It is the oldest and most enshrined trope in Fire Emblem in particular, but it must seem pretty out-of-left-field if you haven't played one in a long time/ever
"So... you are just another failure."
How about that "Dangerously imbalanced anime eyes with head tilted back" look Rhea gives you, eh
That shit sold her as a threat so instantly it's almost comedic
So what I am reading is it's time to start my Crimson Sky part 2 run! I have to end on my favorite story, and I really love how it plays out.
Spoilers for all the runs
I honestly just do not understand how Rhea is not the villain of every story. Even before Edelgard started throwing a ton of shade I was side eyeing her hard. Jeralt clearly didn't trust her which is a bit of a tell, but the bit with Sylvain's brother was a huge red flag for me. This asshole house fucked over their son leading to him recklessly using a weapon and turning into a murder beast, and you want to give them the weapon back? Are you fucking high? The evil eyes and support loss told me a lot in that moment.
Everything else about the crest system just created more and more gross scenarios for me. Sylvain is the typical flirty playboy type that does gross things. However, a lot of his supports spell out a system where he is just perpetuating a cycle. He doesn't use women because he is trying to be gross. He is attempting to mirror the level of connection he believes they have for him. Ingrid falls under the same system. This is before we get into the bullshit nobility system dumping on just everyone like my first love, and amazing street rat Dorothea.
So then you look at the other houses. Golden Deer catches the massive conspiracy of what's going on, but loses focus on who is perpetuating the cycle. Claude is barely accepted as anything because racism. He realizes he needs to open the borders to normalize relations, but doesn't connect to the shitty nobility system that enforces that border. Shitty people with too much power decided those others weren't good enough and that was the end.
Rhea seems, at best, ambivalent to this. At worst, she seems pretty fucking happy to have her uneducated Almyrian slave boy to worship her and bust ass all day. I get the impression this ain't the first they took in an orphan who they then neglected to educate but made sure to have do tons of work. This is before we start getting into all the weird shit Claude discovers the church is up to, and learning that Rhea tried to fucking murder Byleth through a bizarre ritual sacrifice. I also find it super convenient that once Byleth's mom was alone with Rhea she suddenly needed to sacrifice her life to save Byleth.
Then Azure Moon comes along and the nobility system is front to back the cause of fucking everything going wrong there. Those Who Slither In the Dark fucked around in Duscur because of the shitty nobility system, and their fucked up experiments with crests. Without Crests their entire plot line does not play out at all. It is the major driving factor in everything that fucked up their entire Kingdom, and Rhea is super cool with it. The church fucking perpetuates it!
Sylvain, Ingrid, Mercedes, and Ashe are all directly fucked over by the Crest system as well. I think only Edelgard and Lyisthea suffer more for it. The kingdom is filled with rot that is ruining families left and right. I get it that Dimitri is kind of a shitty ruler. So maybe he just refuses to see how is closest allies have had their lives shattered by this, but someone should be telling this shit is fucked! We don't need to rescue Rhea. We need to torch her. Byleth does take over in the end, but with no accounting for the attempted murder that happened. They also don't challenge the bullshit that is the Crest system that caused so much pain.
Edelgard is right! Rhea being a dangerous, murderous, unbalanced psychopath reinforces her method is the only way to enact the change. The Church will always shit it's pants at the thought of maybe not having all the power ever because there is a narcissist in charge. All it's missing is letting you exact your revenge on TWSITD and then it would be perfect. Well, also an option to not kill Dimitri, but Ahab will never stop hunting the whale. At some point you just gotta accept not everyone gets to make it out alive.
I think one thing I've accepted about myself is that I'm unlikely to do anything but Crimson Flower runs
My completionism has driven me to run through every route once. This means that I have played, in order, Crimson Flower, Verdant Wind, Crimson Flower, Silver Snow, Crimson Flower, and Azure Moon.
I think I'm gonna do another, possibly final playthrough once the last DLC drops. And I already know which route it's gonna be. As would anyone with basic pattern recognition.
