Does Crimson Flower... make sense compared to the rest of Three Houses? SPOILERS, obviously.

[Jotari]

Just now, Armchair General said:

In all fairness, Catherine was his son's executioner for an crime that might have involved with him siding with either Team Slither or just the Western Zealots and he barely had any recourse but to turn his militia against the church. While it has been barely touched on what Christoph did, I'm kind of convinced that making an example of him is an little too extreme.

Oh yeah, Lonato is a major sympathetic character, and the church certainly did him dirty framing his son. But I don't think making an example even applies since they killed him in battle when he was trying to kill them. That being said Rhea most certainly would have killed him if he was captured alive. Since Rhea does generally execute people trying to kill her (which it seems is why Christophe was killed in the first place).

[vikingsfan92]

1 hour ago, Jotari said:

No he wouldn't. Dimitri is a sovereign leader and he can choose to help or not help on his own choice. As we see in Three Hopes he's conflicted about even sheltering Rhea. Again it's entirely your conjecture and not fact that Rhea would both ask the Kingdom and Alliance to embark on an offensive war against their interests and that they would actually do it. You're building conjecture upon conjecture that it's basically fanfic.

Why wouldn't Rhea ask for her followers to help her or she would find a reason to involve them that matches their interests?  Why would any faction not trump up there message and rally people to their cause over their enemies? Its simply what happens in conflict. It would be easier to do with the kingdom than the alliance but I think you are underestimating her greatly if you don't think she wont be very persuasive in her attempts. 

 

Also the literal point of Claude and Dimtri's support in the secret route is Dimtri basically being like Iike my hands are tied with the archbishop and I can't do anything against her. So he pretty much subtlety asks Claude to get him out of the mess he is in for both routes where you don't pick Dimitri.  He can only do this because he can make up the excuse of being busy with the empire and cant defend against Claude.

Direct quote from Dimitri during Golden Wildfire/Azure gleam into the chasm convo with Claude " Yes, for three reasons, abolishing the church would deny the king right to rule Farghus without one the people would descend into chaos and war. Would you be able to take responsibility for such a thing once it came to pass".

He pretty much says right here that his country descends into chaos if the church goes as his throne wouldn't be seen as legitimate without the church and this can happen on his route of all things.  Implying that the church is seen as what makes his country legitimate in his peoples view which matters alot as a king title doesn't mean anything if the people don't think the title has worth like what they would if the church gets destroyed. So even if the church acts rash or dumb he kind of has to bail them out at some point with the state of Farghus being what it is which I might add is pretty similar to how it is in houses.

1 hour ago, Jotari said:

But that's just a whataboutism. In truth we don't know how much the church tried to handle things diplomatically because the story doesn't give us the details, but even if the church responded to extreme prejudice without diplomacy...so what? The church did something bad so Edelgard is justified in doing the exact same thing? Only it's not even the same thing because Lonato was the one who started it by organizing an army to attack the church in the first place making it self defense. Like, do you think Ukraine should be acting more diplomatically with Russia? Or should their priority be in defending themself from an agressor?

You are not getting it and your example is not accurate description of it. Its a situation where the large church organization that is powerful enough to grant legitimacy to two other nations being formed is being asked to adapt in the aftermath of bad situations and they are not doing so.  On the contrary they are pretty much giving the hardest no possible by killing the opposition.  No organization like the church is going to not need reforms but how they are treating the situations isn't exactly inclusive to having these discussions. Even unproductive dialogue with Lonato is at least a token effort that doesn't kill hope for people wanting to change things. Its not about the talks actually getting somewhere its about actually showing they can happen in the first place in future nuanced situations where the right and wrong are murky. Plus it definitely doesn't help her case that she is obscuring truths from the people for her system to work. So it leads people wanting changes to conclude that they can't really make any headway peacefully solely on the image the church is presenting. Which leads to a pretty much all options are bad situation that Fodland is in during the game which given the existence of Thales and his band of goons I think the only real option is to get it out of it as soon as possible as it wasn't truly peaceful to begin with as Duscar/Remire village tragedies show.

