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    Home Unlabelled Fire Emblem I never posted this ingrid doodle here (drew this after the dlc came out)

    Fire Emblem I never posted this ingrid doodle here (drew this after the dlc came out)

    May 05, 2020

    Fire Emblem I never posted this ingrid doodle here (drew this after the dlc came out)

    I never posted this ingrid doodle here (drew this after the dlc came out)

    Posted: 05 May 2020 08:10 AM PDT

    "I don't have time for failure" Post Timeskip Lysithea

    Posted: 05 May 2020 10:17 AM PDT

    A perfectly normal Robin I commissioned

    Posted: 05 May 2020 06:57 PM PDT

    It’s today :D

    Posted: 05 May 2020 10:55 AM PDT

    Lucina painting fan art! (LepyPepy)

    Posted: 05 May 2020 01:49 PM PDT

    I drew an outfit swap of Dorothea and Aerith!

    Posted: 05 May 2020 07:31 PM PDT

    Ra Yellow: Marianne

    Posted: 05 May 2020 12:25 PM PDT

    Lysithea and Claude (slight nsfw?)

    Posted: 05 May 2020 04:56 PM PDT

    Magic Is Everything

    Posted: 05 May 2020 10:36 AM PDT

    Mark!Morgan comic

    Posted: 05 May 2020 06:39 AM PDT

    Oifey - Enduring Tactician

    Posted: 05 May 2020 07:54 PM PDT

    What is slithering in the dark of FE3H? Unpacking the last mysteries of the game.

    Posted: 05 May 2020 03:06 PM PDT

    SPOILER WARNING: This is a lore post which contains major spoilers for Verdant Wind and the DLC content, and some spoilers for all routes.

    While I usually just post character and narrative analysis, I want to take this post to focus some on lore. There are, to the best of my knowledge, three major remaining mysteries in Fire Emblem: Three Houses:

    1. How did the final boss fight of Verdant Wind come about? 2. What were TWSITD doing in the monastery before White Clouds? 3. Why did TWSITD kidnap Flayn?

    I have a theory that neatly solves all three of these issues - and would you believe that it all starts in the DLC?

    What did we learn from Cindered Shadows?

    Cindered Shadows is a weird, fun, questionably-canon little side story that I personally found very enjoyable. (Well, so far its canonicity has been questionable; I will implicitly argue that the interpretation that it is a branch of an alternate history that nonetheless introduces elements that exist in canon is entirely correct.) The major element that is introduced in Cindered Shadows is a curious artifact: the Chalice of Beginnings. Now, its plot relevance seems limited to the Cindered Shadows DLC, and the fact that it appears in your inventory in the main game after you finish the DLC suggests that it is irrelevant.

    However, it is not irrelevant at all. Think about it: the Chalice of Beginnings is an artifact with the power to raise the dead. Now, do we ever see the dead raised?

    Yes, I am suggesting that the developers knew about the Chalice of Beginnings from the beginning, because it explains point 1. The Chalice of Beginnings is a canon way to revive Nemesis! We know that Nemesis isn't some sort of long-lost descendent; the game repeatedly tells us that Nemesis had no descendants. Everyone from Edelgard to Rhea to Thales tells us this. (In fact, the only character who is fixated on the possibility of Nemesis having descendants is Claude - an under-the-radar way the game acknowledges that his knowledge of Fodlan's history is lacking despite all his study.)

    In fact, this is obliquely suggested by Rhea when we learn of Nemesis's sudden revival. Rhea makes a strange comment about how the "seal" may have broken, presumably when she was hit by TWSITD's missiles. And as it turns out, we learn in Cindered Shadows that the Chalice of Beginnings is canonically stored under seal on the grounds of Garreg Mach.

    But I believe that Rhea is wrong about the seal having been broken when she was hit by the missiles. Instead, TWSITD obtained the chalice sometime during White Clouds.

    What were TWSITD doing in the monastery before White Clouds?

    TWSITD's main role in the monastery during White Clouds is tied up with Edelgard and her plots as Flame Emperor. In the beginning, they are involved with her plot with Lonato and the attack on the Holy Mausoleum; later, they cause a huge amount of trouble in the monastery, probably to isolate Edelgard from the rest of the students and faculty, and Byleth in particular.

