byleth, she resolves herself to 'safekeeping' their legacy herself because she still very mucch in the mode 'Only Mama knows better than me', and it's back to Square One, with Faerghus replacing Adrestia. And I'm not trusting an immortal ruler with that mindset.

 

10 hours ago, LilyRose said:

The PS: I am not applying modern world standards to Edelgard's actions, only a modern vocabulary. Edelgard's belief system was authoritarian far beyond the level of even an absolute monarch of the time and we can also throw in that she was a nationalist, a racist and an imperialist (she even had her own personal jack-booted thug). I didn't really think I needed to write it all out like that so I just wrapped it up in one word, fascism. 

 

For having seen and studied these monarchies in story... No, she can and will trust advisors and ministers (at least in Crimson Flower), nationalism isn't a thing in medieval period, and imperialism... She is not the first ruler of an empire to consider reconquest for lost parts of that empire. And I will also contest the racism (at least in Crimson Flower) when she is willing to let vassals like Briggid to become their own power and want to establish better relationships with other cultures, the problem with the Children of the Goddess springs from the shadow ruling she perceives.

And... personal opinion here, but I think her war also stems from the fact that, welp, by taking such a big axe to the continent's social order, even if she had started with only intern reforms, it's bound to band the nobility in other countries against her to not lose their own power through revolutionary contagion, and the fact that the Church just cannot let a ruler publically denounce a core parts of their beliefs, because that way lies general contestation of the Church and any form of authority it holds. It happened when a monk in Germany was disgusted by the fact that the confession from Catholicism got twisted into pardons against money, it's hard to not see the potential for that when one core mythos of the Church is targetted.

[What are your thoughts on Edelgard? *SPOILERS*]

3 hours ago, LilyRose said:

There is no problem with Rhea being the court, judge, jury and executioner because this is not a modern Earth society. She is the religious leader in the equivalent of a fantasy medieval society. Even in our "real" history kings and emperors and archbishops historically didn't have a lot (or any) checks on their power. Which is why we don't have very many absolute monarchies ruling things today. Rhea was the absolute monarch of the Church of Seiros but she was definitely not a tyrant, it’s not like she was out committing wanton acts of murder just because people didn't believe in the Goddess. The ones who were executed plotted her assassination, broke into her tomb, assaulted her students and tried to steal literally her mother's remains. Sure they were deceived by TWSITD but they did the crimes and deserved their punishment. 

 

Not wrong, except every time the class is rather spooked by these executions. That does seem to hint for me that Fodlan's society hasn't the degree of engrained violence which would make the way she executed them all as that acceptable.

 

3 hours ago, LilyRose said:

Yes, Rhea rewrote the history but it had nothing to do with keeping humans under her control. It was to end the war and save what was left of her race. Think about what the true history of Fodlan (at least as much as Rhea knew) is: The Goddess of this world was a super powerful dragon who came from some other world and had a lot of children. The Goddess decided that Fodlan was nice and that she would protect it and started passing out technology to her new people. Of course, the people were not good and used their new toys to wage war on each other which led to the continent being nuked. The Goddess then had to use most of her power to fix the scorched land and afterwards she took a long nap to recover her strength. Unfortunately, while she was sleeping the Goddess was murdered by a bandit named Nemesis who drank her blood to give himself superpowers and took her heart and bones to have them crafted into a weapon of mass destruction. Then, Nemesis and his bandit gang went to the home of the Goddess’ children and slaughtered most of them. All the murdering bandits then drunk the dead dragons’ blood to give themselves superpowers and grabbed the hearts and remains so that they could also have powerful weapons. The remaining handful of the Goddess’ children relocated to the south to plot their revenge on Nemesis and his gang who were using their superpowers to wage war, enrich themselves and have children, passing down their ill-gotten dragon blood to their descendants.  Many years passed and finally the last of the Goddess’ children had gathered enough ambitious humans together to form an army, but the humans needed a little extra help so four of them gave their blood to the humans to wage war. And they won. The End. 

 

The 'rewrite' might have been her choice of tool here, buuuuut... Personal reflexion here, but that looks llike a downward spiral to me, and a bloody one. She built her order on that lie, and that means upholding that lie at all costs, so I guess the scholars chancing upon the truth for a reason or another accross the centuries had to be... dealt with, because once one lie is spotted, one search for others, and th whole structure ends up unraveling. And I can just bet the Agarthans are spreading 'old scrolls' probably full of these sorts of revelations around, because that looks like an easy method for sowing dissent by seeding this 'forbidden lore'.

 

Oh and GD route, once freed, first answer? Try to bullshit again. Claude has to get the answers out with a bloody pincers, and only got the bare minimum before the humble crow pie is fully eaten after Shambhalla. Rhea is just as much as a control freak than Edelgard can be, and these tendancies are far worst on an immortal ruling for centuries.

 

And honestly... Personal headcanon, but I wonder just how many Lonatos got crushed without a mention in the centuries this all took. Yes, this is much further playing scalpel here, but my line of thinking is 'First step is the easiest one', and 'An history of no one defying the Church gives an impression of invulnerability helping a lot'. And my guess is that she also had to write with a scalpel where the Agarthans were concerned, because I refuse to believe they only cropt up recently. To reach their point of power in-game, you are looking at a very long-term infiltration, and Rhea/Seiros both knows that these duckers survived Mama Sothis' wrath and uplifted Nemesis, I refuse to believe she would be so incompetent that to do nothing knowing the Agarthans are lurking in the shadows to rock her boat. She clearly failed since they have that grip now, but I refuse to believe she let them do anything they wanted for centuries.

 

3 hours ago, LilyRose said:

Yes, a thousand years later (!) Fodlan's society had turned increasingly toxic but that wasn’t Rhea’s intention nor was it her fault. 

 

You're right, it probably was not her intention. But she still has a responsability, because she is the immortal dragon who decided to rule that continent. And yes, that's ruling, from the moment she decided to impose herself peace and order to Fodlan. From that moment, she ruled, albeit with her own tools. And it made her accountable for the failures of her ruling, aka that growing toxicity an immortal should have spotted along the centuries, because that's certainly not a 'one-day' thing, and nipped in the bud a long time ago.

 

3 hours ago, LilyRose said:

 

I know that Edelgard (because she's been brainwashed virtually since birth) believes that Rhea has been moving humans around on her own personal chessboard for a millennia but we as the game players know that is not true. She leads the Church, which is as Jeralt said, a ridiculously large religious organization but she had no direct power over the nobles and by the time the game starts even her ability to influence them was waning. Let's be real here, she couldn't even get them to agree to let their children live next door to commoners in her own dormitory but she was supposed to be able to tell them how to run their territories! Sure, she could tell them that Sothis would damn them or send her army to smite anyone who got too out of hand but how many times would that work before she would have faced a violent uprising herself. The Church has specific doctrine on how disappointed the Goddess is with humanity's greed and violence, the Church encourages equality and good behavior and the use of power wisely so what else was she supposed to do? Rhea recognizes that there are problems in Fodlan, but she doesn't believe she can do more than she already has to fix them and believes Sothis is the only one who can (& since Byleth becomes Sothis-like, she's right).

 

Okay, I have to ask, where does exactly come the idea that Edelgard got her knowledge of Fodlan's situation from the Agarthans? Because everyone agrees she has trust issues (they are at the heart of the problem)... And then everyone says that she trusts the mole people who her open for Crest implentation and butchered her siblings, and the ones she very much plans on betraying the moent the thing she sees as the biggest monster (Rhea) is down. Just. Why?