[Eltosian Kadath]

3 hours ago, Jotari said:

No, we never once seen Rhea invade a territory for turning away from the Church. She makes no crusades into Sreng, Dagda or Almyra to spread her religion

And if Adresta wasn't a part of the Fodlan that Rhea is so protective of, you might have a point. Just because America hasn't annexed Canada, doesn't mean it will just let the south leave the union.

 

3 hours ago, Jotari said:

Lonato didn't just say "I don't like Sothis and I'm not going to worship crests anymore",

But he does say "Rhea is an infidel who has deceived the people and desecrated the goddess! We have virtue and the goddess herself on our side!", if anything his opinion on Rhea is surprisingly similar to Edelgard's.

 

3 hours ago, Jotari said:

he militarized and initiated an open rebellion because he was out for blood.

His "rebellion" being that he raised an army before the Knight of Serios invaded his home castle of Gaspar. Literally raising up troops is the only thing the game says his  "rebellion" managed to do before the Knight of Serios arrive, and the only thing people say his rebellion did at all.

 

3 hours ago, Jotari said:

If Rhea was so intolerant of people just not believing in her religion then she wouldn't have an open atheist working in her inner circle.

Is this an attempt at the "I have a black friend" defense of Rhea? Sure she is shown to be willing to let an atheist serve her, and her goddess, but that doesn't say much. Plus, I see the way Edelgard's reforms would undermine church authority to be more at the heart of the conflict, not simply the idea that they might become atheist. Rhea knows what her "goddess" is, and it is a practical lie to maintain authority, and things that undermine that authority is what she takes issue with. Its important to remember that Rhea isn't a true believer herself.

 

3 hours ago, Jotari said:

And that Rhea could convince anyone to go on an offensive war for her is pure conjecture.

Evidenced conjecture.

Plus, as I conjectured before, Rhea could easily frame her offensive war as a "defensive" one (defending the dispossessed crested lords of Adresta, or defending the pious citizens suppressed by Edelgard's reforms, etc.). Hell the Lonato affair makes it look like simply raising troops is viewed as an act of aggression against the church, so unless Edelgard lets the church invade so unopposed that they wouldn't need help, the church can frame her mustering of defensive troops as an act of aggressive, so they can "defensively" invade the Empire.

 

3 hours ago, Jotari said:

You don't get to claim the moral high ground by surprise attacking someone and claiming they would have attacked you first. That can be used to justify literally anything.

Not everyone finds intentionally losing a war to be the moral high ground either. I know Christian sentiments have made a lot of us see suicidal martyrdom to be the highest moral ground, but not everyone agrees with that. Even with the positional advantages of a surprise attack, that was simply enough to put them on equal footing with the Church and their puppets as the multi-year stalemate shows, letting us see how dire things would be if she let her enemies take the initiative instead.

And even if your extremely naive conjecture about how Rhea would respond to Edelgard's reforms is true, intentionally leaving two-thirds of Fodland to needlessly suffer, isn't exactly the height of morality either.

 

[Jotari]

2 hours ago, vikingsfan92 said:

Why wouldn't Rhea ask for her followers to help her or she would find a reason to involve them that matches their interests?  

Because Rhea has no history of invading people who did not attack her first and even if she would that does not justify Edelgard launching a pre-emptive strike. You do not get to shoot an unarmed person with the justification that they were probably going to buy a gun and shoot you later. Violence is a last resort, not a first response.

2 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

Even with the positional advantages of a surprise attack, that was simply enough to put them on equal footing with the Church and their puppets as the multi-year stalemate shows, letting us see how dire things would be if she let her enemies take the initiative instead.

 

That just displays how stupid it was to begin the war in the first place.

2 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

And if Adresta wasn't a part of the Fodlan that Rhea is so protective of, you might have a point. Just because America hasn't annexed Canada, doesn't mean it will just let the south leave the union.

This isn't the South Leaving the union. This is more like the USA going communist and then invading Canada to make them communist too. The nations of Fodlan are sovereign independent entities connected by a cultural background.

