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Please talk about spoilers from all the routes or whatever. Is Edelguard the devil or super devil?
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Aug 7, 2019 16:40
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Reposting my Edelgard route post here so everyone can tell me how wrong I am without spoiler tags: So, I gave it some thought this morning, and I think here's what I would change on Edelgard's route if I could. I tried to avoid changing the structure of it too much and instead focused on things that could smooth over what's already there. Also, apologies for any formatting fuckery. I'm posting this from my phone like a fool. The main goals here are to provide Edelgard a smoother character arc while also adding just a bit more context so you can better understand both her and Byleth's choices.
At the same time, I also think there needs to be a strong reason for Byleth to side with the church willingly. You have such an unclear picture of the church and Rhea in part 1 that I couldn't really muster up much enthusiasm for them, and if I hadn't been playing Golden Deer (where your goals are sort of tangential to the church's existence) I'd wonder why I was sticking my neck out for these people. Let us see more of the good in the church earlier on to balance out the glimpses of Rhea's murderous tendencies we also see. That way the choice of route feels more like an actual choice where you could understand Byleth going either way. Anyway that's my armchair game writer post for the day. I will now accept my rightful ridicule.
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Aug 7, 2019 16:49
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I feel like importantly Edelgard's route doesn't actually explain why I've got a crest in my heart and what exactly that means anyway.
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Aug 7, 2019 16:57
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I think Claude recruitability would make more sense for the Dimitri route... His big deal is basically that he wants Fodlan to be less racist/xenophobic/closed in, and Dimitri... also considers dealing with those things important because of how they affected Dedue and his people.
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Aug 7, 2019 17:12
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Edelgard did nothing wrong
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Aug 7, 2019 17:13
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ok maybe she did some things wrong
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Aug 7, 2019 17:13
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what if edelgard had a gun
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Aug 7, 2019 17:14
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Harrow posted:At the same time, I also think there needs to be a strong reason for Byleth to side with the church willingly. You have such an unclear picture of the church and Rhea in part 1 that I couldn't really muster up much enthusiasm for them, and if I hadn't been playing Golden Deer (where your goals are sort of tangential to the church's existence) I'd wonder why I was sticking my neck out for these people. Let us see more of the good in the church earlier on to balance out the glimpses of Rhea's murderous tendencies we also see. That way the choice of route feels more like an actual choice where you could understand Byleth going either way. Yeah siding with the church as the black eagles would have felt really weird at that point. Like, if I'm going to follow someone with a murderboner it's probably going to be the cool axe lady I've spent the last 12 chapters with rather than the creepy pope. Andrast fucked around with this message at 17:20 on Aug 7, 2019 |
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Aug 7, 2019 17:17
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Harrow posted:There needs to be a moment prior to the ending where Edelgard starts to defy Those Who Slither/her evil uncle and they turn on her. Like, maybe a battle or two somewhere near the end of Edelgard's route, but before she faces off against Dimitri and Rhea (since ending the route with those fights is suitably climactic). She doesn't have to finish the fight against Those Who Slither, but actually having to fight them somewhat would help a ton. I have no idea why she needed to be trying to assassinate Claude and Dimitri at the start either, it would have made much more sense if they were indeed just random bandits. More exposition regarding her actions as Flame Emperor would have helped a lot in general too.
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Aug 7, 2019 17:22
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Andrast posted:Yeah siding with the church as the black eagles would have felt really weird at that point. Like, if I'm going to follow someone with a murderboner it's probably going to be the cool axe lady I've spent the last 12 chapters with rather than the creepy pope. I can absolutely see the idea that in the playtesting they didn't let you side with Edelgard and people got mad. They show us Rhea being unbelievably authoritarian and horrible, putting people to death and all sorts. Then they ask us to pick between Edelgard (who has been our friend the whole game) or Crazy Murder Lady. I know who I'm picking and apart from people who gently caress up I bet there's not loads of people going the "lose two of your best characters" route.
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Aug 7, 2019 17:22
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Jeralt spent his entire time in the game basically saying that something is hosed up in the Church (and more specifically Rhea), so I'm definitely not gonna side with them given the option. While Edie is most definitely a villain, and the primary antagonist of the pre-timeskip stuff, I still think that Rhea (and more broadly, the church) is the more pressing antagonistic force than the slitherers. Also, while I do think that a chapter or so dealing with them would have been fine, I also think that the massive Dragon final boss was a good play as well. Also I find it funny that Arundel spends half his screentime acting like the smuggest jerk in the game and winds up a footnote in history, if that.
