One of my friends who hasn't yet played the game asked me “Why do different people of different ideological stripes have such different reactions to this game’s plot?”
Spoilers for all routes, obviously.
I decided to tackle this as a question. A few ground rules:
-I am trying my best to take things in good faith. This isn’t to say that I am unwilling to criticize in characters or their actions, but I will try to understand different players’ points of view.
Note: With that being said, I am proudly in the pro-Edelgard, anti-Rhea camp and my opinions are generally seen from within that lens. (I think Rhea is a well-done character, but she should not be the ruler of anything.)
-I will not use loaded words such as ‘fascist’, ‘cultist’, or ‘waifu’. I don’t think that these terms engender positive discourse, so I will abstain from using them.
-I will try my best to cite things from in-game text as well as I can remember them. Some of the history stuff is just pulled from the Fire Emblem Wiki.
The game’s fundamental question that it presents you is “When is revolution justified?” So this essay aims to explore:
1. How strong is Rhea’s influence on society and what are her goals for the continent of Fodlan?
2. Do the social conditions in Fodlan at the time of the game necessitate large-scale upheaval?
I think most people would agree that, under certain conditions, revolution is the most just course of action. For a modern example, few would see a violent uprising to get rid of a repressive regime like the current North Korea leadership to be unjustified. On the other hand, most people would also agree that overthrowing a stable, peaceful government whose citizens are satisfied would not be a just course of action. The case of Fodlan lies somewhere between these two extremes, but where?
1. How strong is Rhea’s influence on society and what are her goals for the continent of Fodlan?
The relationship between the three countries and the Church of Seiros
The Adrestian Empire once primarily occupied the continent. About 400 years ago, the Holy Kingdom of Faerghus broke off from the Empire in a conflict called the War of the Eagle and Lion. Loog, the King of Lions, rebels against the Empire and the Church ends up mediating the end of the war and establishing the Holy Kingdom. The Church formally crowns Loog as the first king. About 100 years later the Kingdom split into two, forming the Leicester Alliance in the Crescent Moon War. Edelgard, in her case for going to war with the Church of Seiros (end of Chapter 11 speech), states that this split into three countries was instigated by the church, with the goals of dividing humanity and thus increasing the Church’s influence and authority. In Chapter 11, Manuela has a monastery dialogue that corroborates this idea; she comments on the oddity of the fact that Garrech Mach Monastery is situated in the exact centre of the three countries, despite having been built before the Kingdom and the Alliance were created.
Edelgard also states in Chapter 14 that she believes that Seiros/Rhea collected the artifacts of the 10 Elites after they were defeated in battle and then distributed them with the intention of starting a conflict between the Empire and the soon-to-be-Kingdom. There is nothing else in the game that contradicts this or confirms this (as far as I know), but it would make sense that Seiros had the artifacts of her defeated foes and since they are heirlooms passed from generation to generation today that at some point they were given to the Crest-bearers. Whether this was with any ill intention or not, as Edelgard claims, is up to interpretation. Seiros/Rhea doesn’t seem very pleased that humans have them, but she also has the mechanisms to take them back if she wanted, and has not. This might reflect her complicated feelings on the weapons due to their origin.
(Sylvain, in his paralogue, states that his family was concerned that Rhea was going to confiscate the Lance of Ruin as a result of Miklan’s actions, which sets precedence for the Church of Seiros having some degree of ownership/authority over those artifacts.)
The Church of Seiros as a center of power in Fodlan
There is a lot of evidence that establishes the Church of Seiros as an institution with a lot of power over the people of Fodlan.
-Pretty much all of the plot related to Lonato and Christophe.
1. In Ashe and Catherine’s support, we learn that Christophe was framed for his supposed role in the Tragedy of Duscur, but was executed because he was plotting against Rhea. So in other words, she executes someone for a crime they didn’t commit, and says it’s fine because they committed another unproven crime.