Edited June 7, 2023 by Jotari

[lenticular]

On 6/2/2023 at 12:04 PM, Imuabicus said:

The casus belli here, so to say, or the one she presents to her soldiers, would appear to me that the leaders of the church are misusing money (following the creation of artificial separations between the people of Fodlan, to make it easier to do so). Now what´s it look like if you say, these people are thiefs, so lemme take the bag and do my thing with it? And she declared war on the institution (Church of Seiros) not the faith (of Sothis, presumably), but how does that then look if you try to enforce exile or conversion on it´s members?

Let´s not ignore that she is speaking here, primarily to her soldiers, not even the citizens of Enbarr, it´d seem.

Her soldiers are her citizens. Having a large standing army of professional soldiers wasn't really a thing in pre-modern times. If we assume that Adrestian society is similar to the medieval European society it's based on, most of those soldiers are probably farmers who have been drafted for this war.

She's also not just saying that the current batch of Church leadership is corrupt and needs to be replaced. She's saying that the leaders of the Church have always been corrupt, that the Church is an inherently corrupt institution that needs to be torn down. I'm not sure that there is a meaningful difference here between the Church and the faith. If you want to imagine that there is, and that Fódlan has a great reformer, Marcia Luthier, who wants to protest against the Church while retaining the faith, then I have no problem with Edelgard going along with that instead.

On 6/6/2023 at 3:48 AM, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

I haven't really thought it over, but an Edelgard who bans an entire religion in her country might be even less sympathetic than the one who started a continent-wide war. The war, at least, seemed to be about fighting against the perceived prevailing system that supposedly controlled everyone. This kind of ban seems much more like it's coming after freedom of conscience on an individual level.

My assumption -- and I haven't examined this one, so if you want to argue that it's unjustified then please go ahead -- is that Edelgard is doing all the stuff with dissolving the Church alongside the war. So I don't view it as an either/or thing so much as a one/both thing. I find it hard to imagine that Edelgard is just letting all the existing priests and churches carry on as before, stirring up support and sympathy for the nation's war enemies. At best, I can see some sort of Protestant Reformed Church of Sothis taking the place of the previous Church of Seiros and anyone who refused to convert being put into internment camps.

5 hours ago, vikingsfan92 said:

You are acting like Rhea wouldn't put out a call to arms for the kingdom and the alliance to join in.

She might do. But then again, she might not. There really isn't aa precedent for a territory the size of Adrestia declaring independence from the Church, so we can't really appeal to past events. We can each say what we think is most likely, but none of us really know. And if she does put out a call to arms, maybe it's accepted and maybe it isn't. We don't know. There's reasonable arguments to be made on either side. I certainly think that it is less likely that the Alliance would join the war on the Church's side if Claude viewed Rhea as the aggressor, but how much less likely? Enough to make a difference? I don't know. You don't know either. And importantly, neither does Edelgard. 

[Eltosian Kadath]

22 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Because Rhea has no history of invading people who did not attack her first

...It is very conspicuous how we never hear about Lord Lonato attacking the church before the Knights of Serios are marching on his home castle, just about him mustering his troops. The closest we get is Seteth saying he has been "showing hostility towards the church for some time now".

 

25 minutes ago, Jotari said:

You do not get to shoot an unarmed person with the justification that they were probably going to buy a gun and shoot you later. Violence is a last resort, not a first response.

This analogy doesn't fit well, as the Church of Serios isn't like an unarmed person who would need to buy a gun to shoot you. The Church has its gun in the Knights of Serios, and you have watched them use it shoot someone dead for buying a gun, and holding similar beliefs you do. You are just buying a bigger gun in secret, and taking them by surprise with it, before they can get their friend with a machine gun to join them in taking you down for similar reasons.

 

12 minutes ago, Jotari said:

That just displays how stupid it was to begin the war in the first place.

Only if she acted as lawful stupid as you expected her to. She made the moves she needed to be in the running for a victory, and as the route split shows it could easily swing to her victory.

 

15 minutes ago, lenticular said:

Her soldiers are her citizens. Having a large standing army of professional soldiers wasn't really a thing in pre-modern times. If we assume that Adrestian society is similar to the medieval European society it's based on, most of those soldiers are probably farmers who have been drafted for this war.