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Aug 7, 2019 17:25
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rhea did nothing wrong and did her best as a dragon pope when her mom? kept influencing her to get her grandma back
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Aug 7, 2019 17:26
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Senerio posted:Jeralt spent his entire time in the game basically saying that something is hosed up in the Church (and more specifically Rhea), so I'm definitely not gonna side with them given the option. ... You would rather side with people who worked with Jeralt's murderer instead?
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Aug 7, 2019 17:30
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Gamerofthegame posted:rhea did nothing wrong and did her best as a dragon pope when her mom? kept influencing her to get her grandma back Aren't I her mum? I though that was how it was, Sothis is her mum and that's why she was so mad.
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Aug 7, 2019 17:38
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OddObserver posted:... You would rather side with people who worked with Jeralt's murderer instead? I would and also did
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Aug 7, 2019 17:39
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Yeah Rhea and Catherine spend the first half of the game reveling in how much they get to murder unbelievers it's....aside from Seteth and Flayn being chill you don't really get any positive pictures of the Church. And yeah El's route being the only one where you get a fight a gently caress off dragon is cool. Also Rhea's dragon form is absolutely loving terrifying, as it should but, easily the enemy who when I examined it's stats I'm still like how the gently caress do I deal with this. Also El doesn't control the Slitherers, they control her. The Scholar in the library on her route talks about how he thinks the Slitherers have been setting events in motion for at least a hundred when they kicked the Church out of Adrestia. Also have El attack Kronya, she is loving PISSED. As for why she can't easily go after them, again, the route specifies that he has his own private army that's as large as the Imperial army on top of having beasts.
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Aug 7, 2019 17:42
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OddObserver posted:... You would rather side with people who worked with Jeralt's murderer instead? I've sided with worse.
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Aug 7, 2019 17:42
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OddObserver posted:... You would rather side with people who worked with Jeralt's murderer instead? You mean the ones who are horrified by it and help Byleth get revenge? Blaming Edelgard for Jeralt's death is silly, even if she did indirectly contribute to it, because she obviously didn't intend for it to happen and had no way of predicting it. If you start playing the guilt by association card, pretty much nobody in the game comes away remotely clean.
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Aug 7, 2019 17:45
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OddObserver posted:... You would rather side with people who worked with Jeralt's murderer instead? Yes, because they also helped me kill Jeralt's Murderer.
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Aug 7, 2019 17:53
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OddObserver posted:I think Claude recruitability would make more sense for the Dimitri route... His big deal is basically that he wants Fodlan to be less racist/xenophobic/closed in, and Dimitri... also considers dealing with those things important because of how they affected Dedue and his people. I feel ending racism and prejudice is a cause central to Claude’s worldview and goals since he’s been on the receiving end of it as a child in Almyra, and then again when he came to Fódlan; he also sees the caste system from the crests as central to maintaining Fódlan’s racist attitudes though you can certainly argue about what he does about it I dunno if it’s really on Dimitri’s radar aside from causing his subjects to be shitheads to Dedue
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Aug 7, 2019 17:57
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Eimi posted:Also El doesn't control the Slitherers, they control her. The Scholar in the library on her route talks about how he thinks the Slitherers have been setting events in motion for at least a hundred when they kicked the Church out of Adrestia. Also have El attack Kronya, she is loving PISSED. As for why she can't easily go after them, again, the route specifies that he has his own private army that's as large as the Imperial army on top of having beasts. I think this is why I think it feels so off that Edelgard goes for crest stones in Chapter 11. It's odd to me that she'd willingly gather crest stones to make more beasts as her first act as Emperor. If she was going for killing Rhea in that battle but some soldiers who are under the thumb of the Slitherers go for crest stones against her orders, that'd make more sense. It'd drive home that their goals aren't necessarily aligned and that she doesn't have control over them. Edelgard adopting the Slitherers methods after the time skip in other routes makes sense. She doesn't have Byleth there and slips deeper into her desperate extremism. It's just weird that she does it before the time skip and you can still side with her immediately after. It's just one off note but it really sticks out to me.