2. Lonato was a just and honest man, according to those who know him, but he started a rebellion and his head was put on the chopping block due to rebelling against the Central Church
3. In Blue Lions route, she commands the king-in-waiting to take up arms against a nobleman from his own country. That strongly implies that she has significant sway over even the royalty of Fodlan. Even if you want to argue this as gameplay vs. plot separation, it is obvious that her words hold great sway to the Fodlan aristocrats, especially in Faerghus.
4. "I pray the students learned a valuable lesson about the fate that awaits all those who are foolish enough to point their blades toward the heavens."
-She crowns the kings and emperors of Fodlan
-All nobility are required to show piety to the Church as a part of their noble obligations (both Lorenz and Ferdinand talk about this, and Claude is seen as an outsider for not being very faithful.)
-The church has its own personal military that is praised as the most elite fighting force on the continent. In Alois/Shamir’s paralogue, the Knights of Seiros are sent to defend the Alliance, which shows that the Alliance depends on their military force for protection.
-In Crimson Flower, she (with her personal army) goes to the Holy Kingdom of Faerghus and makes it the new seat of her power. It isn’t clear who is in charge of this combined Church-Faerghus alliance but Dimitri certainly doesn’t seem to be predominantly in control of affairs.
-I generally feel that the Church’s hold is strongest in Faerghus, followed by the Alliance, followed by the Empire where the Church is the weakest. Reading some of the backstory on the Wiki, I see that the Southern Church tried to cause chaos in the Empire a few decades ago and was disbanded, which means that there is no core church in the Empire anymore.
What is Rhea’s view on the aristocratic system?
In the school that the church runs: On one hand, she expresses a desire to have the students at the monastery mingle with students of different social castes. On the other hand, she sets up a school system that is only accessible to those with large sums of money (the money requirement is discussed in Ignatz’s support with Byleth and Leonie’s support with Raphael, I believe). This indicates that this institution has been primarily set up as a way to train the children of elite people (and extract money from them, more cynically), but is technically not barred off from the common class. It’s just more difficult for the poor due to the money requirement.
Otherwise, she seems to see value in Fodlan’s nobility system as a means of maintaining her own power. In her post-Miklan dialogue, she expresses concern that the people will ‘lose faith in the nobility’ if they learn about the Demonic Beast transformation. However, we also know that Rhea likes to keep things related to transformation under wraps (see the scene where Seteth confiscates Claude’s documents about the Immaculate One), so that might be her primary motive rather than her stated goal during that scene.
Rhea does not necessarily intend malice toward any particular group of people and is quite pleasant to individual people. We see both Catherine and Cyril, two examples of people who idolize Rhea. In Remire, she takes in children who are orphaned by the events that occur there. She does seem to legitimately care about individual people that she likes, but her primary concern is making sure that people who oppose her are punished and that her own rule is upheld.
Most of your missions in Part 1 are primarily done with the purpose of defending the Church’s interests and honor, rather than helping the citizens of the nation with the wider spread problems of violence. Just to review…
(Chapter 1 - Battle vs. other houses)
Chapter 2 - Bandits have taken over Zanado Canyon, a sacred site in the Church of Seiros.
Chapter 3- Lonato. Lonato is directly challenging the authority of the church and thus is executed.
Chapter 4- Defending Rhea from a purported assassination plot which turns out to be a cover for robbing the Tomb of Seiros. This one is interesting because Rhea states that she feels like she is in no danger, but the church is being dishonored and thus you must destroy her enemies.
Chapter 5 - Miklan. Miklan has stolen a Hero’s Relic, which Rhea is very concerned about falling in the wrong hands, but it is clear that her concern is primarily out of desire to keep the Relics’ secrets under wraps rather than to protect the people who are being oppressed by Miklan et al.
Chapter 6- Flayn’s kidnapping. Defending the draconic bloodline.
(Chapter 7 - The Battle of the Eagle and Lion)
Chapter 8 - Remire. Again, people opposed to the church causing chaos. You can argue that this one is more out of concern for the citizens than some of the previous ones, where she expresses basically no concerns about the people’s suffering, but it is also beneficial to her directly.
Chapter 9 - Demonic Beasts in the school.
Chapter 10 - Kronya/Solon.