    But TWSITD isn't just in the monastery because of Edelgard. We know that Tomas was replaced years before White Clouds; his replacement by Solon presumably happened after he could finish his blood experiments with Lysithea and Edelgard, but after that Solon appears to have moved directly to Garreg Mach. And when Flayn is discovered having been kidnapped by the Death Knight, we are told specifically that she is being held in a secret underground lair that has existed for a long time - presumably long before we see the Death Knight put under TWSITD's command in White Clouds.

    So what about point 2: why is TWSITD in the monastery? The answer is simple: they want to steal the Chalice of Beginnings! Remember that Cindered Shadows makes it clear that the myth of the Chalice is widespread: most people would have heard of the Chalice in some form or another. This is especially true of TWSITD, who not only seem to have better records of Fodlan's history but also may have specifically noted the Chalice being used before, given some of the material in the Shadow Library.

    Let's remember that TWSITD is clearly present in the background of Cindered Shadows, even though they have little to do with the main plot. The Death Knight is apparently spending some of his time in Abyss - when he would have been under the command of TWSITD - and Aelfric is specifically shown working with Metodey, who we only know from his TWSITD-linked role in the attack on the Holy Tomb. So even though they aren't the main antagonists, they seem to have something to do with Aelfric's efforts to steal and use the Chalice, even in the DLC.

    In the main game, Aelfric has been removed from the monastery, so TWSITD no longer have to work around him. All they have to do is find an opportunity to steal the Chalice. But when is the best time? I think the answer has been right in front of our faces along: the attack on the Holy Mausoleum.

    Stealing the Chalice

    Remember that the game keeps telling us, over and over, that there are multiple diversions going on, and there are multiple forces and competing movements involved in the Holy Mausoleum attack. And TWSITD don't seem to have a strong connection to the attack on the Holy Mausoleum, which appears to have been done by some form of pawns. They don't appear to be part of the Western Church, although Rhea executes them before we know who they are actually working for. Amidst all the apparent chaos, it would be easy for TWSITD to slip onto the monastery grounds, beat up Rhea's golems, and steal the Chalice - and especially with the later events focusing on the reveal of the Sword of the Creator and Byleth's Crest of Flames, Rhea and the Church would be sufficiently distracted to overlook the theft. This also explains why Kronya is in the Monastery - she's a powerful Agarthan warrior and assassin, perfect for fighting the golems and sneaking past guards to steal the Chalice.

    Why do I think the theft is specifically during the Holy Mausoleum fight? Well, I more specifically think it has to have been before point 3: Flayn's kidnapping. We know that Flayn is kidnapped for unspecified blood experiments - but not killed to make a Relic weapon or something, even though she presumably still has a Crest stone, nor implanted with a second Crest. What does TWSITD want with Flayn that just uses her blood? Well, it's implied in Cindered Shadows that dragon blood is necessary to use the Chalice of Beginnings. It's never specified whether this means actual Nabatean blood or Crest blood or what, but what the Chalice needs is blood. And that's exactly what TWSITD apparently take from Flayn. TWSITD are presumably testing their shiny new Chalice of Beginnings. That may be why Monica suddenly appears - they are killing and reviving a former captive to make sure that the Chalice's revival powers work.

    And the Chalice's revival powers do work! We have two pieces of evidence. The lesser piece is from Balthus and Hapi's paralogue, where we learn that Baron Ochs has been told that his daughter is alive. How could Monica be alive when every other victim of TWSITD body-snatching seems to be dead? The Chalice provides a good answer - but of course, TWSITD could be lying. The better evidence is the Remire Village scenario. It's not weird that TWSITD would test some new experiment on random villagers; this is totally fitting with their modus operandi. What is weird is that they would suddenly sacrifice their deep-cover operation while doing so. Solon has been securely placed in Garreg Mach for years; why would TWSITD suddenly reveal him to be an Agarthan? This part seems totally gratuitous. The simplest answer is that they no longer needed Solon - presumably because his role was to find and steal the Chalice, and make sure it works, and he has done so. For similar reasons, we see Kronya taking the role of Monica - there's no need for her to find and steal the Chalice again after it has been stolen once, so TWSITD might as well use her to further isolate Edelgard.

    But what happens to Nemesis?