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Aug 7, 2019 18:04
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Taear posted:Aren't I her mum? I though that was how it was, Sothis is her mum and that's why she was so mad. rhea and seiros are seperate people I believe, but seiros can bodyjack rhea and does
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Aug 7, 2019 18:05
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I have enjoyed entertaining the Edelgard to Napoleon comparisons, other than the fact one of them is actually short. The major difference being Edelgard comes from a figurehead monarchy instead of lesser nobles in a revolution not their own, whereas Edelgard starts the revolution. Honestly I think the show Danaerys comparisons are a little bit shallow, since Edelgard was set to rule as a puppet already, and shes not a foreign lord or really "liberating" anyone and her descent is far better written in game than the show. Book Dany feels pretty apt though comparatively. C-SPAN Caller fucked around with this message at 18:15 on Aug 7, 2019 |
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Aug 7, 2019 18:11
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Harrow posted:I think this is why I think it feels so off that Edelgard goes for crest stones in Chapter 11. It's odd to me that she'd willingly gather crest stones to make more beasts as her first act as Emperor. If she was going for killing Rhea in that battle but some soldiers who are under the thumb of the Slitherers go for crest stones against her orders, that'd make more sense. It'd drive home that their goals aren't necessarily aligned and that she doesn't have control over them. Yeah your solution to that map would work great and wouldn't have required too much work to implement. Hell that assassin boy could've been a slitherer. Though she does come to you as to why she fought you then, she thought after you merged with Sothis the mankete side took over and you'd side with "your" people. Which does fit her characterization to just charge ahead without asking.
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Aug 7, 2019 18:10
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E: yay tor lag double posting. Also I thought Rhea was Seiros, Seiros was her original name and she adopted Rhea as a disguise like how Seteth and Flayn are not their real names.
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Aug 7, 2019 18:11
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After learning Claude's whole deal I kind of feel like people being really suspicious of him is actually a good thing? Particularly insofar as it involves him being heir to two entirely separate thrones? Like, at this point it seems like Almyra managed to execute a stealth takeover of the Leicester Alliance, largely by virtue of nobody noticing.
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Aug 7, 2019 18:12
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Gamerofthegame posted:rhea and seiros are seperate people I believe, but seiros can bodyjack rhea and does They aren't, Rhea is Seiros (aka the Immaculate One, aka the lady in the intro video) that's said explicitly in the Golden Deer route. And, well, being the head of Church of Herself is very much like her, isn't it? Though it does mean when she says people are being heretical she probably has a point.
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Aug 7, 2019 18:13
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Eimi posted:Yeah your solution to that map would work great and wouldn't have required too much work to implement. Hell that assassin boy could've been a slitherer. Yeah, it makes perfect sense why she fights you there. I think with that suggested modification that battle would work just fine in Edelgard's route. It's just the crest stone thing that feels wrong there.
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Aug 7, 2019 18:14
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I wonder if it's crazy to hope that the DLC can expand on Edelgard's route at all. It's clear they wanted to do more with it but didn't have the resources--maybe it was a later addition. For example, the scene at the end of Chapter 12 is fully animated for every other route, but just has a still image and then a bunch of stuff happening off screen on Edelgard's, which suggests it might have been written after the animation scenes were already done or close to done. It'd be nice to have a more complete version of that route because I think there's a ton of potential there and I'm disappointed that it got so short-changed.