I keep dropping it from my comments, but I want to point out that the Knights of Serios do seem like a standing army.

Also, on a needlessly pedantic side note, the Romans did the standing army thing as well, but you are right about it not really being a thing in medieval Europe.

 

25 minutes ago, lenticular said:

There really isn't aa precedent for a territory the size of Adrestia declaring independence from the Church, so we can't really appeal to past events. We can each say what we think is most likely, but none of us really know. And if she does put out a call to arms, maybe it's accepted and maybe it isn't. We don't know. There's reasonable arguments to be made on either side.

There kind of is in the war against the King of Liberation, and the northern kingdom he united, but what we know about that is rather vague, and with plenty of complications as well.

Given what Edelgard says she knows about the war from secret knowledge of the Adresta Emperors, it makes me think she would see it as a precedent, but from other routes we know there is a lot more personal things going on that muddle things a lot.

[lenticular]

10 minutes ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

I keep dropping it from my comments, but I want to point out that the Knights of Serios do seem like a standing army.

I see them more as a small elite force than a large standing army. I'm not saying that no professional soldiers would exist, just that they would be a small minority of an overall fighting force. Consider that, even pre-war, the Knights of Seiros were sufficiently spread thin that they needed to use Academy students to help defend Derdriu in the Shamir/Alois paralogue. (Which also implies that the Alliance doesn't have much/anything in the way of a standing army.)

[Jotari]

1 hour ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

...It is very conspicuous how we never hear about Lord Lonato attacking the church before the Knights of Serios are marching on his home castle, just about him mustering his troops. The closest we get is Seteth saying he has been "showing hostility towards the church for some time now".

 

This analogy doesn't fit well, as the Church of Serios isn't like an unarmed person who would need to buy a gun to shoot you. The Church has its gun in the Knights of Serios, and you have watched them use it shoot someone dead for buying a gun, and holding similar beliefs you do. You are just buying a bigger gun in secret, and taking them by surprise with it, before they can get their friend with a machine gun to join them in taking you down for similar reasons.

 

Only if she acted as lawful stupid as you expected her to. She made the moves she needed to be in the running for a victory, and as the route split shows it could easily swing to her victory.

I keep dropping it from my comments, but I want to point out that the Knights of Serios do seem like a standing army.

Also, on a needlessly pedantic side note, the Romans did the standing army thing as well, but you are right about it not really being a thing in medieval Europe.

There kind of is in the war against the King of Liberation, and the northern kingdom he united, but what we know about that is rather vague, and with plenty of complications as well.

Given what Edelgard says she knows about the war from secret knowledge of the Adresta Emperors, it makes me think she would see it as a precedent, but from other routes we know there is a lot more personal things going on that muddle things a lot.

For the relative might of the military involved, yes, the Central Church is the equivalent of an unarmed man. Remember, Edelgard conquered it in a weekend and then spend five years in a stalemate with the actual nations even though she was a lot more militerized, was fighting 2 on 1 and managed to sabotage half their countries with subterfuge. Not that it matters, since you still don't have the right to just suddenly execute even an armed person on your own suspicions they might attack you.

Edited June 7, 2023 by Jotari

[Imuabicus der Fertige]

1 hour ago, lenticular said:

Her soldiers are her citizens. Having a large standing army of professional soldiers wasn't really a thing in pre-modern times. If we assume that Adrestian society is similar to the medieval European society it's based on, most of those soldiers are probably farmers who have been drafted for this war.

According to wikipedia, the Byzantine Empire, which I understand to be the inspiration for Adrestia, had standing armies as soon as ~740, namely the tagmata. And the first standing armies I could find referenced on german speaking lands were allegedly from 1384.

And if it isn´t a standing army it would be even weirder... Edelgard secretly travels to Enbarr which is all the way to the south and crowns herself Emperor and holds a speech in front of drafted soldiers being called to war from all over Adrestia? That should be plenty noticable and worrying for anyone.

On 6/1/2023 at 10:16 AM, lenticular said:

So, overall, what I see is a character who, when faced with two possible approaches to achieve her goals, one of which involves starting a continent-spanning war and one of which doesn't, chooses the former.