Chapter 11 - Desecrating the holy tomb. All three of these are in direct opposition to the Church and are serious threats.
I feel like the main times we see missions that are done of concern for the common citizens of the countries are paralogues, which are initiated by different PCs from those territories rather than the Church directly (although the Church does give its permission). A few examples include Felix, Sylvain, Ignatz/Raph, and Dedue, all of which serve to protect the common people of their respective countries.
On the other hand, the paralogues that primarily concern Church characters, such as Seteth/Flayn and Ashe/Catherine, are primarily conflicts within the Church of Seiros, where both sides accuse each other of heresy. And as with most real-life conflicts like this, neither side comes off particularly well. In Seteth/Flayn’s paralogue, not only do both sides commit violence over sectarian differences over possession of a holy site, but the player is commanded to cut down fleeing enemies for their heresy.
How long has Rhea/Seiros been ruling Fodlan/the Church of Seiros and what is her leadership like?
One difference between Rhea and many real life authoritarian leaders is the fact that she is seemingly immortal and has been ruling for a long time. But for how long? Unfortunately, there isn’t a lot of evidence that I have found that can state this definitively one way or another. We know that Jeralt is 113 years old, according to Alois/Byleth support, which places his blood transfusion to around 70-90 years ago, depending on how fast Jeralt ages + how old he was when it happened. We know that Rhea/Seiros was in charge of the church at that juncture. The other thing that we know is that Byleth is the 13th experiment that Rhea/Seiros does to try to revive Sothis, and her mother was the 12th. Rhea/Seiros states that she ‘created’ Byleth’s mother. Whether that is through vat experiments or birth is something I am unclear on, but what this does establish is that Rhea/Seiros has been at the very least active and ruling for a long time, although it is not clear exactly how long.
She clearly wields a lot of authority; we see Seteth, the seeming second most powerful member of the Church, defer to her on numerous occasions. Even when reasonable criticisms of her plans are voiced, she is able to command obedience simply by stating that this is her will. If she tells you to jump, you better damn well jump.
As a side note, I don’t think Rhea/Seiros is a Machiavellian mastermind. In Crimson Flower, she spends most of her time stuck in a trauma loop, incapable of making any rational arguments, due to having her authority challenged by her mother’s vessel. This is pretty consistent with the rest of her character work, where she primarily uses force of will, rather than reason or manipulation, to enact the things she desires. This style of leadership is perhaps why there is a lot of unrest and people dissatisfied with her rule, and why she doesn't have the tools to deal with that dissatisfaction through any means but violence (see Lonato).
So this all leads to…
2. Does the social condition in Fodlan at the time of the game necessitate large-scale upheaval?
So, what kind of world is Fodlan today?
The three major powers in Fodlan are currently at peace with each other, with the Central Church as a stabilizing force in the continent. Not that all seems to be well….
Violence is rampant:
-There is genocide in Duscur four years before the game starts, which is instigated primarily by Kingdom citizens who hate brown people, after nobles of the country and TWSID plotted the murder of the king. We see the naked racism against the remaining Duscur people crop up in a variety of different places in the game, including Dedue’s paralgoue, Dimitri/Dedue support, and both Ingrid and Felix express racist ideology in their supports with Dedue.
-There is a lot of chaos in Faerghus; it seems to be fairly close to a failed state (see Felix/Sylvain paralogues). The Central Church seems to not be concerned with re-establishing order in Faerghus except for the instances where the events directly pertain to the Church (Lonato rebelling against the Church, Miklan possessing a Relic without having a Crest), so Faerghus has been in disorder for at least the last 4 years since the death of the king.
-There was a war between Faerghus and Sreng that ended about 10 years ago.
-Violence is so ingrained in the culture of Faerghus that both Dimitri and Felix learned to wield a weapon before they could write their own names. There is no suggestion that their experiences are atypical of Faerghus nobility.
-In the Alliance, the Duke of Gloucester, according to Raphael/Ignatz’s paralogue, assassinates the heir to House Riegan. The Alliance seems to be more stable than the Kingdom, but is constantly fending off pirates (Alois/Shamir’s paralogue) and Almyra is constantly a threat to invade. There seems to be a baseline amount of general banditry in the Alliance as well, although not as much as in the Kingdom.