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Aug 7, 2019 18:22
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Harrow posted:I think this is why I think it feels so off that Edelgard goes for crest stones in Chapter 11. It's odd to me that she'd willingly gather crest stones to make more beasts as her first act as Emperor. If she was going for killing Rhea in that battle but some soldiers who are under the thumb of the Slitherers go for crest stones against her orders, that'd make more sense. It'd drive home that their goals aren't necessarily aligned and that she doesn't have control over them. Yeah, the thing with both this and hiring Kostas and the bandits is that Edelgard never really explains her objectives, which simultaneously makes it harder to understand, but also possible to rationalize, depending on your willingness to speculate. Regarding the crest stones, it's never explicit, as far as I know, that her goal in stealing them was actually to create beasts. The powers of crests and crest stones are somewhat ambiguous even when you do have the full story, so it's not too hard to imagine that she expected to acquire some other benefit from stealing them (or even to simply destroy them). Obviously that might feel like a bit of a stretch compared to the more obvious explanation based on what happens on other routes, but it feels out-of-character enough on her own route that I don't think it's unreasonable to just leave it as an unanswered question rather than make that assumption. The bandit attack is similar, because it really doesn't make a ton of sense that Edelgard would want to kill Dimitri and Claude at that moment. She has no way of taking advantage of it at that point, for starters, and she's endangering herself in doing so. You can say that she expects to get Dimitri and Claude killed and then escape or fight off the bandits herself, but that also seems like a rather naive plan at best, to the point that it's hard to take seriously (then again, the fact that she almost gets herself killed makes it seem like kind of a bad plan either way). She also makes no further attempts to kill either of them even when it would make more sense to do so, and explicitly expresses her wish to be able to convince them to be her allies rather than kill them. In that sense it seems more plausible that her intent was always that the three of them would succeed in fighting off the bandits, but then you run into the problem of her actual objective there being even less clear. The most plausible explanation would be that it's an attempt at diverting the Church's attention, but that's also a little weak. Ultimately I expect that the intention in both cases was probably for the "obvious" explanations to be correct, but it doesn't feel like the writers really thought through the implications. In the end I kind of just mentally categorized both as plot holes and never really thought about them again until after I'd finished, since it didn't really feel like the game wanted me to care anyway.
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Aug 7, 2019 18:23
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OddObserver posted:They aren't, Rhea is Seiros (aka the Immaculate One, aka the lady in the intro video) that's said explicitly in the Golden Deer route. And, well, being the head of Church of Herself is very much like her, isn't it? Though it does mean when she says people are being heretical she probably has a point. Yea it definitely tells you that in the BE line. I still want to know who that guy that's with Edel/Hubert is. I know it says his name but he's nowhere other than in that battle. It's bizzare.
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Aug 7, 2019 18:27
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Harrow posted:I wonder if it's crazy to hope that the DLC can expand on Edelgard's route at all. It's clear they wanted to do more with it but didn't have the resources--maybe it was a later addition. For example, the scene at the end of Chapter 12 is fully animated for every other route, but just has a still image and then a bunch of stuff happening off screen on Edelgard's, which suggests it might have been written after the animation scenes were already done or close to done. It'd be nice to have a more complete version of that route because I think there's a ton of potential there and I'm disappointed that it got so short-changed. Yeah, that's my number one desire to see her route get properly finished. And like the cg that plays before the timeskip shows how terrifying Rhea is, and she's fighting Imperials so I mean how much work would it take to edit it for her route. Also just some proper closure with Thales, even if it's just a cg video of El, Hubie, and Byleth stabbing him to death.
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Aug 7, 2019 18:32
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So the Blions end boss is a 20 ft tall Edelgard wearing some kind of xenomorph skin ballgown and the only forewarning you get is a brief scene of her talking to a random mage about some anomaly around the time you siege the imperial capital. Anyone know what exactly is up with that?
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Aug 7, 2019 18:58
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Harrow posted:I wonder if it's crazy to hope that the DLC can expand on Edelgard's route at all. It's clear they wanted to do more with it but didn't have the resources--maybe it was a later addition. For example, the scene at the end of Chapter 12 is fully animated for every other route, but just has a still image and then a bunch of stuff happening off screen on Edelgard's, which suggests it might have been written after the animation scenes were already done or close to done. It'd be nice to have a more complete version of that route because I think there's a ton of potential there and I'm disappointed that it got so short-changed. It's just so weird, because the 2018 trailer made it clear it Edelgard was the 'most shown' of the lords. It really feels like something weird went on in the development, maybe a "We'll do that one last because it's the most important and we want it to fit everything else perfectly and-no budget". Also, I am hoping we get some info on what happened with the bandit leader in the prologue, because what happened then was just weird. The way it "just happened to meet Jeralt" really felt more like a Rhea plot than anything when I began playing.