I´m wondering what Edelgard knew about and what she saw in Rhea. I haven´t been able to finding anything beyond:

Spoiler

 

and frankly there´s too much to sift through.

56 minutes ago, lenticular said:

even pre-war, the Knights of Seiros were sufficiently spread thin that they needed to use Academy students to help defend Derdriu in the Shamir/Alois paralogue.

I will say, the script reads like Alois shenanigans.

Coincidentially from the same script: 

Alois: The Eastern Church controls eastern Fódlan. They don't have a standing army like we do. So, for incidents like this, they customarily ask for help from the Central Church.

[Eltosian Kadath]

34 minutes ago, Jotari said:

For the relative might of the military involved, yes, the Central Church is the equivalent of an unarmed man. Remember, Edelgard conquered it in a weekend and then spend five years in a stalemate with the actual nations even though she was a lot more militerized, was fighting 2 on 1 and managed to sabotage half their countries with subterfuge.

...Edelgard doesn't finish off the Serios Church forces until the literal last chapter of CF. Half of the CF chapters in the war phase involve you fighting Church forces. Sure they were weakened by the initial surprise attack, but they weren't so insignificant as to be wiped out in a week.

 

31 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Not that it matters, since you still don't have the right to just suddenly execute even an armed person on your own suspicions they might attack you.

I do find your insistence that you only have the right to defend yourself after somebody has already shot you, kind of strange, especially when you already witnessed said person murder someone for doing exactly what you intend to do yourself.

 

[lenticular]

59 minutes ago, Imuabicus said:

According to wikipedia, the Byzantine Empire, which I understand to be the inspiration for Adrestia, had standing armies as soon as ~740, namely the tagmata. And the first standing armies I could find referenced on german speaking lands were allegedly from 1384.

I've never heard of Byzantium being the inspiration for Adrestia before, nor have I ever thought about it that way myself. I'd be interested to see what it is that draws you in that direction.

But again, my core point isn't that no standing armies should exist; it's that no large standing armies should exist. Small forces like the Knights of Seiros, yes. Big armies that can conduct continent-spanning wars, no.

Edit: In thinking about this more, I'm actually going to say that this scene is illustrative of the problems with poorly thought through scenes. I would guess that, in making the game, the writers and developers didn't give too much thought to where the troops that Edelgard was addressing came from. They likely just thought that it was a powerful scene that looked cool. But, ultimately, when you really examine it, it doesn't make that much sense. There are good reasons to suppose that it isn't a standing army (my point), but also good reasons to suppose that it isn't a conscript army (your point) so... what gives? Different people are going to see that scene and interpret it differently, based on what they personally find least jarring. And then that interpretation is going to have consequences on how they interpret the rest of the story. And while it isn't a bad thing for a story to be open to multiple interpretations, it probably isn't desirable if that is born from people struggling to make sense of a scene that doesn't really make sense on its own.

Edited June 7, 2023 by lenticular

[Imuabicus der Fertige]

20 minutes ago, lenticular said:

I've never heard of Byzantium being the inspiration for Adrestia before, nor have I ever thought about it that way myself. I'd be interested to see what it is that draws you in that direction.

I could swear it was from the articles released on the main SF site pre-release...

29 minutes ago, lenticular said:

Small forces like the Knights of Seiros, yes. Big armies that can conduct continent-spanning wars, no.

Yet that´s exactly what the KoS do - the only question is at what amount of manpower point do you consider it a war and for what. Their whole point is that they are always understaffed and spread too thin so the students have to help out.

38 minutes ago, lenticular said:

it's that no large standing armies should exist.

From what I understand Edelgard pushed with part of her armies with the invasion of the holy tomb - hence the forward position where you camp before... is it CF chapter 12? before the main army arrives from Enbarr.

[Armchair General]

3 hours ago, lenticular said:

Which also implies that the Alliance doesn't have much/anything in the way of a standing army

They kind of do, in the sense that most of the nobles have their own private militia... But with  it being the Alliance and all, it's kind of implied that the only ones that are worth are the ones who were stationed at Fodlan's Locket.