-In the Empire, there was a large war against Dagda and Brigid, who tried to invade about ten years ago. I feel like the Empire is overall the best off; not sure there is as much banditry there but…
-Hanneman’s sister is killed by a nobleman for the crime of not bearing a Crest-baby (Edelgard A support)
-Bernadetta is beaten for not being good enough trophy wife material (Byleth B support)
-Dorothea mentions that she has to teach herself how to wield a weapon in order to protect herself while in the opera, implicitly from sexual assault (Felix A support).
The caste system is hugely important in the political structure of all three countries:
-People are valued primarily for their Crests; Sylvain, Ingrid, Mercedes are all three examples of this culture. Dorothea is also discarded by her father for not being a Crest-baby (Hanneman B).
-We see this manifest differently in the different countries. The Imperial nobility are indolent and coast primarily on their wealth, Crests, and family name, the Faerghus nobility are hyper-chivalrous and obsessed with honor, and the Alliance nobility are always politicking and in-fighting, involving all people, not just themselves. We see three different versions of unpleasant aristocratic cultures in these three countries.
While we don’t get many looks from the eyes of commoners in this game, what we do get tells us that they have a rough life:
-Ashe is so poor that, despite being one of the most virtuous people in the game, he turns to a life of crime in order for he and his younger siblings to survive. (from Ashe/Byleth B support)
-Dorothea, an orphan in the imperial capital, grew up drinking from drains and digging food from the trash. She was spit on and kicked by noblemen. As luck would have it, she ended up becoming an opera star, and instead was objectified by the same nobles who treated her poorly on the street (including maybe her father - ew!). She believes that the goddess and ‘her noble regime’ are responsible for her suffering, which lends further credence to the nobility’s strong ties with the church. (from Dorothea/Hanneman B and Ferdie/Dorothea A)
It seems like a pretty typical European society during the height of the Papacy (except that the Pope has an actual army), but many of the people who live in the society itself are much more progressive and forward-thinking than the society that they live in. Many of the students question the values of the society that they’ve grown up in (Felix, Sylvain, Lysithea, Ingrid, Mercedes, Dorothea, Edelgard, Linhardt). In some ways the people who live in the world seem more progressive than the antiquated systems of government and social order that control their lives, and this incongruence will inherently lead to conflict of some kind. As established a few paragraphs ago, it seems as if Rhea/Seiros has been in charge of Fodlan into the knowable past and therefore we can assume that she will continue to be in charge of Fodlan for the foreseeable future, given no disruption of the status quo. And it seems as if Rhea is largely happy with the current structure of the world, so we can infer that the world won’t really change without some sort of conflict.
Could a solution have been reached that didn’t involve a war?
I don’t believe a peaceful solution could have been reached that involves Rhea/Seiros conceding power. We see example after example of how Rhea acts when her authority is questioned, and nothing in her behavior in Part 1 suggests that she will be reasoned with on this subject. To be honest, I think trying to get her to step down at that point would be an excellent course of action to take if your goal were to be executed.
I think the best-case scenario would be an alliance between Edelgard and Claude where each of them work together to seize power from the Church of Seiros. This would still end up as a large-scale conflict engulfing the continent, but ideally with both the Empire and Alliance on the same side, the war would have been less lengthy. I think the honest truth is that both Edelgard and Claude are control freaks and want things to be the way they want them, so I feel like an alliance between the two of them would ultimately have ended in failure, even if it worked out initially. And both of them are playing dangerous games involving defying the Church of Seiros while going to school at the monastery; in particular, if Edelgard reached out to Claude and he betrayed her to the church, it would end all of her plans, and almost certainly her life. Neither party had a good reason to trust the other, and good reason not to.
