Brick And Me!

Brick and me!

3 Hopes Expectations

Claude is Worse Than We Thought, Actually (and is 3 Hopes’ Edelgard wrt Shez)

Edelgard uwu sad girl

Rhea’s still just a lore dump for more lore

Shez and Arval fuck up the lore

Dimitri still has the best written route

Billy's sketch.

William 'Billy' Wheatstrength, the soon to be Gryphon Knight!

Here's an sketch of him.

what do you think of cyril?

My sunshine. My ray of light. My son. My child. My can-do-no wrong baby. My scrunkly. My schmoopie. My pookie. I wuv him he needs a bowl of soup and a nap.

K here are some terrible takes I have collected. Short thoughts for each one.

"Rhea intentionally caused famine by not sharing knowledge with Faerghus"

We have no idea what kind of knowledge she shared. And pick a side! Rhea has to stay out of human affairs because she's not human, OR she has to involve herself with human affairs because otherwise she's bad?

"The Church is homophobic"

Nowhere is it even implied that same-sex relationships are frowned upon in Fodlan. Hell, the archbishop, goddess, and many devout characters are queer, and nobody raises a fuss about their love lives in their endings.

Their holy book also says that the goddess does not deny love.

The whole crest stuff is not the church's fault. They tell you not to abuse crests, and had no hand in the creation of them. Humans did. And speaking of humans, Edelgard says that the people are the ones who elevate crest bearers, not the church.

The Church also has no control over the nobles, who would be the homophobic ones in this scenario??

"Cyril is Rhea's slave"

Cyril was an actual slave at House Goneril until Rhea saved him, something he is expresses his gratitude for by doing chores. He wants to feel useful in some capacity. This is a child who wants to feel useful and takes on extra chores because of that. He's a stubborn little lad, and we love him for it.

"Rhea keeps Cyril uneducated on purpose"

Cyril says in his and Lysithea's support that he keeps his illiteracy a secret because he doesn't anybody to feel like he's not up to a task because of it. AKA: He wants to help out!

"Seteth is doing propaganda"

I'm guessing this refers to the Shadow Library. Seteth removes books there that are either inappropiate or have information that's extremely dangerous if it got out. Some books talk about bans, but since those books are in the shadow library, that likely means they're outdated.

Or this refers to him calling Edelgard mean things?? She declared war against them; of course he's not happy.

"Byleth regains their humanity in CF"

Byleth was never human. Their mother is VERY much implied to have been a Nabatean, and their heart belongs to their (likely Nabatean) mother and the goddess.

Byleth also embraces their Nabatean heritage. Remember that Silver Snow is called Byleth's Route.

Byleth's Legendary Alt in FEH is their Enlightened One version.

Byleth's Brave Alt in Feh is Sothis's regalia, and they sing the Song of the Nabateans.

Byleth's Halloween Alt is a Duo with Sothis.

Byleth's Summer Alt is a Duo with Rhea.

Byleth's Khadein Alt talks about the Goddess's hand in events.

Byleth's Fallen Alt's Forging Bonds has Sothis taking over their body to protect them.

This argument also implies that it's bad for someone to be Nabatean, which is like... yikes.

"Seteth kills the western church members cuz theyre heretics"

"Indeed. The Western Church is attempting to seize sacred ground by force."

- They explain it to you in the exact same paralogue!

"The Nabateans benefit the most from the current state of events" / "The Nabateans are the ruling/top class in Fodlan"

How does the nearly extinct group benefit most from a system where their people's bones are used as WMDs?

They are walking on glass, y'all. If the truth (or even a lie) got out, they would get hunted down.

"Lonato is a good man"

He incited an armed rebellion against a church and would've mowed down villages to get there. He also goes around the knights to attack the students. No, he is not a good man.

"Nabateans ruled over humans in the past and their rule was bad" / "Nemesis did the right thing by taking out the Nabateans"

The word the devs use for the Nabatean rule is apparently something like "cure."