 

3 hours ago, Jotari said:

For the relative might of the military involved, yes, the Central Church is the equivalent of an unarmed man

Change the unarmed part to an small group of people armed with commercial-grade hunting rifles and an handful of aging machine guns and you'd have an point. The Knights of Serios are more or less an fighting force that shouldn't be more than 8,000 soldiers who barely see any action; as compared to the Empire, which more or less had an preexisting standing army and an battalion or two under the Emperor's command.

 

2 hours ago, lenticular said:

But again, my core point isn't that no standing armies should exist; it's that no large standing armies should exist. Small forces like the Knights of Seiros, yes. Big armies that can conduct continent-spanning wars, no

Well, there's the two wars that founded the Kingdom and the Alliance; plus, the two incidents with Brigid and Dagda. There's also the Almyrans trying to invade Fodlan every now and then, but it kind of feels like that everyone but the Alliance is sending the bare minimum after that fortress was built. The kingdom has an problem or two with bandits, for some reason. The knights of House Rowe went rogue for reasons that were largely  unexplained in the base game.

Idk, it feels like there's plenty of reasons for an private army to exist under the nobles; but it only took an dozen of teenagers led by an living god to bring the Empire to it's knees and the continent has only experienced at least 5 large scale wars, 3 of which only concerned  the Empire

 

[vikingsfan92]

6 hours ago, lenticular said:

Her soldiers are her citizens. Having a large standing army of professional soldiers wasn't really a thing in pre-modern times. If we assume that Adrestian society is similar to the medieval European society it's based on, most of those soldiers are probably farmers who have been drafted for this war.

She's also not just saying that the current batch of Church leadership is corrupt and needs to be replaced. She's saying that the leaders of the Church have always been corrupt, that the Church is an inherently corrupt institution that needs to be torn down. I'm not sure that there is a meaningful difference here between the Church and the faith. If you want to imagine that there is, and that Fódlan has a great reformer, Marcia Luthier, who wants to protest against the Church while retaining the faith, then I have no problem with Edelgard going along with that instead.

My assumption -- and I haven't examined this one, so if you want to argue that it's unjustified then please go ahead -- is that Edelgard is doing all the stuff with dissolving the Church alongside the war. So I don't view it as an either/or thing so much as a one/both thing. I find it hard to imagine that Edelgard is just letting all the existing priests and churches carry on as before, stirring up support and sympathy for the nation's war enemies. At best, I can see some sort of Protestant Reformed Church of Sothis taking the place of the previous Church of Seiros and anyone who refused to convert being put into internment camps.

She might do. But then again, she might not. There really isn't aa precedent for a territory the size of Adrestia declaring independence from the Church, so we can't really appeal to past events. We can each say what we think is most likely, but none of us really know. And if she does put out a call to arms, maybe it's accepted and maybe it isn't. We don't know. There's reasonable arguments to be made on either side. I certainly think that it is less likely that the Alliance would join the war on the Church's side if Claude viewed Rhea as the aggressor, but how much less likely? Enough to make a difference? I don't know. You don't know either. And importantly, neither does Edelgard. 

I don't know a single war in history where both sides don't put out their own spin portraying their cause as the "good" or right one.  In Three Hopes Rhea pretty much goes right to the put a call out to the faithful strategy to fight the enemy and the only reason she doesn't is Dimiri convinces her of a diffrent plan which is more stealthy so it something that is shown to be in her wheelhouse as a starting strategy. Especially if she is more in control at the start. Also as I noted above the kingdom doesn't exactly have as a much freedom as people say when it's own king says the kingdom doesn't legitimately exist without the central church.

 

8 hours ago, Jotari said:

Because Rhea has no history of invading people who did not attack her first and even if she would that does not justify Edelgard launching a pre-emptive strike. You do not get to shoot an unarmed person with the justification that they were probably going to buy a gun and shoot you later. Violence is a last resort, not a first response.

It's pointless to continue if you are going to ignore the state of the world as it was and act like the church is far weaker than it actually is.  Moral highground arguments are weak when you ignore the fact that the world isn't exactly rosey in the starting spot the story puts us in like the fact Thales and Rhea hate each other's guts and conflict between the two is guaranteed even if the empire didn't exist at all.

