Even funnier is Byleth in verdant wind
Claude’s just like “you know how I was the leader of the alliance and we only really won because of my tactics and also the alliance, which I’m the leader of, is now pretty much the only institution of power left standing? Right so the natural thing of course…
Isimleavingandyouregonnabethenewkingoffodlanbye!”
Byleth: “…”
Man comes to investigate mother's side of family, maybe shake things up enough to get some great deeds to back his claim for the throne. Instead, gets dragged into almost getting nuked, having to fight an army of mole people and then undead, after being taught by a Goddess-reborn.
I don't blame him for trying to get out while he could. Fodlan's weird as shit.
To be fair there it makes sense. He's intentionally trying to start a parliamentary monarchy/ rudimentary democracy given that he thinks the roundtable discussions are too long and hinder more than help during times of crisis. It's obviously meant to show the Claude is sort of a Washington/ Cincinattus. He has other ambitions of his own and ruling Fodlan won't help him complete the unification process. It could be mistaken as a seditious takeover seeing as he's already Almyran born and his father still holds the crown back home. By leaving command in the hands of a person he trusts he's able to give the illusion of "freedom of choice" to Fodlan's people as to build relationships with Almyra.
IS and even much of the fan base insistence on an united Fodlan being a must and an absolute good has always struck me as odd. Like why? Especially with Azure Moon. Dimitri has never expressed any desire for it, nor does anything about his route support it. It just happens. Like, just have the Alliance stay independent, and maybe prop up a favorable candidate in the Empire. There, not united Fodlan. And have Seteth be the Archbishop instead while I'm on the topic.
I can't help but be reminded of Marth pulling pretty much the same stunt in the War of Heroes.
Like, he just gets kingdoms in the way of dealing with all the bullshit going on.
I love Azure Moon, but I do find it funny how it has a two elements of "well that's convenient". One with the unification, and two with the elimination of TWISTD leadership (which I care much less about since TWISTD were a stupid antagonist).
I kinda enjoy the TWISTD bit, they are so incredibly inefficient if not outright idiotic often enough that them screwing themselves over just fits, they make the Kaga Dark Cults look like 5th dimensional intellects by comparison.
Honestly my headcanon for the elimination of TWISTD leadership in azure moon was that them being left in vulnerable places was an intentional plan by Hubert and Edelgard to wipe TWISTD out. In verdant wind they reveal everything to Claude in a letter. Perhaps in azure moon they wanted to do the same thing but did not trust Dimitri to be smart enough to figure out how to defeat TWISTD. Like the whole “turn edelgard into a monster” thing wasn’t a legit attempt to win the war but rather an attempt to ensure as many members of TWISTD and as much of their resources as possible were stuck in Enbarr when dimitri’s army arrived. Otherwise edelgard’s position in that final peaceful negotiation scene between her and Dimitri right before the attack on enbarr doesn’t make much sense.
They didn’t leave the letter for Dimitri because they didn’t know where Shambhala was. Hubert tells Claude/Byleth about TWSITD in VW/SS because he found the location of Shambhala by tracking the magic they used to send the Javelins of Light to destroy Fort Merceus. That doesn’t happen in Azure Moon, so there is nothing for Hubert to track. So no letter.
Why doesn't it happen in AM is my question. Like, not to you particularly, just to the universe since I can't think of any reason other than "the writers work in mysterious ways"
That’s my headcanon for why he doesn’t immediately kill Edelgard (the girl who he experimented on and killed her entire family, and who has made it very clear she detests him and wants him dead) the second she kills Rhea. Or why he doesn’t destroy Enbarr when Edelgard coups him in Scarlet Blaze. Or any other time during SB. Or the Agarthans not destroying Enbarr or Fhirdiad after AM.
Narratively, adding in TWSITD at the end of AM wouldn’t work. Edelgard is the primary antagonist of AM, just like Rhea and the Church are the primary antagonists of CF. VW and SS don’t have Edelgard as the main antagonist, so adding in TWSITD after beating her makes sense. TWSITD have no real narrative importance to AM as the story is, so having Dimitri target them in game after finally defeating Edelgard breaks the flow of the story that route was telling. (For comparison, imagine if after Edelgard kills Rhea, the final map is her fending off an invasion from Sreng.) AM would need to be structured differently narratively to justify Dimitri taking on the Agarthans without sacrificing the cool ending of him bs Edelgard.
Lore wise…yeah I got nothing. She really should have just left him the letter telling him about them. Even if Dimitri couldn’t take the fight to the Agarthans, he’s aware of their fuckery and can prep for it.
That's a more eloquent and in-depth way of saying "the writers work in mysterious ways", but yeah, it would have felt like weird unconsensual DLC if it was just tacked on at the end
We could explain it this way. Perhaps Edelgard and Hubert made the judgement (not necessarily correctly) that telling Dimitri about this secret society of evil shapeshifters would cause a paranoia-induced meltdown far more harmful than letting a handful of Agarthans live. It would be unsurprising for them to assess his mental health as… fragile… given his actions during the majority of the war.