 

Regarding Rhea, I would like to point out things like Canossa and the general history Popes/ HRE emperors. And remind people that the pope did all of that without his own armed forces. And for me, the loss of influence of the Church and its splitting off is more a sign of her rule failing that the fact she 'could not'. She decided to rule Fodlan using the pope card, as a supreme moral authority, she totally should have been condamning the seeds of these abuses as they cropt up. especially when her own core mythos is all about 'Bad Crest users get sword to the face'. She didn't enforce her Creed, so from that first step on abuse came the rest of the rot cascading down. And heck, medieval periods, the Church was probably the one educating these nobles and she failed to use that tool to kill the problem in the egg, even before Officiers' Academy. And the statu quo she enforced kept breaking down with each new war, with new kingdoms, loss of control of Church branches...

 

And on another note... I think her growing obsession with resurrecting Mama was Rhea being intellectually aware that she was failing, but because of her 'Only Mama knows better' mentality, she went with that resurrection gamble, and while she kept wishing for that critical, the rot kept spreading and breaking things... Sorry, but she is totally accountable for this shit (and on another note, Byleth stays their own person until the end, which does bring the lie to the idea only Sothis could do that. And it is just as good. The idea a continent can only work thanks to one person and only one accross the millenia is frankly depressing).

 

 

3 hours ago, LilyRose said:

The lack of change and self-doubt added to her fascism is why I do consider her a villain, even when playing her own route I kept thinking we're the baddies. 

 

More of a PS, but double standards, much? If Rhea executing people is 'Medieval society', and it is, Taxing Edelgard of fascism is also wildly anachronic.

[Parrhesia and Integrity's Guide to Surviving Wesnoth]

Welcome back to that LP, Parrhesia. And for your sake, I hope this particular campaign becomes able to mix undead opponents and nice maps. It's going to be a bit bad if the campaign can't scramble a good map for the main opponents.

[What do you think of the two main figures of the war? (Spoilers)]

16 minutes ago, genagi said:

And, I don't want to get too much into the terminology here, but the idea of supreme power of the monarch with 'heavy religious influence' is tricky. Religion and church can support the monarch's power, but church can also compete the power with the monarch and try to limit the monarch's influence.

To be honest, I feel the empire Edel built in the ending of BE route is the most despotic and authoritarian of three although added a flavour of 'meritocracy', because all the efforts Edel puts in to eliminate the aristocrats who are against her.

 

 

1) Probably what Rhea was aiming at when she established herself as archbishop, and with 'traditions' like the fact the archbishop act as a witness when a new Adrestian emperor is crowned. Thing is, given the current state of Fodlan, she pretty clearly failed, and as pointed out, is unwilling to accept any change, bar a certain exception. And when a system starts to do more harm than good, I fail to see why it shouldn't be removed.

 

2) *Looks at the sterling example presented by Fodlan's older generation of nobility, and how they strangled any possibility of reform until it is too late, like, let's say, the nobility in France befor ethe French Revolution* And it is a problem how? Especially since they are not replaced by nothing but, you know a new elite, one which seems to be a future result of an attempt for universal education and exam (Imperial China's bureaucracy and its exams)? with things like merchant classes still existing, and likely some form of nobility ot a lesser degree, since they aren't likely disappearing overnight, especially when some members of it prove worth it and keep some place(aka students from the cast?).

 

12 minutes ago, Flere210 said:

Rha is the reason we cannot change stuff. But Rhea also happen to have a clear objective: revive mommy.

If mommy get revived she will go away. And mommy get revived in any route because for her SSJ Byleth is good enought.

In a different time Rhea may have been a wall that can only be removed whit violence, but we are in that one moment when she can step down peacefully. Edelgard did not know that, but the tools to find that out were aviable to her, she just did not use them.

 

Fair point, but... How is Edelgard supposed to know that? Or any of the other lord for that matter. Not even Claude manages it, and he's poking at the holes in the wall quite hard. And again, there is the fact that 'SSJ Byleth' is quite a bit of a perfect storm, caused in no small part by Edelgard's very preparations for war. Without the chain of events of the game, just how long would it take to reach the point of Chapter 11 exactly? And given Fodlan's general state pre-timeskip, I doubt there was so much time left to get to that point.

It is tragic indeed that the one pacific opportunity exists and is created because of her actions, but ultimately, there was no way for her to guess at that series of events.

 Because the cards for that revelation are in Rhea's hands, and welp, look at how hard it is to make her fess up in Golden Deer after being freed.

 

3 minutes ago, Etrurian emperor said:

Though there's also the Tetrarchy where adopted heirs were officially the way things were handled and that turned into a mess. One of the reasons for that being that the biological relatives who had been passed over were really pissed off about it. I can imagine any son of Edelgard also not being very happy if mommy gives ''his'' empire to some random guy.

 

Also fair point. Guess it would boils down to the kid's education, and the efforts Edelgard spend in stressing the idea of 'succession to apt indivdual only, bloodline isn't a factor, period'.

[What do you think of the two main figures of the war? (Spoilers)]

32 minutes ago, Etrurian emperor said:

That's a common way of picturing the dynasty but not entirely accurate. The emperors adopting their successors wasn't so much a succession system as a string of accidents. It just so happened that all those emperors doing the adopting didn't have sons of their own to begin with. One emperor was a weak old man with no heirs chosen because he was a weak old man with no heirs, the following two emperors were probably homosexual and the emperor after that adopted the emperor from a very young age and married him into the family. Unlike the others old Marcus did have a son and passing him over would actually require a ton of explaining. Even with the adopting things were kept as close in the family as possible. Before being adopted Hadrian had already been raised by the emperor since he was a child. 

 

More than good point. Still, it does prove that appointing a successor chosen for another reason than 'biological heir' can work, even if reinforcing family links as a supplemental mean of legitimacy happened (when luck is on your side. August kept changing successors, starting from his main lieutenant Aggripa, because they kept dying on him. Tiber got the job in the end by virtue of being the last one standing).

 

17 minutes ago, Flere210 said:

But everyone is working to change the world, they are just doing that in a way that would not bear immediate results. You don't see the fruit of their endeavurs because someone start a war and sabotage the plans of everyone else. you can't tell me whit a straight face that Claude is not working on his "end racism" plan before the timeskip. He had to delay the plan because of Edelgard for 5 years. Similarly, Dimitri wasted 5 years on a murderhobo rampage, when he woukd stay sane and a good ruler whitout Edelgard intervention, purging Farghus of all the corrupt nobles that took part in the Duscur tragedy, cooperating whit Claude on his plan and so on. Whit Sylvain and Ingrid as his best friends there is no way in hell that he is going to support the crest discrimination.

Most Edelgard supporters either don't understand or willingly misinterpret characters in order to make her actions necessary. Just name me a singke character that would support the current nobility? Not even Ferdinand, the one guy that constantly repeat of cool being a noble is, want to keep doing what his father was doing. But somehow i should believe that he woukd be just like his father if Edelgard did not exist.

 

Thing is, that war started because the rot had been there for so long that odds of pacifical reforms were down to... pretty much nada. Ionius and Lambert tried with their generation, and these little pesky things called the Tragedy of Duscur and the Insurrection of the Seven happened, aka corrupt nobles being used by the Agarthans to rock the boat. What were the odds they would stay put this time exactly?  I mean, I'm sure lambert and Ionius had to have their own allies, and well, look at where they are when the game start.