Also standing army points are mute when you can have as many volunteers as you want as shown by pretty much any other fire emblem game. It's much easier for a multinational religious organization to get volunteers than it is for any nation to. 

Edited June 7, 2023 by vikingsfan92

[Etrurian emperor]

15 hours ago, Armchair General said:

In all fairness, Catherine was his son's executioner for an crime that might have involved with him siding with either Team Slither or just the Western Zealots and he barely had any recourse but to turn his militia against the church. While it has been barely touched on what Christoph did, I'm kind of convinced that making an example of him is an little too extreme.

True. The Church didn't just kill Cristoph but also slandered him as being complicit in regicide. From that lens it makes a lot of sense that Lonato snaps and turns extremely hostile to the church.

 

19 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

The idea that Rhea wouldn't invade is ridiculous, as we see her do it to others in game, and just like that time, she would do it with the Kingdom's aid, and given a bit of time probably help from members of the Alliance, and rebellious (or puppet) vassals of Edelgard as well. You keep talking about Rhea's soft power, and then pretend she is incapable of leveraging that soft power when she needs to.

Rhea could try but there's a very real risk of those countries not responding. With half of the great Noble houses of the Alliance roundtable being pro Imperials they could easily deadlock the Alliance into neutrality, and the entire western half of the Kingdom are traitors just itching to depose the rest of their country, and seems to have been so since at least the times of Dimitri's father. 

There's also the implication that the loyalty of a lot of nobles towards the church is only surface level and that they'd turn on the church if it meant more power for themselves. A recurring point in both Houses and Hopes is that for all the Church's soft power a lot of help from the nobility simple doesn't emerge. Either they desperately want to be neutral or they actively side with the Empire. 

[Jotari]

8 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

...Edelgard doesn't finish off the Serios Church forces until the literal last chapter of CF. Half of the CF chapters in the war phase involve you fighting Church forces. Sure they were weakened by the initial surprise attack, but they weren't so insignificant as to be wiped out in a week.

And how long do you think they would have lasted if the Kingdom didn't protect them? They were routed at Garrak Mach. They had one strong hold and they lost it.

8 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

I do find your insistence that you only have the right to defend yourself after somebody has already shot you, kind of strange, especially when you already witnessed said person murder someone for doing exactly what you intend to do yourself.

 

You only have the right to defend yourself when someone tries to attack you. Rhea had no intention of ever attacking Edelgard. In Three Hopes she literally doesn't even know why Edelgard is attacking her. You don't have the right to defend yourself from someone who isn't a threat.

4 hours ago, vikingsfan92 said:

It's pointless to continue if you are going to ignore the state of the world as it was and act like the church is far weaker than it actually is.  Moral highground arguments are weak when you ignore the fact that the world isn't exactly rosey in the starting spot the story puts us in like the fact Thales and Rhea hate each other's guts and conflict between the two is guaranteed even if the empire didn't exist at all.

Also standing army points are mute when you can have as many volunteers as you want as shown by pretty much any other fire emblem game. It's much easier for a multinational religious organization to get volunteers than it is for any nation to. 

You're just denying the existence of morality now. Well sure, anyone can do anything if you use the excuse that the world is flawed to justify anything. My point is that Edelgard's war was unjustified, not that the world was perfect (though Fodlan from what we see is a far better place to live than Earth was even four hundred years ago). She had other options she could have done to accomplish her goals peacefully, but she chose not to. She chose to to start a war that killed countless people because she literally wanted to force her idealogy on people who didn't want it.

[Samz707]

27 minutes ago, Jotari said:

 

You're just denying the existence of morality now. Well sure, anyone can do anything if you use the excuse that the world is flawed to justify anything. My point is that Edelgard's war was unjustified, not that the world was perfect (though Fodlan from what we see is a far better place to live than Earth was even four hundred years ago). She had other options she could have done to accomplish her goals peacefully, but she chose not to. She chose to to start a war that killed countless people because she literally wanted to force her idealogy on people who didn't want it.

You mean....that thing the Church was doing?

Also good luck getting evil people to change their idealogy.