It is also NEVER stated that their rule was bad? Just that the Agarthans hated it (because they hate everyone).

Even the Agarthans talk shit about Nemesis. Nobody liked him.

And you can't... justify genocide? What?

"Sothis and her kids are colonizers and the Agarthans are the natives who got wiped out"

Fun fact! Despite all my theories, it is never made clear whether or not humans already lived on Fodlan when Sothis got there! The beginning cutscene flashes (Sothis's memories) show us a gorilla first, which implies that either life was not advanced, or humans did not exist by then.

Let's say humans did exist then. Sothis landed there and just started her own family. She never took any land by force? She shared knowledge with the humans which allowed them to build modern cities. That's not colonization. Please look up cases of actual colonization; I beg of you.

Sothis is more accurately an immigrant who shares her own culture with others.

"Sothis is not a god but a space alien"

It's never confirmed if Sothis is a space alien so that's actually just theory/headcanon.

Even if, all of her feats (and the dev's words) say that she's a god.

There are many more takes like these, but these are the ones I remember from the top of my head.

Like, what more do you want? For her to be tossed into a deep dark cell with rats to bring her story to a full traumatic circle? For her to executed when she's permanently has the mind of a child and has literally no idea WHY she's about to be executed?

I'll circle around to that second suggestion in a bit, but for now:

What "more" do I want? What exactly did I - or anyone - get, in the first place?

got long lol under the cut it goes

We have the victims of war blaming themselves for daring to fight back against their violent aggressor, we have those same victims either praise their aggressor for their ~reforms~ or mindlessly believe what they say with no proof, we have the story going out of its way to show the violent aggressor of a needless war to be a good leader because ~look at how bad it gets if they're NOT the one leading~ (looking straight at you AG), we have the aggressor gain a NEW mindless fan squeeing over their every action for specifically this game when they already had two characters who in some way were doing that already (Hubert and Dorothea) - oh gee, there's just so much woe that Edelgard has to go through, as the story, plot, and characters all castrate themselves trying to make her look better, amiright?

Edelgard faces zero repercussions in this game as a result of her enacting war against the Church and Kingdom for their crimes of *checks notes* doing nothing. The Church outright helps her in her efforts to get rid of the corrupt nobles of Enbarr, doing exactly what she requested of them to do down to the letter, and she still declares war on them, forces them out of their home, and chases them down to the Kingdom and goes to war with it for daring to house people who are being wrongly and violently persecuted for no reason.

You suggest her being tossed in a dungeon as if that's some sort of unjust, cruel thing, but frankly I don't care at that point whether the poor uwu warmonger shits herself in fear over rats because of the violent and cruel actions she chose to enact independently of anyone's influence. These circumstances are ridiculously different from when she was an actual innocent child being forcefully experimented on; she's the direct reason countless innocent people have either lost their families, friends, homes, livelihoods, and/or lives. To say she should go without any form of punishment - and harsh punishment at that - just because she has a fear of rats and there might be rats in the jailcell she gets thrown in is laughable. Tough shit, she shouldn't have murdered thousands in a needless war for power if she didn't want to get thrown in jail, and I have no sympathy for her in that regard.

Even in the supposed "bad end" version of the routes, Edelgard gets off hilariously easy. Who do you lose in AG? Rodrigue, a full-on playable character that you could've put actual effort into making into an extremely good/reliable unit, as well as the father/father-figure of Felix and Dimitri and someone whose presence is immensely felt throughout all of AG. Who do you lose in GW? Judith, someone who, while (criminally) not a playable unit, is still someone with a huge presence in the story of GW, and who is deeply connected to Claude on a personal level. Meanwhile on SB you lose fuckin' Randolph, a joe-schmoe nobody whose only purpose in any regard whatsoever is to die and who has literally zero connection to anyone except his similarly joe-schmoe nobody sister. Dimitri loses someone he saw as a father and who he heavily relied on to get through deeply traumatic events, Claude loses the one person he actually actively wanted to reveal being an Almyran prince to (before she put two and two together first, that is), and Edelgard loses... someone who's basically a named NPC for all the investment - personal or otherwise - he's been given.