 

(Besides, before the Academy, there is no denying that some fatalism about their lot in society existed amongst the students (see Ingird about things like arranged marriage, or Sylvain's womanizing). The Academy did give them a chance to evolve beyond that, no arguing on that one, but to me it implies that reformation sin't exactly easy peasy just because they don't like the system. You'd be surprised how many people uphold a rotting system because welp, it is their 'norm', no matter how ugly it is.)

 

And on another angle, the sheer scope of reformations there would have been the sort taking that big axe to the Church, because welp, Rhea influenced things to have that set-up for the sake of the order and peace for Fodlan as she envisioned it, and her mindset of 'only Mother knows best than me' is kinda sorta the sort which kills any sort of changes, bar the perfect storm than Byleth was, and well, by the time the events sequence leading to the fusion with Sothis which put him in the position of chapter 11 happens, how much time would pass? And without that, Rhea isn't accepting any of the major overhaul changes to her system with a smile to her face, and I expect her to be much less chill than she was when it is only a minor lord evolving from brooding in his castle about her to open rebellion.

 

You could say that Dimitri's vision of thing and its implementation in Azure Moon is 'How Rhea's system is supposed to work', but there is the nasty fact that pre-war, it isn't, it's all rampant banditry (Sylvain, Felix and Alois/Shamir Paralogues), while impotent/corrupt nobles waste their troops for petty things and personal power (Raphael/Ignatz and Lorenz Paralogues), with some unscrupulous people wanting to climb up the social ladder ready to almost anything to get these Crests thing the Church keep presenting as a sign of divine favor (Ingrid/Dorothea Paralogue)...

 

The problem isn't 'support of the current nobility' (not even Lorenz does that), it is that the rot is system-wide, pushed forward by the Agarthans, while the main person supposed to regulate that mess, Rhea, has become so obsessed with Mommy's resurrection, ironically because she wants a 'successor' and is unable to imagine someone else than Sothis taking her place, that she has let things derelict to that point.

 

At this point, collapse of the system was pretty much unavoidable.

[What do you think of the two main figures of the war? (Spoilers)]

18 minutes ago, genagi said:

And a little detail from GD route: a merchant will tell you that they are happy under the alliance's reign rather than empire because alliance has a more open and free policy on trade and business.

 

Well, that's funny you should say that, because Crimson Flower also tells that Edelgard has begun reforms in order to remove the bindings Imperial nobility had on trade. Further, supports in CF includes discussion about things like 'universal education' to make the society as she imagines it more likely to work (and use of examination as a social vector was a thing in Ancient China, for instance).

 

As for nobility staying in place, I do imagine this is more of a transitional thing, there is no real choice but chosing amongst former elites until the new ones are ready to take over, and well, as long as the members of these old elites are able of doing the job (For instance, I am not exactly expecting Acheron to keep the job for that long after the end of CF, he may earn himself the right to prove he can keeps his title, but beyond that)...

 

19 minutes ago, genagi said:

Yeah she does not pass it to her children but passes it to a 'worthy' successor (based on her judgment obviously). And the whole “empire is dissolved” thing... I am sorry there is no evidence in the game indicating that. I can as well as imagine that after she dies everything ends up in disaster.

 

Euh, you ever heard about a thing called the Antonine Dynasty? Generally the best succession of emperors Rome ever had, and the whole way succession worked here was the emperor adopting himself a successor, aka doing what Edelgard is doing. And before you mention that the whole thing crashed down, I'll point out it crashed with Commodus, aka Marc Aurele's son, the only person of that dynasty chosen only for heredity.

[What do you think of the two main figures of the war? (Spoilers)]

9 hours ago, Eltoshen said:

We have to remember that Edelgard has the most knowledge about the Church when it comes to the 3 different lords, thanks to Tomas and TWSID, albeit some of it tainted.

 

Euh, is it sure that knowledge comes from the Agarthans? I mean, Edelgard's big problem is trust issues, everyone agrees with that... So why exactly everyone thinks that these issues disappear just long enough for her to trust the Agarthans about intel they could be telling, when they are the ones who butchered her siblings and were responsible for her second Crest? I mean, she is very much in a 'enemy of my enemy, kill the stronger one first, then shank the weaker one', when is such mindset conductive to believe these guys' stories?

 

Ultimately though, I think Edelgard is right. Rhea meant well, but went pretty wrong about her goals (shame such vote option isn't available), and wasn't listening to anybody telling her so even when the whole system was crumbling around her (Dimitri and Kingodm nobles keep saying the pre-timeskip Faerghus is a rotten husk, the Alliance doesn't look much better from the Paralogues happening here, and the Empire... Well, Insurrection of the Seven). She would only step down for Mama Sothis, and the events around Byleth were too much of a perfect storm to be considered as a viable alternative to wait for for some people.

 

And for the people saying 'but, next generation'... Remember Dimitri and Edelgard's fathers were trying to reform their countries... And then Tragedy of Duscur plus Insurrection of the Seven. There are enough corrupt nobles around for the Agarthans to keep rocking the boat until war happens.

[What are your thoughts on Edelgard? *SPOILERS*]

4 minutes ago, Humanoid said:

Bear in mind that to a large extent our students are just naive, sheltered kids, many of whom were born into privilege.

 

*Look at the supports, the general background...*

Let's call this point debatable at best.

Besides, it's also a question of culture and society. I expect the average citizen of Fodlan would be far more familiar with death and the idea of killing people for their crimes, since that would be pretty much their norm.

[What are your thoughts on Edelgard? *SPOILERS*]

5 hours ago, MrPerson0 said:

The issue is that the students still believe that the Western Church members were never out to kill Rhea in the first place, even though we have seen proof (that was eventually confirmed). 

 

Thing, is, like you said, and as I think, it is a medieval society, with much more death permeating the society, and medieval-like laws were often a bit more trigger-happy with death penalties than today (heck, for all the black legend it has today, the Inquisition was actually something criminals prefered to face because it was actually less trigger-happy on that subject and reintroducing in western judicial system concepts like 'The accusation has to prove its allegations' and 'Witnesses who have a direct gain to see a culprit condamned, according to the culprit himself, are to be dismissed while collecting proofs'), the very fact these executions were often turned into a form of 'spectacle', and the decision of executing the survivors still leave them shocked.

And remember, these are not random prisoners, but people that the students fought with intention to kill, and people who tried to kill them while profanating a sacred site. And the execution of these survivors still unerve them. That doesn't exactly paint the picture of these executions as they happened as something 'normal' for Fodlan.

[What are your thoughts on Edelgard? *SPOILERS*]

12 minutes ago, Nihilem said:

In a medieval scenario that was a normal justifiable thing to do. Any other power in fodlan would probably act the same when someone is captured while trying to kill their leader.

 

See the other answer to that problem in the post just before yours. The students are Fodlan's people, both from its elite and in some cases its lower classes. Strangely enough, approbation to Rhea's behavior is... scarce,  when indeed, you'd expect more acceptance of it in a medieval scenario. It does seem to hint that the way Rhea is going with this problem isn't that 'standard' if the students are disturbed by it.

[What are your thoughts on Edelgard? *SPOILERS*]

23 minutes ago, Eryon said:

 

Please. Rhea had she been more fierce on regulating human depravity and/or putting humans in their place could have just designed the empire to worship the emperor with those sharing his blood as one divinely ordained cast (with scripture outright telling so). She did not.

 

Beyond what I can only call as 'Humanity Fuck No', something just as toxic as the HFY you keep whining about...