I think in games, I tend to make the choices I want to make the first time through, and then making other choices feels like I'm doing it out of obligation more than out of a genuine desire to see what happens if I go the other way. It can be a little easier if I go in with a character concept in mind, I guess, like, if I go play through SWTOR as a different class, it's easier to go, "oh, the trooper would be far more mercenary about this choice than the jedi knight would," but like, in Dragon Age 2, I played through that thing like four times and I can't tell you that I made measurably different choices.
This is before we start getting into all the weird shit Claude discovers the church is up to, and learning that Rhea tried to fucking murder Byleth through a bizarre ritual sacrifice. I also find it super convenient that once Byleth's mom was alone with Rhea she suddenly needed to sacrifice her life to save Byleth.
YES. YES YES EXACTLY!!! I've said it before and I'll say it again, Rhea 100% murdered Byleth's mother and stuck the crest stone in little baby Byleth (who most likely had a heart that worked just fine considering the end of Crimson Flower)
This is before we start getting into all the weird shit Claude discovers the church is up to, and learning that Rhea tried to fucking murder Byleth through a bizarre ritual sacrifice. I also find it super convenient that once Byleth's mom was alone with Rhea she suddenly needed to sacrifice her life to save Byleth.
YES. YES YES EXACTLY!!! I've said it before and I'll say it again, Rhea 100% murdered Byleth's mother and stuck the crest stone in little baby Byleth (who most likely had a heart that worked just fine considering the end of Crimson Flower)
Well the end of crimson flower
is just straight anime magic. Rhea is not the origin of the crests or anything like that. She's just one dragon that can give them, and the crest Byleth has isn't Rhea's, it's Sothis's, so it makes 0 sense that the crest stone breaks other than "happy ending"
League of Legends: Sorakanmyworld
FFXIV: Tchel Fay
Nintendo ID: Tortalius
Steam: Tortalius
Stream: twitch.tv/tortalius
This is before we start getting into all the weird shit Claude discovers the church is up to, and learning that Rhea tried to fucking murder Byleth through a bizarre ritual sacrifice. I also find it super convenient that once Byleth's mom was alone with Rhea she suddenly needed to sacrifice her life to save Byleth.
YES. YES YES EXACTLY!!! I've said it before and I'll say it again, Rhea 100% murdered Byleth's mother and stuck the crest stone in little baby Byleth (who most likely had a heart that worked just fine considering the end of Crimson Flower)
Well the end of crimson flower
is just straight anime magic. Rhea is not the origin of the crests or anything like that. She's just one dragon that can give them, and the crest Byleth has isn't Rhea's, it's Sothis's, so it makes 0 sense that the crest stone breaks other than "happy ending"
I think you misunderstand what I am saying.
I am saying that Rhea took Sothis' crest stone (heart) and then used sinister magicks to create golems which she then stuck Sothis' crest stone in. None of 'em took, including Byleth's mother, who happened to get pregnant the usual way.
I think Byleth was born, and was relatively normal (with a typical ole human heart).
Rhea, sensing an opportunity, murdered Byleth's mom, ripped out Sothis' crest stone, and stuck it in Baby Byleth in the hopes that this time Sothis would awaken!
This is before we start getting into all the weird shit Claude discovers the church is up to, and learning that Rhea tried to fucking murder Byleth through a bizarre ritual sacrifice. I also find it super convenient that once Byleth's mom was alone with Rhea she suddenly needed to sacrifice her life to save Byleth.
YES. YES YES EXACTLY!!! I've said it before and I'll say it again, Rhea 100% murdered Byleth's mother and stuck the crest stone in little baby Byleth (who most likely had a heart that worked just fine considering the end of Crimson Flower)
Well the end of crimson flower
is just straight anime magic. Rhea is not the origin of the crests or anything like that. She's just one dragon that can give them, and the crest Byleth has isn't Rhea's, it's Sothis's, so it makes 0 sense that the crest stone breaks other than "happy ending"
It should be noted Sothis is still around on that ending. You can get her S rank there.
Seems like Sothis is a lazy fucking God at best, so explains a bit of Rhea I think. There's a big theme of the sins of the parents visiting the children in this game.
Seems like Sothis is a lazy fucking God at best, so explains a bit of Rhea I think. There's a big theme of the sins of the parents visiting the children in this game.