    Let's recap what I have theorized so far. TWSITD hatched a plot long before the start of White Clouds to steal the Chalice of Beginnings so that they could revive Nemesis. They planted a deep cover operative in Garreg Mach and developed a large underground lair dedicated to their blood experiments. They exploited the chaos caused in White Clouds to steal the Chalice without being noticed, and subsequently kidnapped Flayn to test the Chalice and make sure it worked. With that accomplished, their task was done, and Solon and Kronya were free assets for TWSITD's next operation, the isolation of Edelgard.

    This theory runs into one major problem. If TWSITD stole the Chalice of Beginnings during White Clouds, then they stole it on every route. Why does Nemesis only show up during Verdant Wind?

    Well, let's think more basically for a moment. Why do TWSITD want to revive Nemesis at all?

    The reason why is the answer Claude repeatedly gives us during the Golden Deer Route: the power of Nemesis, the Crest of Flames, and the Sword of the Creator is enough to make Fodlan bow. With the power of the revived Nemesis, the revived Ten Elites, and their army, TWSITD has the force to subjugate the continent. So why only revive Nemesis during Verdant Wind?

    Well, Claude is presumably exaggerating a little. Nemesis can make Fodlan fall - but only if it is sufficiently disunited. A strong central authority could raise an army to defeat Nemesis with little trouble, ruining TWSITD's attempt at taking over. This is more or less what happens in Verdant Wind, as Claude mobilizes his remaining forces from his attacks on Enbarr and Shambala and manages to defeat Nemesis on the field.

    But this begs the question - what does the political situation look like at the end of each route?

    The Aftermath of the War: Stability or Chaos?

    In Crimson Flower, of course, the Empire is ascendant, exerting strong central military and political control over the entirety of Fodlan. In Azure Moon, Faerghus is similarly ascendant and dominant. Both of these nations also have special vulnerabilities to TWSITD - in Crimson Flower, the new Imperial government is half-run by TWSITD, while in Azure Moon, the new government of Fodlan is the exacerbated feudal system of Faerghus that has already proven vulnerable to manipulation in the Tragedy of Duscur. TWSITD have little reason to want to launch Nemesis into these governments; they are already ripe for manipulation, but presumably have the military might and organization to defeat Nemesis on the open field.

    What about Silver Snow and Verdant Wind though? Well, in Silver Snow, the main governments of the Empire, the Alliance, and the Kingdom have all collapsed - leaving the Church, which already has authority in all of Fodlan, as the sole remaining power. Presumably Byleth will consolidate power quickly, leaving the Church of Seiros as the sole spiritual and temporal authority. Combined with Byleth's recent construction of an army, this is a bad time for TWSITD to attack - put Fodlan under threat by Nemesis, and Byleth's already-easy consolidation of authority within the Church of Seiros can accelerate. But what about Verdant Wind?

    Well, the main difference between Verdant Wind and the rest of the routes is that Verdant Wind ends in a power vacuum. This vacuum will not last for long - Claude talks about the need to establish a strong central government quickly after Edelgard's defeat before the Alliance storms Enbarr so the region does not fall into chaos, or have the same old authorities eventually reestablished - but it does exist. In the other three routes, some central authority is already established and strong through either the Empire, the Kingdom, or the Church of Seiros. But in Verdant Wind? Claude leads the Alliance, a territory so disunited that Claude is still trying to petition the lords of the Alliance for extra troops after the battle of Fort Merceus, when the Alliance is on Edelgard's doorstep. The Alliance's already existing dysfunction is exacerbated by Claude, since its leader is considered less legitimate as an outsider, and we learn from Judith that he has further been neglecting the Alliance over the five years of timeskip. And the Alliance has no authority over the rest of the continent. So when Edelgard is defeated, the Kingdom is disunited, the Empire is thrown into disarray, and the Alliance remains in disarray. In other words, Fodlan is in chaos - even if it's temporary. This is the perfect time for TWSITD to unleash their secret weapon!

    Remember that we explicitly learn that TWSITD has been seeking chaos for some time. TWSITD have been trying to set Edelgard and Dimitri against each other - when Arundel dies in Azure Moon, he even expresses his desire for them to kill each other. TWSITD didn't just cause the war by inciting the Empire to attack; they also fomented dissent in the Kingdom with the Tragedy of Duscur and set up Dimitri to oppose the Empire. Chaos is their endgame - or rather, a state of chaos where they can effectively unleash Nemesis to subjugate Fodlan is their endgame. We just only get to see this state of chaos at the end of Verdant Wind.