Personal interpretation, but one my beefs with Rhea's method of ruling and why it failed (she is the one telling she passed the last thousand years enforcing peace and order on Fodlan, that's called ruling, whatever it is done from a position of power or not) is that... 'divinely ordained caste' is one of the very reason things went to shit.

She pretty much crowns the emperor ('witness the coronation', but if you think if the pope equivalent can't 'veto' emperors she doesn't like in medieval times...), which gives him a 'divine right to rule', since his crowning is approved by the Goddess' voice on Fodlan.

Rest of the nobility most certainly wants in on the 'divine right to rule' bandwagon, (having religion back you to secure your rule is as old as the pharaohs, I'm sure Fodlan's nobility can think of that one), but Rhea probably isn't doing that for all of them, that would cheapen the empror she's partner with for the ruling.

So they leverage the Crests they have, pushing forward the 'Goddess' Gifts' parts of the scriptures forward, and their ancestry amongst the sacred heroes of legend to forge themselves their own version of the 'divine mandate'. And Rhea let it slip for whatever reason, which translated into tacit approval for these people, which could bring out the fact the Church was also all about stomping out bad Crest Bearers like Nemesis.

Cue centuries of a caste being told it has a divine right to rule, with all the entitlement issues it brings up, thanks to the tangible sign of divine favor they have, in a context where this 'divine favor' they now need after centuries of using that excuse is fading. You get Fodlan's current sterling nobility.

[What Is *SPOILERS* Rationale For Hating The Church?]

I guess it is an as good as any moment for that post which has been percolating for a while and answer all of the above at the same time:

 

So. War of Heroes ending, Nemesis dead. The Elites properly surrendered. Given how forgiving Rhea is while being in Seiros Mode, unless someone tells me she how her behavior in that opening and Crimson Flower is the one of someone totally eager to accept surrenders, I am fairly sure it was a Cichol, Indech thing (was Wilhelm even still alive by that point), probably on the grounds of keeping something of their fallen brethren's legacy alive (what else are you gonna say to Seiros mode Rhea to make her spare her Mommy's killer's lieutenants?), with Machuil leaving out of disgust (it has to have happened, and sparing Nemesis' cronies is the likeliest moment for that).

Here it is, war won, Fodlan approaching peace. A peace and an order that Rhea/Seiros wants to see enforced in the future, pretty much durably. Since Adrestia is the one doing the political control, and that she cannot exactly wrest political control at that point. So the soft power approach (mainly) it will be. Archibishop of Foldan's faith. Look at popes in medieval times to see the means of influence available. However, it goes a bit further, and some tools were developped to enforce that rule of peace and order:

-First obvious one, the Church. Cannot influence soul without a continent-wide moral authority known and accepted by the overwhelming majority of the people. And one she is binding to her will in some mystical manner with that blood and Crest Stone sharing. Yes, I'm going there. Silver Snow's finale shows that some sort of bond exists between Rhea and those who undertook that ritual. The fact she isn't using it in Crimson Flower hints that it si likely ont a conscious thing since she is not using it here, but given what happened during SIlver Snow and what sort of things Crest Stones can do, something has to happen here.

-And for when that power fails, you want a military force to purge dissenting elements. Preferably your own one rather than one owed from other actors who may have a stake in what you are purging. Enter the Knights of Seiros. Bonus point, you can have them put at disposal of others while not on a mission you asked them for, so they can go everywhere without question, and are known for that, while building up some nice political capital by being known to do such things.

-Garreg March. It was built a century after? Welp, look at cathedrals in medieval times, they take decades at best, often more than a century, and the size of the whole complex. And frankly, the whole idea behind the monastery is just too important to have been ignored. You want to influence the ruling class and the best and brightest elements of a continent? Be the one giving them their education, so you are the one instillating the values you want to see enforced ('foolishly raise their blades against the Church', people?), and at the same time, by seeing how they behave, you can get a nice measure of Fodlan's current mindest so you can shape it better. And of course, it also means a center of knowledge, a holy siege doubling as an academy for a whole continent. Imagine the sheer concentration of knowledge, and the appeal to erudits, savants... Real good tool for my next points too. Also, it is easier to do politics when your central siege is independant from other powers.

 

Thing is, that model is all nice and dandy, but there is little problems still: the Elites. Half the continent's nobility was Nemesis' cronies, and they were the majority of the ones with Crests. With time, it would lead to... Well, just see what happened to Maurice's family until Marianne, as was said. So it means rewriting history and the creed to make them heroes too, and the Crests they are tied too aren't dragged in the mud. Okay, needs of the civil peace and all that jazz. But it is the first step on a rather thorny path, one that Rhea now needs to go through to enforce her objectives: Thought control, and its 'needs'.

'But, Cyril! Jeralt! Shamir!' Everyone says at that point. So, elaboration time it is then, from them, to the entire situation:

1) They are individuals. More than that they are individuals directly serving Rhea. No point in squashing them. And even if they were not... Rhea is an ageless Dragon, and I want to give her some credit, please. Destroying everyone not sucking up to the Church would be as impossible as bloody, and ultimately weaken her rule. Fight the battles you can win.

2) However, she also has to get rid of this sort of people the moment they form into groups competiting with the Church one way or another. Look at the catholic's faith history, and how it handled sects with diverging beliefs, and the result when these parallels beliefs became strong enough to be their own faiths (Reformation, and all the wars that followed, ring a bell?). Ideally, you wanted, and want here in the game, conversion or a similar result, but when words failed, it became violence time (Cathars, wars of religions, etc...). And, welp, a faith cannot be the supreme moral authority shaping a continent if it leaves competition rise up, and form into entities contesting their vision of things. Hell, Seteth's solo ending is all about him recreating a more tolerant Church. For this to happen, the former incarnation of the Church has to have been intolerant.

3) And that intolerance leads me to the next point: thought control, not just about deviant faiths, but about history and technology. Because it is the thing with this sort of line of thought. First step is always the hardest, and once committed, retracting is hard. If the Church is caught lying on that one, its core mythos, and there goes its credibility, and Fodlan collapses hard. And the more the scalpel is used to keep that lie going, the easier it becomes to think about using it for other pesky things threatening Fodlan's order and peace, like deviant faiths and how they were crushed, little mistakes at a time or another that were ultimately repaired, the future last point of that list that Agarthans are... People, meet the Fodlan!Index, that list of forbidden books by the Catholic Church. And well, the scholars producing all that forbidden lore have to be dealt with too. Subornation, bribery, blackmail, discredit... eventually elimination if everything else fail. Because censoring history for a thousand years has its cost somewhere down the line, and if you think such process over the centuries is a bloodless affair, PM me, for you have the winner mindest required for succeeding in the business of Bridges Commerce. I've got a nice one in Narnia to get you started. (I guess it also makes me suspiscious of these six centuries  of 'peace', or blank in Fodlan's timeline. Normally, RPG like that in medieval times get a pass, but welp, here the game shows some history rewriting is enforced. So big stretches of time with nothing noteworthy become suspicious because foul play already happened. I mean, it's a continent, can you imagine a continent with 'nothing to report' over the course of six centuries of history with medieval societies?)