Verdant Wind ending spoilers:
Sothis was killed in the Red Canyon incident - it's why Rhea's on the warpath in the opening cinematic. The sword of the creator and the crest stone of flames were literally made from her dead body. That's why the sword (and presumably the crest stone was too before Rhea went mad science) entombed in the grave for Seiros.
I like to think Sothis is just another race of creature and not a god
Rhea is far from the only villain. While she was experimenting with crest stones, so were TWSITD. Fodlan is caught in the middle of this fucked up thing going back ages, and Claude is the one who does the most good, wiping out TWISTD and putting Byleth in charge instead of Rhea, and then working on World Peace and Harmony.
Edel’s story needs more chapters of her turning her axe on her uncle. I didn’t like that it ended with killing Dimitri and Rhea and then a /shrug and mention that she ends TWSITD too- I want to play that part, and not just a paralogue!
In regards to the current house students you get to use with the Ashen Wolves:
Oh hey, all three house leaders at once. That'll be cool. I hope we get supports between them.
And then Linhardt and Hilda, my two surprise favourite characters in the game! Awesome.
And Ashe... Who is... a good boy...
Originally I had assumed that the DLC characters would just be injected into the game-as-is, so I had been waiting on doing Silver Snow. But with it being it's own thing completely I guess I'll use that route split save I had after all.
Edit: on that last bit, I'm now reading that...
... you can recruit them in the main game, but once you've finished their side story. So I guess I'll be doing a Silver Snow run from the start afterall, once I've finished the Ashen Wolves.
I'm on my second run now but I'm thinking ahead to my third
I kinda want to put Byleth in something other than the Enlightened One class
Maybe Hero? I haven't had anyone take that spot yet in either playthrough. And I kinda like the idea of a Byleth who just says "nah" to the magic that comes with EO and just hits shit with metal like he always did
I like to think Sothis is just another race of creature and not a god
Rhea is far from the only villain. While she was experimenting with crest stones, so were TWSITD. Fodlan is caught in the middle of this fucked up thing going back ages, and Claude is the one who does the most good, wiping out TWISTD and putting Byleth in charge instead of Rhea, and then working on World Peace and Harmony.
Edel’s story needs more chapters of her turning her axe on her uncle. I didn’t like that it ended with killing Dimitri and Rhea and then a /shrug and mention that she ends TWSITD too- I want to play that part, and not just a paralogue!
I tend to think the same.
Sothis's people were also basically colonizers, depending on how you read the history, and the Agarthans pushing back against them over time might make sense.
Crimson Flower really got short-changed in general. It's most of a year later and it's still silly that they thought they shouldn't give an equally sized campaign to what would end up being the most popular path headed by the most popular character.
...also Claude actually dreams of grown-up, for-real empire. Which adds a lot of depth to his character, but it makes it interesting that so many people think of him as some kind of peacemaker
I'm on my second run now but I'm thinking ahead to my third
I kinda want to put Byleth in something other than the Enlightened One class
Maybe Hero? I haven't had anyone take that spot yet in either playthrough. And I kinda like the idea of a Byleth who just says "nah" to the magic that comes with EO and just hits shit with metal like he always did
I put Byleth through Hero on my first run, and it was fine, but I ended up with Holy Knight. I couldn't stand the look of EO so I dropped it ASAP on both my runs. Second run I went Wyvern Lord for him, because flyers are so useful in this game.
I'm on my second run now but I'm thinking ahead to my third
I kinda want to put Byleth in something other than the Enlightened One class
Maybe Hero? I haven't had anyone take that spot yet in either playthrough. And I kinda like the idea of a Byleth who just says "nah" to the magic that comes with EO and just hits shit with metal like he always did
I have never had a bad experience with War Master. The class is ridiculously powerful. Fists are the strongest weapon, crit is stupidly good in this game, and giving extra double attacks while preventing doubles is stupid strong. Watching Dedue and Felix keep pace with goddess of head severance Petra right after they got that one skill was eye opening. This says nothing of when Raph got bumped to a top tier character on the back of the same skill.