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Aug 7, 2019 19:03
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Arkeus posted:It's just so weird, because the 2018 trailer made it clear it Edelgard was the 'most shown' of the lords. It really feels like something weird went on in the development, maybe a "We'll do that one last because it's the most important and we want it to fit everything else perfectly and-no budget". My guess is that you weren't originally going to be able to side with her. She was going to be an antagonist and therefore a major character on every route, and you'd feel betrayed by her if you played Black Eagles. The option to side with her reads like a late addition or maybe even something that was placed early but considered to be out of scope for most of the development time before they figured they could fit it in. What makes her route so frustrating to me is that it'd for sure be my favorite route if it just felt more like a complete story. As it is, every route has missing details, which is good because it encourages you to play other routes, and even with those missing details, they still feel like complete stories. Edelgard's route is missing enough that it falls short of feeling complete and that bums me out. Just a few more scenes that flesh out Edelgard's arc and Byleth's story, and maybe two more chapters that involve fighting back against the Slitherers would go a very long way. I wouldn't want to go after the Slitherers after the end of the story--I think ending with the battle with Rhea is nice and climactic--but a couple fights where she has to quell a coup attempt from them or something would be great.
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Aug 7, 2019 19:16
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Eimi posted:Yeah Rhea and Catherine spend the first half of the game reveling in how much they get to murder unbelievers it's.... Pre-Timeskip we see them both being enthused about the killing about to take place, absolutely. But it's never about non-believers. It's literally only the people who are actively attacking the Church and its believers. They executed Lonato's son for participating in the conspiracy to kill Dimitri's parents, they kill Lonato and his men for launching a military campaign against the church. And the Western Church was also apparently participating in Lonato's campaign. The game is leaning heavily on preconceived notions of the genre to portray events that are certainly brutal as needlessly evil.
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Aug 7, 2019 19:20
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Adder Moray posted:Pre-Timeskip we see them both being enthused about the killing about to take place, absolutely. But it's never about non-believers. It's literally only the people who are actively attacking the Church and its believers. They executed Lonato's son for participating in the conspiracy to kill Dimitri's parents, they kill Lonato and his men for launching a military campaign against the church. And the Western Church was also apparently participating in Lonato's campaign. Are they attacking the church and its believers? The subtext is that there was never proof about Lonato's son, and everyone you meet in your mission about Lonato seems like they are defending Lonato rather than attacking the church. Not only that, but Ash's Paralogue has him learning more things about it, and it seems he believes the whole thing was a set up by Rhea to show off the power of the church.
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Aug 7, 2019 19:27
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Adder Moray posted:Pre-Timeskip we see them both being enthused about the killing about to take place, absolutely. But it's never about non-believers. It's literally only the people who are actively attacking the Church and its believers. They executed Lonato's son for participating in the conspiracy to kill Dimitri's parents, they kill Lonato and his men for launching a military campaign against the church. And the Western Church was also apparently participating in Lonato's campaign. Yeah, Rhea only seems to care about whether people believe in her religion insofar as it helps her maintain power. That's what she ultimately cares about : having enough power to feel that she is "protected" from what happened to her mother. She's basically fine with non-believers who don't actually threaten her power, but as soon as they do, her paranoia goes into overdrive and she turns into a psychopath.
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Aug 7, 2019 19:29
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Arkeus posted:Are they attacking the church and its believers? The subtext is that there was never proof about Lonato's son, and everyone you meet in your mission about Lonato seems like they are defending Lonato rather than attacking the church. Not only that, but Ash's Paralogue has him learning more things about it, and it seems he believes the whole thing was a set up by Rhea to show off the power of the church. Oh that is entirely possible, but the information you have at hand pre-timeskip (except, perhaps, in Ashe's paralogue, which I have yet to do) doesn't add up to that directly. Which is some cleverness in the writing in that ex post-facto it can be played out in either direction. If the route you're playing sides with the church you go back and look at those scenes and as violent as Rhea may have been (an inclination towards violence justified by her history), she wasn't actually the aggressor. Alternatively, you can stick with your first impressions and even reinforce them if you take a path against or separate from the church.
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Aug 7, 2019 19:33
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| # ? Apr 25, 2024 17:33 |
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Adder Moray posted:Pre-Timeskip we see them both being enthused about the killing about to take place, absolutely. But it's never about non-believers. It's literally only the people who are actively attacking the Church and its believers. They executed Lonato's son for participating in the conspiracy to kill Dimitri's parents, they kill Lonato and his men for launching a military campaign against the church. And the Western Church was also apparently participating in Lonato's campaign. During that part the western church guys are going "This isn't what we were told!!" and it never explains what they mean. It comes across as evil because it is - they're executing them without even finding out what's going on.
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Aug 7, 2019 19:38
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