And of course, it involves technology too. Church have historically opposed research hurting their creed (Gallileo, people), and welp, Agarthans' wonderful example just comes to mind, so the objective here is nipping in the bud developments which could lead to that sort of tech, but also securing samples it for personal use in case of dire need (like Agarthans, but it is not an exclusivity), like the Golems the Church possess and is told in unit descriptions to be able to build and modify. Thing is, nobody else but the Agarthans can do that, so that techno-magical knowledge has to be controled and supressed, and once again there is that 'first step is the hardest' thing, and the fact there is only so many ways of stopping scholars of doing the things you don't want them too, although controlling the biggest center of learning of the continent helps to attract them so you have less need for the bloodier options. After all, someone needs to build these Golems, as I said. (Again, Medieval Stasis wouldn't be something I raise eyebrows at usually, but here, it is enforced. And enforcing this sort of thought control in medieval times... Again, it cannot be done without blood.)

And that comment about Seteth in the library in GD also shows that such thing is still being enforced. So nah, regarding to above posts, I have serious doubts that pre-war Hanneman, as in 'when the Church is enforcing the thing I mentioned here', would have been able to go for much longer. And post-war, these politics are done, for a reason or another.

4) And there is another reason, the big one, for all of that: Agarthans. Rhea knows these duckers still exist, becuase welp, they survived Mama's wrath to help Nemesis. She knows that GD, and would have to be brain-dead to not to: how would have that two-bit thug succeeded with the whole Crests and Relics shit like that otherwise? And I can bet he had some Agarthans soldiers inside his armies, and the corpse-like weirdos are hard to miss, and failing all of that, there were the Elites to question after their reddition, and again, I'm giving Rhea some credit here. And in the name of that credit, I will go out on a limb and assume she knew better than assume the Agarthans were all dead and done after that. Hell, her own Mommy Issues would forbid that too, both because she needs them dead to finish her vengeance, and because she is firmly in a mindset of 'only Mother knows better', so she won't dare assume she succeeded in killing them off when Mama clearly 'failed' until Shambhalla is found and reduced to a smoking crater. And again, it doesn't take a genius to assume they will try again to burn Fodlan to the ground and kill her and her remaining fellow Children of the Goddess. Henceforth, she needs to fight them and root them out, and that means shadow war. It means be on the lookout for Agarthan infiltration, for signs of their tech, for 'poisonous knowledge' they could spread to further their goals, which pretty much sends back to the points I mentioned above, except this time the goal is fighting off Agarthan influence. With the Knights to purge the enemies. And since the other facet of that mindest I mentioned above is the underlying opinion that she knows better than everyone but Mama for the whole continent's sake, it is why she is doing that shadow ruling people, it means keep the direct knowledge about these guys to herself, both to avoid them damaging the picture and society she created, and to avoid people wanting to contact them for a reason or another to get their pretty much poisoned 'help'.

 

So, these are the basic staples of Rhea's rules, and the reasons for doing shadier things, because if nothing on these fronts is done, her whole power eventually crumbles like wet paper and she loses any mean of enforcing that peace and order she wants to.

 

Thing is, her rule when the game begins is already failing.

 

The Crest/nobility problem? I see it as nobles seeing the emperor getting that 'divine sanction' from Rhea with each new crowning, and deciding they wanted a 'divine right to rule' too. And well, they had Crests, tangible sign of the Goddess' favor, and the illustrious pedigree of descendants of the sacred 10 Elites, it has to count for something, right? What's that about abusing Crests? but, their ancestors fought Nemesis, clear sign of being Goddess-approved, and the Church isn't condemning them, as it would if that was something improper. Lesser nobles probably used the excuse of 'I work for the guy with Crests' as their own close equivalent to that maneuver.

And Rhea did nothing when that idea cropped up. The reasons can be multiple, liking to see Crests, these last memories of her people, being given proper reverence, indifference to that shit, inability to see how it would eventually develop, deciding the conflict to ban that line of thought wasn't worth it... But it was still nothing, and it planted that 'divine right to rule thourgh Crests' idea. And it keeps going down to shit from there. Because Crests really become a sign of divine favors for these future generations, so they need to manifest, at all cost. Minor were surely scorned at first, as a sign of weakining divine favor, but as they faded, Fodlan's nobility discovered it was literally losing what they had framed as their right to rule, and without it... Welp, they would look like fine and dandy once deprived of it, so it led to more and more... discutable measures to keep this going. And Rhea did nothing as the situation slowly rotted, when she had that termometer that was Garreg March, despite the fact the ruling elite's slow programmed death was very much her problem, because once they collapse, no more peace and order, and the Church who helped them so far, if only by inaction, will have to give answers. And yes, she is accountable for that. She claimed responsibility for ruling all of Fodlan, so what happens here falls on her head. You rule, the problems cropping up, and how they are dealt with, become your problems.

And of course, tell a social class that they have a divine right to rule for a few centuries, and it breeds some serious entitlement into them, leading to the corrupt ducktards causing so many problems in-game. And again, no correction attempted before it is clearly far too late for the problem to be removed cleanly. And Rhea is an ageless dragon, she should have seen this slow evolution with her own eyes, recognize the trouble, and settle that. She didn't, and voila, here are the results.

And there is also the slightly total failure about that shadow war with the Agarthans, when you see they can infiltrate Garreg March, stir up shit like the Rebellion of the Seven and the Tragedy of Duscur to keep rocking the boat until continental war happens while making sure attempts to remedy to the ambient shit are destroyed.

Hell, it reached the point where she is losing control of her own tool of ruling, the Church. See the duck which has been going for years with the Western Church. Assassination attempts, then open war when what purges she attempted failed. Yes I said there were such things. It has been years of conflict by the time the game happens, complete inaction of her part would have been a demonstration of incompetence so blatant she couldn't have lasted a thousand years. And the last assassin caught in Chap.4 bitches and moans about how so many of their brethrens have already beeen killed so far. Likely more than the strike team, and these dudes don't strike me like the sort which would think much of pawns like Lonato and his son, so it has to be them. Likeliest reason was enquiries andpurges about Agarhtans infiltration when this whole doctrinal divergence cropped up, festering until war.

Hell again, the Empire's fracturing is part of that misrule in some way, if only because the wars which happened here are parts of the sort of things she wanted to save Fodlan from. It means some serious misformation of the Empire's nobility while they were at Garreg March to lead to a situation where independance was a desired outcome for the local pouplations, and a failure to find a decent war-less solution. The negotiations she did here were a good thing without doubts (and helped get some political capital for later), but at the end of the day, it is damage control. Fodlan is canging to much for her model to keep going, and the strain is now showing.

 

Worst part? Rhea is intellectually aware of that to some degree. That's part of her reasons to resurrect Mama. Mama knows better, she'll know how to fix it all. Except as failures after failures pass, she devotes more time to this rather than searching for actual successors, and the situation keeps rotting. And since only Mama knows better, it also means crushing dissenters, without questions.

 

And so the pressure build up unitl something like Edelgard happens, once the system rotted so much it collapses.

Given the fact this is medieval times, with only one dominant faith, I find it telling that Adrestia isn't rocked by pro-Church uprisings during that war. Look at conflicts between popes and emperors, people. By all right, Edelgard's rule should be contested widely, with several revolts, guerillas and the likes inside. Agarthans can help with the nobility (to a point), but not with the populace's anger, whenthey are not stroking it (see Ferdinand/Lysithea's paralogue). And what happens? One mention in the first chapter of post-timeskip Crimson Flower only, no Resistance known, no mention of bloody repressions... looks like the opposition (she attacked, and maybe, captured the pope! No way it is 100% approved by the people, including the believeing people who will be a part of the army too. That's called desertion) isn't really strong. The one uprising is that paralogue, and it is all because Tharundel is rocking the boat for the after war. And I'm fairly sure it doesn't even happen in Crimson Flower, when the Paralogue doesn't happen, for several reasons:

1) More moral Edelgard means less given to the Agarthans. Which would mean not giving the place to Tharundel.