    Summing Up

    So let's review my theory. TWSITD has been seeking two things: a force that can subjugate a disunited Fodlan in the form of a revived Nemesis, and a chaotic Fodlan which will be vulnerable to subjugation by Nemesis. To achieve the first, they plant deep cover operatives within the Monastery, and take advantage of the opportune chaos of White Clouds to steal the Chalice of Beginnings which is necessary to revive Nemesis. To do the second, they foment rebellion and chaos within the Empire and the Kingdom, and set them up to go to war against each other. They may even further cause upheaval within the Alliance by assassinating Claude's uncle - as without Claude's sudden appearance in Fodlan, which TWSITD presumably could not have predicted, the Alliance would have been facing a major succession crisis. While in three of the routes, TWSITD's chaos is thwarted by Byleth's intervention and a strong central government is established, in Verdant Wind, this state of chaos prevails in a reduced form, and TWSITD unleashes Nemesis, ready to take advantage of the chaos to subjugate Fodlan.

    Is this the only theory that can be formed about TWSITD's plot? Probably not; there are few enough clues in the game that it's possible to come to multiple interpretations. But this theory neatly ties together all the plot threads, explains why Nemesis only appears at the end of Verdant Wind, and as a bonus explains the remaining mysteries of the game's plot. So I feel some confidence that it's close to the true explanation.

    submitted by /u/bellarch19
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    Byleth glowing mode

    Posted: 05 May 2020 06:00 PM PDT

    Fire Emblem Heroes - New Heroes (Dark Burdens)

    Posted: 05 May 2020 07:59 PM PDT

    Made an Edit. Hubert looks so much better with a light beard

    Posted: 05 May 2020 09:35 AM PDT

    I drew the Legendary Hero-King Marth! (@hyo oppa) [Anna's Roundtable]

    Posted: 05 May 2020 12:35 AM PDT

    Dimitri Maximoff

    Posted: 05 May 2020 04:46 PM PDT

    Made a beard edit of Hubert earlier. Here’s a couple of Dedue and Dimitri

    Posted: 05 May 2020 07:12 PM PDT

    Byleth & Ike Outfit Swap

    Posted: 05 May 2020 05:08 PM PDT

    Byleth normal mode

    Posted: 05 May 2020 05:59 PM PDT

    The Spanish Used in Fire Emblem Translations

    Posted: 05 May 2020 12:17 PM PDT

    For reference, I'm playing a North American copy of Shadows of Valentia on a North American 3DS. As far as I understand it, Nintendo of Europe and Nintendo of America (I think) translate games for European Spanish and Latin American Spanish separately, or at least in a way that accounts for general differences in Spanish between European and Latin American dialects. I could be wrong on this though and feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

    What I found interesting was that in the North American game, the pronoun vosotros is used very frequently and I don't think I've seen ustedes used at all. In modern Spanish, ustedes is the second person plural pronoun used in Latin America*. In Spain, today, vosotros is used as the informal second person and ustedes is used as the second person formal.

    At first, I thought that for some reason they had chosen to use European Spanish, for some reason, but very quickly–in the prologue–I heard Celica refer to Mycen as vos, a historical pronoun to which vosotros is related. In modern Spanish, there are two second person singular pronouns: tú\** and usted. The former is informal and the latter is formal. Usted evolved from the construction, vuestra merced meaning "Your Grace." Historically, however, vos was used as a formal second person pronoun. In many Latin American countries it is now used instead of or alongside tú as an informal second person pronoun, but it was originally formal in its usage in Spain. The best way I can explain the use of vos in this sense in the Fire Emblem games is almost as if when someone says something like "vos sois" they are saying "thou art" instead of "you are."

    I just found this all very interesting because I've played Fire Emblem games in English and the audio for SoV in my game is also still in English, which is the only option for a North American game that I am aware of. It is interesting that they don't go through the trouble of using a historical variant of English in the games, but they did so with Spanish.

    I don't know if other Fire Emblem games do this with Spanish or if they do this with any other languages that have similar differences between the modern usage of the language and the historical usage.