It is often said that Claude has a lot of the radical left trappings of Edelgard without being as violent/militant, but in practice, I’m not sure what Claude’s plan to take over/reform Fodlan was, before the war started. He definitely wants to take over Fodlan; in Crimson Flower, he explicitly states that he wanted to rule the continent. In his own route, he happily takes advantage of a large conflict once it is happening in order to consolidate the continent under his rule or that of someone close to him. During the war, he even brings a foreign military into Fodlan in order to achieve his goal, calling into question his reputation in the fandom as the one who seeks peaceful solutions. We can't be sure what his actual plan was because it is derailed by Edelgard putting her own plan into action first.
But Ciatokins, none of that answered the original question “Why do different people of different ideological stripes have such different reactions to this game’s plot?”
Good thinking, brain worm. The answer to #2 is “depends on who you ask”.
I think people who support Rhea have a few different reasons for doing so. One, some people believe that tradition and order are important parts of the social contract and government in general. The Church’s influence has been a stabilizing presence on the world, and while the world isn’t perfect, Rhea is a voice of moderation and reason and helps solve problems when they arise. For people of relatively conservative ideology who believe that the government’s primary role is to maintain order, Rhea’s actions are completely justified. In some debates over this game, some people have stated that “if you don’t oppose Rhea/Seiros, she is a very nice person!”. It is similar to the sentiment “good citizens wouldn’t get in trouble with the law” or views that “those hurt by the police deserve what they got”.
Another common pro-Rhea argument I’ve seen primarily comes from VW’s final scenes, where Rhea/Seiros reveals that her family was brutally slaughtered by the Nemesis and the 10 Elites 1000 years ago, and how she is traumatized by it and harbors a distrust of humanity as a result of it. To be honest, I feel that while this may explain why she is the way she is, it has little bearing on if a revolution against her regime that is ruling in the present day is justified or not. She can have legitimate grievances against humanity and still be an unfit ruler.
The third group of Rhea supporters I have encountered are people who have no problem with Rhea behavior in Part 1. To say that the authoritarian behavior of Rhea/Seiros in Part 1 is not enough reason to start a war against her is fair; saying that her behavior is totally, 100% fine confuses and alarms me. I feel that this might be due to the perception of Rhea as a “good guy” because she is initially presented as calm and motherly (channelling similarly designed Fire Emblem characters Emmeryn and Mikoto), and because she shows kindness and trust toward the main character. It’s not as if the game is trying to hide her faults; two of your most trusted companions Jeralt and Sothis both caution you to be wary of Rhea. But as the Milgram experiment showed (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment), many people have an inherent desire to obey an authority figure, particularly one who is reasonable to them, even as evidence mounts that what they are doing is wrong.
Edelgard, on the other hand, proposes that the Crest system, the nobility, and the church are all parts of a broken system, with the Church at its core, which needs to be removed and replaced. She acknowledges that her plan to do so, which involves a violent removal of Rhea and her followers from power, is one that promises short-term pain for Fodlan, but she believes that the long-term gains are easily worth the sacrifice. She laments in early Crimson Flower that "as more blood wets my feet, they grow heavier with each step", but she believes in her cause enough to go through with it anyway.
The nature of these long-term gains is something that she gives a lot of consideration to. Edelgard, in her various supports, explores ideas on how to make the post-church world a better place; in her Hanneman support, they discuss how to eliminate the Crest system by either trying to remove them or by giving everyone access to them. In her Ferdinand support, they discuss free education as a way of decreasing inequality, closing the gap between the rich and the poor. In her Caspar support, she discusses her plans to have people earn titles rather than inherit them. In her Linhardt support, she discusses establishing a research institute for Crests and Relics, which shows that she is willing to utilize Crests and Relics even if she no longer wants their society to be based on them. In her Manuela support, they discuss about the place that faith and religion will hold in the new order, and Edelgard gains appreciation for the value of faith despite her contempt for organized religion. I think her fans are drawn to the care for the society she plans to build in this post-church world. I think Edelgard appeals more to people who have had to deal with the church’s powerful influence on society and other stripes of progressives that feel that our current world is unsatisfactory.
(Of course, some people like the characters for superficial reasons and take sides based on that but I am not really interested in that as a point of discussion.)