2) Since Aegir was spotted there? You bet your skinny ass Edelgard is going for the one figure which could lead an Imperial opposition, especially if it allows her to enact some vengeance without turning him into a martyr for the opposition.

3) Uprising means lost resources, insecurity, lost troops... Why would she let it fester exactly?

And I want to bring to attention Revolution in France. When the axe was really taken to the social order, the pope condemned. He only had a shadow of the power of medieval times, but the conflict was enough to spring many uprisings, including a guerilla which lasted for years, despite some truly heinous methods used to crush it. The only way Edelgard escaped even that is if the Church's power is truly in tatters, and its crediblity iredeemably damaged. And that hints to a pretty epic failure in rulership.

 

And as a PS, I'll point out to the Verdant Wind route, after Rhea is freed: First answer when confronted and asked for answers? Bullshiting, aka only Mother knows better. Claude has to use a bloody pair of pincers to pull the bloody answers out of her mouth, and she only truly fess up after the ultimate humble pie Shambhalla is. That unwillingness to share knowledge even once the failure is patent, to cling to her way of doing things against nearly everything... That sort of little things just stress how uncompromising Rhea actually is. This is the sort of everyday behavior hinting at bigger things that tells me that barring that whole war, nothing more would have changed than compared to the last thousand years of zero changes.

It would be also why the Azure Moon ending is the one I am the most dubious about regarding Fodlan's future. By itself, a system reboot fixing that corruption with new additions, and likely nothing of Rhea's measures for the good reason she isn't in power anymore are good things. But just like Dimitri told Edelgard was mistaking disease and symptoms, the disease is still there for next time: Agarthans, still existing as a group to try again someday, and a Rhea which hasn't fully processed the humble pie. So once Byleth goes away, I expect her 'Only Mama knows better than me' line of thought to push her to make a move for her old tool the Chruch (or any new more adpated one) to try and keep Mama's peace going the best she can... And she arleady failed dramatically on that front once.

[What Is *SPOILERS* Rationale For Hating The Church?]

Just now, Earth Worm Jim said:

Hanneman's ending says that he succeeds so there's no room to question how successful he'll be. 

 

Actually even in the church route when Rhea is still the Archbishop she doesn't stop the changes. Rhea never supported the doctrine about crests being all important to society. Or rather it was never a part of the church's doctrine in the first place, humans just perverted her words because of they found them useful. She also didn't do anything to Sylvain's family when that refused to give her the Crest weapons. So she's way more tolerant than first impressions imply.

Rhea herself hates the crests but she can't get rid of them. The church never supported that doctrine, but what the church and Rhea did support was the uplifting of the lower classes. You find this out if you have Claude support with Cyril, but Rhea regularly takes care of the poor and tries to find ways to better their lives. In fact, that's her ending in the Church route.

 

And all of them happen after the war. And after Rhea's own poliies about things like 'Keeping the people of Fodlan from reaching a level similar to the Agarthans', and Hanneman's studies would be a big first step forward in that direction. He wouldn't have been allowed to go that far. How is the only question left.

And Church route and alive Rhea got served the humble pie about her failings while ruling Fodlan and the methods used, hard. And my problem is that she never did anything to correct that perversion while she was the archbishop with that nice school, and an army. Or was failing so hard it is the same. And the lance... Well, just watch her reaction if you say 'no' at that moment. And while 'tolerant', she was still pressing the issue enough that Sylvain deems it was a narrow thing that they didn't lose the damn thing. Someone who keeps coming back after 'no' isn't that tolerant.

And yet, once again, despite the moral authority and the fact they are the one teaching Fodlan's elite in Garreg March, she never uses that to correct the nobility's views on Crests. She is the archbishop, all she had to do was to condamn these abuses before they became system-wide and doing so stopped being a real possibility without alienating the entire ruling class she is cooperating with to rule Fodlan.

[What Is *SPOILERS* Rationale For Hating The Church?]

9 minutes ago, Earth Worm Jim said:

 

Something to also consider fact that she also hired Hanneman the guy whose Crest research could completely change their value in society. And she effectively funds his research and gives him the best environment for his research too. In reality Rhea's lies and Nemesis and the true origin of the crests don't matter when it comes to reforming society.

 

Bringing up Slyvain again his ending is that he changes society so that the nobles no longer treat the crests as all important. And he does so regardless of whether or not he learns the truth of the crests, and regardless of whether, or nor Rhea is dead, or the church is still around. I honestly don't think that the church really matters as Edelgard claims it does. 

Hanneman... It has been 1000 years. Let's say I find really doubtful he is the first person seeking and able to revolution things on the Crests front (eh, it doesn't have to end badly for him. Some people had to construct these Golems for Rhea, right?).

 

Thing is, the Church is also radically altered compared to the pre-war one, and Rhea isn't in charge anymore after that. Let's say it's the problem of indulgences being a perversion of the principle behind confession in catholicism, which was one of the factors leading to protestantism. If the Church begins to step back on some points of doctrin, it hurts its own credibility, leading people to question more parts of it, further weakening its power. Of course, it can also not budge, which led to resentment then violence...

 

[What Is *SPOILERS* Rationale For Hating The Church?]

Just now, daisy jane said:

 

in terms for Edelgard - i feel a lot of people touched on it - but i also fundamentally think - Edelgard just wanted all the power back in Empire's hands - because i personally feel she easily could have eliminted the crest system/church etc out of Adrestia vs. conquering all of Fodlan. 

 

Inside of Adrestia, yes, I guess, though there would be the need to fight the nobility and the Agarthans too for that (for instance, we don't know what she had to promise to get the Bergliez and hevrings back to her side over Aegir).

That being said, was Rhea supposed to look at that emperor crowning herself without her taking an axe to core points of her creed and the social order she was supporting and do nothing? Because she is definitely not the sort to do nothing in front of that, and frankly, if her system get contested and destroyed on such a large scale, the position she has been using to ruling Fodlan (even if it's distant rule) is as good as done. And the only authority Rhea acknowledges as 'knowing better' than her is Mama Sothis...

[What Is *SPOILERS* Rationale For Hating The Church?]

11 minutes ago, Cysx said:

She's lost it by that point, to be fair. And she has decent reason to be in that state, considering what Byleth pulled on her, siding with Edelgard after she desecrated the holy tomb, stealing both the sword of the creator and the heart of Sothis as a result; and then there's everything else that happens afterwards. She's kind of extreme to begin with for sure, but I think it's fair to say burning a whole city to the ground isn't something she'd do normally.

I never said that it was unjustified, just that it definitely looks like to me she is in a similar place mentally when you compare these two moments, cinematic and Crimson Flower. And given the sort of thing she does when we can see her in Crimson Flower, I can imagine the sort of stuff she is doing one thousand years and change ago in a similar situation. Even with the city burning as an extreme, she is clearly (and righfully) hungry for vengeance and blood, which is why I'm dubious about the sparing being all on her head.

 

Well, that and the fact Macuil was the one doing the tactical advising to her by that point too, and the dude is just as bitter about humans that Rhea shows in Seiros mode. And when spoken to in his paralogue, he is very much hateful of the Elites, dismissive of Seiros and humans after helping her in that war... My guess is that he lost the debate about the Elites with Cichol and Indech and left in disgust.