"Hey I hate how you have all this class-ism stuff and try to keep the commoner down, pls stop it".

Evidently enough people agree with her considering she has an army. (Does the Empire even have conscription?)

Edited June 7, 2023 by Samz707

[Jotari]

7 minutes ago, Samz707 said:

You mean....that thing the Church was doing?

The church wasn't invading anyone.

7 minutes ago, Samz707 said:

Also good luck getting evil people to change their idealogy.

Good luck trying to get dead people to change their idealogy.

7 minutes ago, Samz707 said:

"Hey I hate how you have all this class-ism stuff and try to keep the commoner down, pls stop it".

Evidently enough people agree with her considering she has an army. (Does the Empire even have conscription?)

Enough people agreeing with her that they should murder people who are different to them doesn't make them right.

[Armchair General]

13 minutes ago, Jotari said:

The church wasn't invading anyone

But they are pretty big on "mediating" conflicts.

 

22 minutes ago, Samz707 said:

(Does the Empire even have conscription?)

I won't be surprised if it was actually an thing. I mean, largest of the three nations, managed to have an famous general or two, has at least one fortress, managed to consistently fight wars to an stalemate

[Jotari]

7 minutes ago, Armchair General said:

But they are pretty big on "mediating" conflicts.

 

I won't be surprised if it was actually an thing. I mean, largest of the three nations, managed to have an famous general or two, has at least one fortress, managed to consistently fight wars to an stalemate

Should we not have third parties to mediate conflicts? Is it better to just keep killing each other until everyone is dead?

[Samz707]

43 minutes ago, Jotari said:

 

Good luck trying to get dead people to change their idealogy.

 

Exactly, dead horrible people can't impose their ideaology on others and horrible people with drastic enough idealogy are willing to kill to make sure it stays.

I don't see what's so surprising of "Horrible people impose a horrible system, people who want to change it have to take up arms", the thing other FE lords have pretty much done by taking out enemy rulers.

Edited June 7, 2023 by Samz707

[Fire Emblem Fan]

Edelgard is as horrible as Rhea.

[Samz707]

Just now, Fire Emblem Fan said:

Edelgard is as horrible as Rhea.

Nah Edelgard is less creepy towards Byleth.

Also 

Spoiler

didn't intend on whatever body hijacking Rhea intended towards Edelgard and never tried to intentionally kill civilians.

 

Edited June 7, 2023 by Samz707

[Armchair General]

37 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Should we not have third parties to mediate conflicts? Is it better to just keep killing each other until everyone is dead?

In an way, it's kind of justifiable to use an mediator; but things kind of get an little bit sketchy if people are constantly running towards the same one, all the time.

Plus, independently calling for an armistice shouldn't be off the table once it's clear that you're losing the war.

[Jotari]

1 hour ago, Samz707 said:

Exactly, dead horrible people can't impose their ideaology on others and horrible people with drastic enough idealogy are willing to kill to make sure it stays.

I don't see what's so surprising of "Horrible people impose a horrible system, people who want to change it have to take up arms", the thing other FE lords have pretty much done by taking out enemy rulers.

But the piles of corpses aren't the "dead horrible people". They are the innocents of war. The farmers and the mill workers. Those are the people Edelgard is killing with the justification of "liberation". She isn't embarking on a terrorist campaign and assassinating Rhea and Seteth. She's killing everyone who stands in her way indiscriminately and is creating a chaos where bad people can thrive and prey on the defenseless. Has your life ever been under direct threat of war? Have you ever went to sleep not knowing if you'll wake up in the morning because someone you don't know will inadvertently kill you for reasons that don't relate to you at all? Edelgard knowing kills innocent people with forethought.

45 minutes ago, Armchair General said:

In an way, it's kind of justifiable to use an mediator; but things kind of get an little bit sketchy if people are constantly running towards the same one, all the time.

Plus, independently calling for an armistice shouldn't be off the table once it's clear that you're losing the war.

This isn't a Tellius style blood pact. No one is magically compelled to do anything. The empire allowed the church to mediate it's conflict because they choose it as the best course to achieve peace.

Edited June 8, 2023 by Jotari