What more do I want? Literally anything, because right now I have nothing.

But regarding the mind-of-a-child thing.

Given Hopes' obsessive need to relieve Edelgard of any actual responsibility for her actions - how it's Dimitri that started a war with the Empire and how that's bad, how it's Claude who invaded the Empire and how that's bad, while Edelgard is always given the benefit of the doubt despite being the actual aggressor unlike the other two who only fight back against her (at first anyway, in Clyde's case), things like that - her mind being reduced to that of a child's is almost fuckin' poetic, because that's pretty much how the game itself treats her. She's a child making a mess of the kitchen but she meant well and that's all that really matters - it's every else's fault for not walking over the mess well enough! It’s sadly very fitting that the game that treats her with the softest, silkiest kid gloves imaginable ends up literally reducing her to a child in the one route where the player never sides with her.

Because now she “shouldn’t” be punished! Isn’t she going through enough, the poor little dear? It’s just like you mention nonnie; she’s already just gone the absolute ordeal of *checks notes* being put in a situation where she literally can’t be held liable for her horrific, cruel actions she committed before she was Lobotogard. Now any attempt from anyone to do anything to Edelgard regarding the actions she chose to make independent of anyone else will be seen as being “too mean,” because now she’s in a state where she can’t understand the wrongs of what she’s done - she doesn’t even think she’s done them! Her mind is reverted to the time she was lil’ ol’ El with her crush Dee and isn’t that just so sad? Feel bad for Edelgard, not for her victims that she forced into war.

Because, like, think about it. Why was Edelgard lobotomized, instead of just defeated/jailed/executed? Why was mind-control + mind-reversion dark magic pulled out of Hopes’ ass to make Edelgard completely unable to be liable for her actions? In a game where Rhea and Claude can die and TWS can be completely wiped out, showing that Hopes doesn’t really care that much about keeping other main important characters on the table? Why not just simply have Edelgard imprisoned - not even killed, not even executed, just placed in prison for omega murder? Even Claude, for as mindlessly the Deer eventually follow him once Clyde switcheroos with him in GW’s Part 2, gets some form of pushback from them initially (...for inconveniencing Edelgard by killing Randolph + other Imperial generals and not for fucking over Faerghus, that is, but it’s still anything), and like I said, he can actually die for doing certain things (...that certain thing being betraying Edelgard on SB’s bad end, but again, it’s literally anything), which is much more than can be said for Edelgard.

Because honestly, I think it’s because the game really didn’t want her to actually face the consequences of her actions. The only thing that happens to her is her being in a state that sad to see... for others. For Edelgard herself, she’s just a confused kid - she’s not living with the guilt of her actions, she’s not facing any real justice for what she’s done, there’s no acknowledgement on her end - or even any ability to acknowledge - all that she’s done. And for fuck’s sake, she wasn’t even put in this state because of the bad shit she did; she was put in this state because she was helping Dimitri fight Thales. This isn’t a result of her killing who knows how many people for a war that’s literal only purpose was to expand her influence over all of Fodlan, in her own words even in this game - she got this standing up against the real bad guy, which definitely isn’t her. Nothing like the loss of a loved one, or dying yourself, and nothing that results directly from her killing innocent people to expand her power. 

So basically what I want is for the aggressor of a needless war that’s killing innocent people to face any actual consequence for doing the shit she does, for other characters who are literally being victimized by her to stop going on about how “well maybe she’s not that bad” when she’s ruining their and their people’s lives, and for the game to not place her in a state where it’s almost completely impossible for anyone to make her hold her accountable for her actions. Considering the shit she still does in this game, I really don’t think I’m asking for much here