 

Oh, also,

 

1 minute ago, Tenzen12 said:

Did she killed Nemesis for revenge? Hell yes! Was that war about vengeance? That certainly doesn't seem to be case. We saw what kind of person is Nemesis, he ravaged Zanado to obtain power for conquest with Wilhelm trying oppose him. Rhea and the saints gave him and his allies crests  joined war. That includes Seteth and Flayn v you know Seteth wouldn't endanger Flayn just for revenge.  Given both Seteth and Wilhelm (who she hold in high esteem even  almost thousand years later) were involved there is plenty of reasons why could negotiation take place instead continuing bloody war against elites). 

Second there are no implications Rhea using military to threaten anyone and so far when it come soft power it was used only when things went out of control (like when Loog defeated Imperial forces, which is also only known event Church got involved. )

 

Given her reaction while killing him and her general behavior in Seiros mode? Hell yes, that was totally about vengeance for her, with some eventual mellowing out as Wilhelm showed himself as a better human being than Nemesis (not the highest bar ever). Because as I said above, Machuil was there helping her, and welp, given how 'chill' the dude is, he was only participating for vengeance, period. And given his general behavior, I'd say he would have ditched her the second something else than vengeance was in the picture.

 

Not that we know of, and she likes writing history books with scalpels, and the known overt use of soft power (the whole idea about soft power is that you generally don't need to actively leverage it, that's part of the reason why it is called that way) speaks of something else to me: of someone who wanted to enforce peace and order on Fodlan, and is failing.

[What Is *SPOILERS* Rationale For Hating The Church?]

Just now, Tenzen12 said:

In whole game there is even single showcase of Rhea caring for crests or bloodlines. It's not that uncommon for nonles to marry commoners and she not just never shown problem with it, but schools rules actually encourage interactions between people of different status. 

Even Eldegard claims of Rhea setting up Crest system is actually based on bigger  cover up of real creators. 

If Rhea needed blood she would clone All Children of Goddess, but she was fine with protecting their creststones. 

And your argument in other hand is, nothing but wild assumption based on solely on cinematic of Rhea being pissed on guy who killed her family

 

 

 

...

 

She cared enough about her people and mother to enact a war of vengeance on their behalf, and those Crests and Relics are all is left of them. Seiros craddling the bloody Sword of the Creator before entombing it, would it ring a bell?

She is the supreme moral figure of Fodlan as this system establishes itself around her and goes on its way around her, and she has political tools, both hard and soft power, to enforce her will, and kill the abuses in the crib, both for threatening the order and peace she wants to establish and enforce and the 'disrespect' it implies for her people's remaining heritage, no matter how ghastly it is. Inaction is an action too, you know.

Ooookay, and how would she do that cloning exactly, especially given how well her attempts to resurrect Mommy are going so well? Also, her reaction to the thief of Crest Stones tell me that she very much sees things as the Relics and the likes as Nabateans' last memory. She clearly is... sensitive on that subject. And for what other reason would she spare Nemesis' cronies exactly?

The problem isn't her being righfully pissed off, it's her being in Seiros mode. We also see Seiros mode in Crimson Flower, and she is clearly in no mood for accepting redditions in that mode. And she also has zero problems with 'dick moves' as you said, such as burning Fhirdiad down with the people still inside for a tactical advantage. Tell me again, why would she spare people while being in that mindest?

[What Is *SPOILERS* Rationale For Hating The Church?]

2 hours ago, warchiefwilliams said:

 

A thing to also remember is that the Hresvelg family has always been aware of who really leads the Church of Seiros, and that information has been passed from Emperor to Emperor. Now, while I doubt many of her predecessors did anything with that information, her experience undergoing experimentation by Agartha and whatever new information they continue to feed her up until the route split also color her impression of the Church, regardless of the dubious quality of information coming from the likes of Thales and co. 

 

Euh, can you tell me when this 'secret knowledge' thing was mentioned? I'm without the games for a few weeks, and the videos I'm scouring on the internet never mentioned that. And it feels strange they would know that, because if so I guess they would know the Immaculate One is Seiros, and Edelgard is dismissive of the idea in Crimson Flower. And it's not like the idea of Seiros=Immaculate One doesn't play as a charm in her interpretation of the situation.

 

As for Tharundel, I have doubts, started with the fact he openly refer to Nemesis as a thief in front of Edelgard as the Flame Emperor, and that she is left intrigued by that when she has this that wildly different vision of Nemesis. But beyond that, I'm going to explain my viewpoint about him along with my personal interpretation:

 

-At the root of the matter, there is the fact that Fodlan's system failed, failed her hard. She was a daughter of the emperor, aka the sovereign directly acknowledged by the archbishop, voice of the Goddess on Fodlan (probably part of a little... 'political dance': Rhea/Seiros gets a position where she could veto emperors back when they were ruling all of Fodlan, and 'approved' emperors had best excuse ever to play the 'divine mandate' card while they ruled), and here she is alone in her chambers, feeling that new Crest, the 'Goddess' Gift', eating away at her (implications only compared to Lysithea, but it seems clear that she is getting the nasty side-effects of two Crests too, if her siblings' fate is anything to go by), and a 'blessing' she owes to the butchering of her ten siblings (butchered in the sense of 'oh my Gygax one survivor out of eleven' by strange corpse-like mages not from the Empire (Lysithea could see as much while being younger than Edelgard was when she got cut open herself in the GD Route), on behalf of that ducktard Duke Aegir, her father's so-called prime minister, her own father made totally impotent in front of that situation, and given the timing of her 'trip' to Faerghus, she likely knows her 'uncle' Tharundel is complicit of that shitshow, and not a minor one (hell, the ducking Church knows that, it is in the Library).

 

And the Church has the gall of exalting Crests (not directly, but given how important they are to its mythos, it's pretty much the same thing), while condamning their disuse, with the so graphic example of Nemesis, and which has this army of knights seen as the continent's elite, this academy where everyone who matters in the continent's elite go, did jack shit to stop that situation. And given how heinous of a stuff her experience was, it has been going on with them doing nothing for a while. And if her at the top of the system got it so bad, imagine how it is lower on the political totem pole? Clearly Fodlan needs some serious change if that sort of shit is hapenning unopposed.

 

And knowing that Rhea=Immaculate could actually compound on that, because what use it is such a powerful figure and do nothing while your creed is denatured so totally?

 

Anyways, at this point, she hates the nobility and the Agarthans (name used for ease while I write that) for instigating that duck, and the Church for being complicit by inaction. Something which must quite egregious for a member of the Adrestian imperial line, who would feel that they are 'privileged' on that regard owing to that approbation I mentioned, and these six centuries and half of partnership in ruling Fodlan together before Loog (I'd say it's the Empire's fault for mismanaging to the point that war and the others happened, but try and tell that to people who lived knowing that statu quo existed for what we Earthers would know as thrice the time the Pax Romana lasted in Europe). Although there was some souring of the relationships in the recent decades (I guess the territorial losses of the Empire was a thing, but I also read about a 'Southern Church' which got disolved 120 years ago on the ground of having become the sort of ducktards the Western Church have become, is it true?), surely it does not justify given even an unspoken, tacit agreement to all of that shit by saying nothing?

 

At this point, I'd say the Agarthans want her to hate the Church even further, so she decides they are the enemy she goes after first rather than them, their heads on a pike being the sort of trophy buying her the legitimacy for her reforms of society and eventual confrontation with the Church on the subject of that rotten system and their inability to stop these creeps. But I do not think they talk to her outright, and especially not through Tharundel. Everyone here can agree on the fact Edelgard has trust issues, they are part of the reason she wants revolution through war, not diplomacy (I do think there is more to that, but that's for another thread someday). At what moment does this imply that she will trust the Agarthans' take on Fodlan's history, and especially the version of the 'uncle' who was the closest betrayer on a personal level. And she clearly never trusts them, pretty much every route shows she intends of squashing them the second they are not needed anymore, that's not the mindset to believe what they say about the past. But they can 'nudge' her in the right way.