    Anyways, I hope I'm not the only person that found that interesting and that my explanation wasn't too shitty lol. Stay safe everyone!

    *I'm not a native Spanish speaker. I'm proficient, to an extent, but I primarily use European Spanish and not Latin American Spanish. Please do feel free to correct me.

    **I am aware voseo is a thing in many Latin American countries, but that is used instead of tú and not as a formal pronoun–as far as I understand it.

    submitted by /u/NotFireNation
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    Three Houses should've just been two routes

    Posted: 05 May 2020 03:00 PM PDT

    Three Houses is one of those games where you could make an hour-long pretentious Youtube review and maybe some day someone will do that. For now I'll just focus on its fundamental issue: the game only needed 2 routes - Crimson Flower and Azure Moon.

    The only truly unique route is Crimson Flower, the other three routes are incredibly similar. Verdant Wind is infamous in its cloning of Silver Snow, but even Azure Moon is still very clearly derived from SS.

    This is the inevitable conclusion of the game's roots, as per the developers: "We started with the desire to write a story reminiscent of "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", but we also wanted to include a school life aspect, so we had to have a time of peace during which there needed to be a person who sparked the flames of war. In order for that all to play out, we needed to burden someone with the role of a villain or something similar, so we assigned that to the Empire."

    With Edelgard being the only "villain", the routes are all defined by how they respond to her, and all but CF oppose her. This makes the anti-Edelgard routes feel very same-y since you're doing largely the same things. I think IS intended for the characters + themes to make the three routes feel distinct. Two issues here:

    1. The core question presented by Edelgard's war is: Is starting a war justified for the sake of progress? That's ultimately a yes or no question, no matter how much you qualify it. AM & SS hammer this point in, but AM does it more meaningfully since it expresses its point through Dimitri's war trauma. VW talks about it a little but mainly focuses on its internationalist themes. But internationalism has no place in this game since Edelgard's war is centered entirely in Fodlan (which Claude points out). As much as I like Claude, he is just extra fat to this story. He has a lore dump at the end but that could've been integrated into other routes.

    2. The cross-recruiting mechanic means that house differences end up being irrelevant, since each route has very few truly exclusive characters. I've seen some people respond to this with "well, it's your fault for cross-recruiting!" which is silly. The game offers a lot of incentives to cross-recruit, both in terms of gameplay & writing. A good story in an RPG should be enhanced by engaging with the gameplay, not made worse. If 3H was a truly well-thought out game then threads like these wouldn't exist. While it's true that in-house units get dialogue in the cutscenes, most of it's just irrelevant fluff since it's written with the idea of permadeath in mind. The most flagrant offender of this is SS where most of the BE dialogue in cutscenes is them showing off their quirks instead of digesting the fact that they're rebelling against their homeland.

    Game development doesn't happen in a vacuum, and the implementation of a feature or a concept in a game means that something else has to be left on the cutting room floor. It's pretty clear that 3H as is, is unpolished in a lot of areas and recycles a lot of content & leaves many things unfinished to get 4 routes out the door. Tack the Agarthan exposition onto AM and what does this game end up missing? Imagine what the game would've looked like if they only had two routes to focus on. CF would actually be finished, cross-recruit students could be given more expansion and coherency, and you wouldn't have to play the same maps four fucking times in order to experience the complete story.

    I like 3H, it has some of the highest highs in FE ever. It was really satisfying playing CF and being in the shoes of someone who's proactive about fixing society's ills instead of being purely reactive. Giving each character a paralogue is a brilliant idea. Fodlan is a very strong setting that engages with FE's semi-common "magic blood" cliche in interesting and plausible ways, with its only real hiccups coming from the game's calendar system. Edelgard, Dimitri, and Claude are all really unique lords with a lot of strengths to their writing. But half of the game has no reason to exist, and a lot of the game isn't given breathing room because it has to cram in 4 stories. 3H isn't an unmitigated disaster like Fates, which in a way bothers me more because I can't entirely write off 3H in the way I can Fates.

    tl;dr - IS please cap out your routes at 2

    submitted by /u/professorwarhorse
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    Hilda seems happy! [OC]

    Posted: 05 May 2020 06:25 AM PDT
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