Seems like Sothis is a lazy fucking God at best, so explains a bit of Rhea I think. There's a big theme of the sins of the parents visiting the children in this game.
Verdant Wind ending spoilers:
Sothis was killed in the Red Canyon incident - it's why Rhea's on the warpath in the opening cinematic. The sword of the creator and the crest stone of flames were literally made from her dead body. That's why the sword (and presumably the crest stone was too before Rhea went mad science) entombed in the grave for Seiros.
A lot of Three Houses characters in the top ten, but more older characters rounding out things than I was expecting. (Plus a couple original Heroes characters... I had stopped paying attention to that, and there are butterfly people now?!?)
heroes' commitment to taking a baffling new aesthetic each year is probably one of the best things about that game
like the first fire and ice one was pretty bad, but transitioning from that into screamo jelly skeleton hell and from that into Lisa Frank's Inception are both pretty funny
Weird, why did they use some characters in theit pre-timeskip designs and others in their post-timeskip?
If they're the more popular designs, who favors hatless Dorothea to hat-having Dorothea
there's an option to pick either version (this also applies to other characters who appear in multiple games)
votes are counted together, but the more popular version of the character is going to be used as the foundation for the new design (and is probably what they're showing on the list)
Posts
How about that "Dangerously imbalanced anime eyes with head tilted back" look Rhea gives you, eh
That shit sold her as a threat so instantly it's almost comedic
It's a separate story, selected from the menu
https://serenesforest.net/2020/01/17/three-houses-nintendo-japan-sheds-tiny-bit-light-cindered-shadows-side-story/
Switch: SW-7603-3284-4227
My ACNH Wishlists | My ACNH Catalog
And now I have about two hours of support conversations to go through.
So what I am reading is it's time to start my Crimson Sky part 2 run! I have to end on my favorite story, and I really love how it plays out.
Spoilers for all the runs
Everything else about the crest system just created more and more gross scenarios for me. Sylvain is the typical flirty playboy type that does gross things. However, a lot of his supports spell out a system where he is just perpetuating a cycle. He doesn't use women because he is trying to be gross. He is attempting to mirror the level of connection he believes they have for him. Ingrid falls under the same system. This is before we get into the bullshit nobility system dumping on just everyone like my first love, and amazing street rat Dorothea.
So then you look at the other houses. Golden Deer catches the massive conspiracy of what's going on, but loses focus on who is perpetuating the cycle. Claude is barely accepted as anything because racism. He realizes he needs to open the borders to normalize relations, but doesn't connect to the shitty nobility system that enforces that border. Shitty people with too much power decided those others weren't good enough and that was the end.
Rhea seems, at best, ambivalent to this. At worst, she seems pretty fucking happy to have her uneducated Almyrian slave boy to worship her and bust ass all day. I get the impression this ain't the first they took in an orphan who they then neglected to educate but made sure to have do tons of work. This is before we start getting into all the weird shit Claude discovers the church is up to, and learning that Rhea tried to fucking murder Byleth through a bizarre ritual sacrifice. I also find it super convenient that once Byleth's mom was alone with Rhea she suddenly needed to sacrifice her life to save Byleth.
Then Azure Moon comes along and the nobility system is front to back the cause of fucking everything going wrong there. Those Who Slither In the Dark fucked around in Duscur because of the shitty nobility system, and their fucked up experiments with crests. Without Crests their entire plot line does not play out at all. It is the major driving factor in everything that fucked up their entire Kingdom, and Rhea is super cool with it. The church fucking perpetuates it!
Sylvain, Ingrid, Mercedes, and Ashe are all directly fucked over by the Crest system as well. I think only Edelgard and Lyisthea suffer more for it. The kingdom is filled with rot that is ruining families left and right. I get it that Dimitri is kind of a shitty ruler. So maybe he just refuses to see how is closest allies have had their lives shattered by this, but someone should be telling this shit is fucked! We don't need to rescue Rhea. We need to torch her. Byleth does take over in the end, but with no accounting for the attempted murder that happened. They also don't challenge the bullshit that is the Crest system that caused so much pain.