 

At this point I guess Edelgard wants answers about the Agarthans, that horror below Enbarr cannot have been their first try at this sort of things, and maybe she is also beginning to scrutinize a bit closely how the Church behaved in history owing to that particular defaillance. The Agarthans cannot tell her their version, but they can make sure she 'founds' some books (they are crafting her into their anti-Rhea weapon, of course they are spying her from afar to make sure she doesn't do something they won't approve, and they can justify that through 'enforcing' the Seven's Little Putsch). No outright fabrications painting them in a good light or something, that would be stupid, and welp, they have been surviving in the shadows for millenia by that point, they can't be utterly brainless. No, more things like Claude's discoveries, like how the Church is doctoring Fodlan's history, enforcing a certain technological level, in words hints that they very much look like they are ruling Fodlan from the shadows, with maybe one mention or another of the Agarthans 'miraculously' preserved through that doctoring to show that the Church either knows or don't care, or know and is ineffectual in taking care of them, while perhaps reinforcing the image of the Agarthans as a Church opopnent, not stronger, but bigger than they look, and a potential tool in case of war with the corrupt Church perhaps...

 

(I do think it is at that moment Edelgard conceived her personal vision of Nemesis. If the Church lies and manipulates from shadows, then clearly it will lie in its own holy book to enforce its rule. And here is the 'fallen hero' Nemesis, the creed's ultimate foil. Well, maybe someone lied about it, so they could craft a history cementing their rule, like they censor humanity's history? And demonization of Nemesis is the likeliest and most obvious way the story would have been altered if someone was looking for that, under the logic that you want your lies as simple as possible, and borriwing as much as possible to the truth. Seriously, how many suspected the part about the Elites before it was revealed?)

 

The sort of things which would make the Church as a shadow behemoth pupeting Fodlan for their own interests. Anyhting they say and do looking more, so much more shady. And that's how you convince a future emperor of Adrestia of fighting your oldest enemy first with you as alllies of necessity, because the already faulty structure now looks like this shadow behemoth wihch has been ruling for centuries now. And it's not entirely untrue to boot.

 

If Edelgard truly knows about the Immaculate One, conclusions are easy to draw. If not, it is the sort of discovery perfect to 'crown' all these discoveries. And again, this particular revelation is too big for her to trust the Agarthans just saying so, especially once she is 'aware' of that shadow ruling. Two can play the game of writing history with a scalpel. She would have to be the one discovering that 'alone'. And to take the decision of going for the Agarthans for a partnership alone too, because if they make first move, the suspicions of them nudging her that way would be fierce.

 

Tl;dr, The Church posed itself as a moral guardian of society, actually looks like a shadow ruler with wider goals under deeper scrutiny, with the tools for enforcing such a rule, and proceded to do jack shit to correct the abuses of a system, being at the very best complicits by inaction, and they likely engineered or at the very least shaped at a few decisive moments the current social structure. Henceforth, they have to go in order to allow for something new, more sane and 'properly' between the hands of human to take their place.

 

PS: Sorry for the double post, I was working on that while the other posts happened.

[What Is *SPOILERS* Rationale For Hating The Church?]

Just now, Tenzen12 said:

 

I mean yes, she probably could kill 10 elites and crested allies from Adrestia Empire so they can't pass on crests, but it would be pretty dick move imho. 

 

Euh, you remember how Rhea/Seiros was in the opening cinematic? I'm pretty sure the only reason the Crests other than hers and her fellow Saints are still in use is because she wanted to 'preserve' those of her departed people, and that was the only convenient way. And I strongly suspect some people (Cichol and Indech) had to argue that point, because at no moment I see her in Seiros mode sparing Nemesis' lieutenants for the only reason of 'they surrendered, killing them is a dick move'.

[What are Golems exactly? (Spoilers. Just Spoilers)]

Well, I doubt she never met Agarthans before Sothis wiped the ducktards out, and at the very least during the War of Heroes given their support of Nemesis (she has to learn they upjumped him one way or another), and I'm  pretty sure developping things like the Titanus is the sort of weapons you could create with slaying big things like Dragons in mind.

 

Also, the Titanus shown above is without the armor. When they have one, they look even more mechanical than the Church's Golems. Heck if I had to say which one was a Demonic Beast, I'd go with the kind sporting constantly twitching arms.

[Edelgard and Byleth...]

I spotted a real nice post on Reddit touching that very subject recently (spoilered for length. And spoilers, of course):

 

Spoiler

 

 

A most interesting read about these two characters.

 

[What are Golems exactly? (Spoilers. Just Spoilers)]

Oh, didn't get to see the art book, so I guess there is that. Funnily enough, Rhea's reaction when she sees the Titanus is to compare them to Demonic Beasts. Strange that she wouldn't recoginze Golems though . And welp, by the time you are inside Shamballa, it's a bit late to bullshit the party about these things and their nature.

[What are Golems exactly? (Spoilers. Just Spoilers)]

2 hours ago, Wolfen09 said:

Meh, argathans probably got a hold of rheas blood at some point way back in the day and have been using it to make this stuff

 

You're aware I'm talking about the Church's Golems when I said some of them have the Crest of Seiros? And only the 'ultimate' model of Crimson Flower's, to boot, all the other are Crestless.

 

Why the duck would the Agarthans need Seiros' blood to build their Titanus?

 

14 minutes ago, Shoblongoo said:

I'll give deference to the originating myth of earthen constructs, brought to life by words of power + divine invocation to a progenitor god.  

And that seems pretty consistent with something that could exist within the lore of Fodland + be affiliated with the Church of Seiros.

 

Interesting parallels drawn here, although here the main power source is a Crest Stone. Although I also notice that another common trope for this sort of Golem stories is 'Life cannot be created from nothing, so something must be sacrificed first'. And the fact Rhea hasn't been able to get Sothis back has been the lynchpin of many of her neuroses...

[What are Golems exactly? (Spoilers. Just Spoilers)]

Just now, Chocolate Kitty said:

the white beasts in silver snow do have her blood as well, as that's how they became white beasts in the first place

i won't spoil the entire plot of that chapter, so I'll just leave it at that

 

golems I believe were created by rhea/serios for the service of the church and are powered by crest stones, while titanus are bastardizations of that technology given a massive upgrade (given the defensive and offensive capability) by the agarthans. the names I think are just for reference/honor, I don't think the golems were ever humanoid

The first I know, what I was asking was 'Have they a Crest of Seiros on their stats sheet?'. You have no idea how many videos of that battle are on the internet and never check them.

 

I'll admit that I'm more perplex about the 'order of origin' for Titanus and Golems, but that's mainly because I think manufacturing weapons had to become much harder once Shamballa became the Aghartans' only city, and the Golems clearly display Seiros' Crest everywhere, and are henceforth likely more 'recent' (unless repurposed from older tech). But thing is, they flat out have Crests, which means Rhea's blood, and henceforth something with Rhea's blood inside was used.

That said, it could indeed be an 'honored heroes' naming only. Although it is strange to use 'Wilhelm' in Crimson Flower. Things have a tendance to be renamed if the ally referenced becomes an enemy, or the glorious event from the past is actually not that glorious or in 'bad taste' compared to the present.