I think the answer to the question “Does the social condition in Fodlan at the time of the game necessitate large-scale upheaval?” comes down to whether one feels the ends justifies the means. Does Edelgard’s new vision for the world (more egalitarian, less stratified, more free and less controlled by a central church power) counter-balance the life lost in the war? In 300 years, will the people of Fodlan think of this event the same as people think of the French Revolution in our world today; a turbulent and violent event that brought about positive social change to the world? Or will it be seen as a vanity project, a way to stamp one’s name on history?
(Interestingly, Edelgard asks this very question in her C support with Dorothea: will she be remembered as “the revolutionary who guided the Empire to a new dawn...or the foolish ruler who took her revolution too far”?)
Unlike most game character rivalries, I think Edelgard versus Rhea gets people riled up because of its real world implications. “How could you think that war is justified?” “How could you believe that this status quo is acceptable, especially with a 1000 year old ruler?” These questions are heavier than more typical fandom debates, such as one’s favorite ships or whether Caspar or Raphael is a better unit. And both characters have potentially ugly analogues in the real world, depending on your interpretation, so the discussions surrounding both can be fraught with emotions.
So why do you side with Edelgard?
In my analysis of the justification of revolution, I looked at the sum total of society’s ills as well as the unwillingness of Rhea’s administration to do anything about them, preferring to prioritize consolidation of its own power. I think for her to continue to be in power indefinitely is a grave mistake, and one that could hinder the social and political progress of Fodlan for the foreseeable future. I do not believe that peaceful methods are a realistic option for dealing with a power-hungry authoritarian and as a result I believe that a revolution is the only feasible solution to the problem.
I also do not believe that, as a risk-vs.-reward, that Edelgard reaching out to Claude is a good idea. It is a nice thought, and one that would have made the game different (and shorter!) than the one that we have, but as outlined above, I do not believe that it makes much sense in the context of both characters’ situations in Part 1. And in Part 2, Edelgard conquers Derdriu for a simple reason: she doesn’t want to be flanked by Claude while fighting against the Church, which is a real risk given Claude’s ambitions.
I do not believe that Edelgard and Dimitri could feasibly ally with each other because they are too ideologically different. One of the more interesting scenes in the game is on Azure Moon where the two of them discuss these differences and conclude that they are simply too far apart to compromise. Dimitri argues that “pushing your own sense of justice and your own ideals onto even one other person is nothing more than self-righteousness”. Edelgard responds with “Maybe it is self-righteousness, but it doesn’t matter. Someone has to take action and put a stop to this world’s endless, blood-stained history!” Despite Edelgard being the supposed ‘villain’ of the route, I found myself agreeing with her. Isn’t the point of being a leader to make decisions for many people, sometimes decisions that are difficult and unpopular at the time?
Does your choice of first route determine your outlook on this argument?
I think there is some correlation between the first set of eyes you see the game through and your ultimate opinion on this debate. On the other hand, I played Azure Moon first, and I still prefer Edelgard’s revolution to a world of stagnation, so maybe not completely. It might be a chicken or egg thing though; does Edelgard’s route, with its obviously coldly rational and assertive female lead, inherently appeal more to those who would be more inclined to give into its narrative? As a player, it would be interesting to rewind and play a different route first, but sadly, unlike Byleth, I do not have access to Divine Pulse.
But Ciatokins, Edelgard bands with slitherers, doesn’t that make her a bad girl?
Don’t worry kids, her pet Hubert will deal with them in the epilogue.The enemy of your enemy, as it turns out, is just your enemy in the future. More seriously, I think that Edelgard saw them as a means to an end, just as she sees many other things. I don’t think it is a particularly noble thing for her to do, and she obviously despises them, but she defers dealing with them until post-game because they are useful tools at the time.
But Ciatokins, Edelgard lies to her friends about who nukes Arianrhod, doesn’t that make her a bad girl?
A means to an end. Not a nice thing to do but serves a purpose.
So what you’re saying is that she isn’t the nicest person in the world but she is doing what is overall best for the world so we should side with her anyway?
Yes.
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