Edelgard is right! Rhea being a dangerous, murderous, unbalanced psychopath reinforces her method is the only way to enact the change. The Church will always shit it's pants at the thought of maybe not having all the power ever because there is a narcissist in charge. All it's missing is letting you exact your revenge on TWSITD and then it would be perfect. Well, also an option to not kill Dimitri, but Ahab will never stop hunting the whale. At some point you just gotta accept not everyone gets to make it out alive.
...I say "try" but I'm going to have enough Renown saved up to just buy everyone's B supports, this'll be a piece of cake
My completionism has driven me to run through every route once. This means that I have played, in order, Crimson Flower, Verdant Wind, Crimson Flower, Silver Snow, Crimson Flower, and Azure Moon.
I think I'm gonna do another, possibly final playthrough once the last DLC drops. And I already know which route it's gonna be. As would anyone with basic pattern recognition.
Well the end of crimson flower
FFXIV: Tchel Fay
Nintendo ID: Tortalius
Steam: Tortalius
Stream: twitch.tv/tortalius
I think you misunderstand what I am saying.
I think Byleth was born, and was relatively normal (with a typical ole human heart).
Rhea, sensing an opportunity, murdered Byleth's mom, ripped out Sothis' crest stone, and stuck it in Baby Byleth in the hopes that this time Sothis would awaken!
3DS: 0473-8507-2652
Switch: SW-5185-4991-5118
PSN: AbEntropy
Verdant Wind ending spoilers:
3DS: 0473-8507-2652
Switch: SW-5185-4991-5118
PSN: AbEntropy
Edel’s story needs more chapters of her turning her axe on her uncle. I didn’t like that it ended with killing Dimitri and Rhea and then a /shrug and mention that she ends TWSITD too- I want to play that part, and not just a paralogue!
And then Linhardt and Hilda, my two surprise favourite characters in the game! Awesome.
And Ashe... Who is... a good boy...
Originally I had assumed that the DLC characters would just be injected into the game-as-is, so I had been waiting on doing Silver Snow. But with it being it's own thing completely I guess I'll use that route split save I had after all.
Edit: on that last bit, I'm now reading that...
If we can get supports out of this lineup I'm going to be real happy
I kinda want to put Byleth in something other than the Enlightened One class
Maybe Hero? I haven't had anyone take that spot yet in either playthrough. And I kinda like the idea of a Byleth who just says "nah" to the magic that comes with EO and just hits shit with metal like he always did
I tend to think the same.
Crimson Flower really got short-changed in general. It's most of a year later and it's still silly that they thought they shouldn't give an equally sized campaign to what would end up being the most popular path headed by the most popular character.
...also Claude actually dreams of grown-up, for-real empire. Which adds a lot of depth to his character, but it makes it interesting that so many people think of him as some kind of peacemaker
I put Byleth through Hero on my first run, and it was fine, but I ended up with Holy Knight. I couldn't stand the look of EO so I dropped it ASAP on both my runs. Second run I went Wyvern Lord for him, because flyers are so useful in this game.
I have never had a bad experience with War Master. The class is ridiculously powerful. Fists are the strongest weapon, crit is stupidly good in this game, and giving extra double attacks while preventing doubles is stupid strong. Watching Dedue and Felix keep pace with goddess of head severance Petra right after they got that one skill was eye opening. This says nothing of when Raph got bumped to a top tier character on the back of the same skill.
I see humor is a lost art
A lot of Three Houses characters in the top ten, but more older characters rounding out things than I was expecting. (Plus a couple original Heroes characters... I had stopped paying attention to that, and there are butterfly people now?!?)
So far.
like the first fire and ice one was pretty bad, but transitioning from that into screamo jelly skeleton hell and from that into Lisa Frank's Inception are both pretty funny
If they're the more popular designs, who favors hatless Dorothea to hat-having Dorothea
Leonie showed up shouting something about how Jeralt would be on her side and mad at all of us.
Then she got a spear through the chest and died alone on a battlefield no one will remember, on a bridge no one will care about.
votes are counted together, but the more popular version of the character is going to be used as the foundation for the new design (and is probably what they're showing on the list)
Hat House is best house