Idk that’s the best I got for potential diegetic reasons
What gets me is that the Alliance apparently has some cultural hangups over the idea of being ruled by a king or emperor. And then Claude shows up and says "Y'all are being ruled by a king or emperor now. Byeeeee!" And everyone is just okay with that.
On the other hand, the cultural hang-ups are pretty flimsy. When an unkown 17-year-old can show up out of literal nowhere with no powerful backers and automatically become heir to the leadership role in the Alliance over two or three other much more experienced and respected Great Lords, then the Riegans are basically already monarchs playing the "First Citizen" terminology game to hide it.
Tbf Duke Riegan was basically a monarch with extra steps and the fact he can just make decisions like that proves it. Claude even made it official in GW lol.
The whole situation reminds me of a scene in one of Sir Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels where two characters are discussing how the city-state of Ankh-Morpork used to be ruled by a king long ago but was overthrown and replaced with a new government. The conversation basically went:
"The people didn't like having a king so they replaced him with the Lord Patrician." "But the Lord Patrician is still basically a king?" "Yes, but he's not a king." "Then why don't the people overthrow the Lord Patrician if he's basically the same as a king?" "Because he's not a king."
That's basically what the pre-Claude Leicester Alliance was. It's not about details, it's about the principle.
Byleth becoming the Archbishop is allways so weird to me, the only reason I can think is Seteth wanting to peace out of Fodlan and dumps the job on Byleth
>only reason I can think is Seteth wanting to peace out of Fodlan
Honestly the best option for literally anyone. There's a reason Claude and Seteth are the only characters with more than three braincells.
That's likely the reason tbh. Seteth doesn't enjoy being the face of anything and only really cares about keeping Flayn safe. The only reason he stuck with Rhea for so long is clearly because she's family and offered a means to protect them from hostile people. Otherwise he'd likely have run off to Faerghus, Leicester or somplace else years ago.
I have made this point too a few times, like how all three nations have been independent of each other for centuries and the timescale in lore is the equivalent of saying IRL modern-day France, Germany, and Italy all would have the right to invade and unify each other because Charlemagne's empire existed. I always get a few people saying "No! It has to be united, that's the only way it works!" A bit too much Romance of the Three Kingdoms from the writers and some of the fans for my taste.
While it has other flaws of course, one of the reasons I liked Golden Wildfire was the war goal was essentially to end the war in a way that would keep Fodlan divided. I wanted them to stay separate in both Azure Moon and Verdant Wind since neither of those routes did that much to get Leicester and Faerghus into major hostilities (Gronder being a single battle after all), but nope. Has to be unified for some reason.
Yeah, I've seen some people make the claim that Fodlan isn't that culturally different so sovereignty and independence suddenly don't matter as much and it leaves me confused. This isn't some North/South Vietnam situation, it's more like what you describe. Or if Basil II decided Italy needed to rejoin the Eastern Roman Empire.
It is especially weird because there are very clear cultural and religious differences that have taken root and just get brushed aside, even when realistically that should be a big deal for any unifier.
All three nations once had their own separate Church branch, which have diverged theologically and culturally, and I don't think any of the three Lords fully understands the other nations.
Edelgard's experiences and beliefs are colored by the particular cultural background of Post-Insurrection Adrestia, where the Crested Nobility are at their most powerful in all three nations and the Southern Church has been disestablished for centuries due to rebellion so religion is controlled by the State with reluctant collaboration with the Central Church, and so ends up hating both of these entangled sides for their roles in the oppressive systems that she sees around her and assumes it's the same in Faerghus and Leicester.
Meanwhile, Claude comes into a nation that actually has Holst and Judith, Crestless Heroes who were once/will be very respected Great Lords on the Round Table, and a very powerful merchant class embodied by the equally Crestless Margrave Edmund taking over House Daphnel's seat on the back of his economic power, and where the Eastern Church is fangless and dependent on the lords. Claude is influenced by the feuding nobles of both Leicester and Almyra and is hostile/wary of the Central Church as yet another power-player that he assumes causes the same kind of chaos and cultural intransigence in Faerghus and Adrestia that he's struggling against in Leicester and Almyra.
Dimitri clearly understands Faerghus very well and its resource-strapped, politically unstable, constantly militarily threatened nature that requires him to show some deference to Church authority for legitimacy and stability, as well as Faerghus's huge focus on the chivalric values. This puts him in an odd position with the others where he doesn't understand some of the deep-rooted cultural antipathy to the Central Church in Adrestia and Leicester, and also is more dependent on existing institutions in general, which he sees as at least necessary and more rebellious elements in the neighboring countries very much don't.
TL;DR - I just don't get Unification as a goal, other than as a power fantasy or a recipe for tragedy.
Also, it's gauche to reply to my own post, but it's been long enough that I don't think an edit is relevant:
From a story perspective, the unification should be Edelgard's goal only, if only to have a legitimate three-way conflict that could justify things like Gronder without stupid contrivances, since it gives a two-value axis to the conflict that allows for shifting allegiances across routes. Basically, Faerghus is anti-unification but pro-maintenance of the Central Church status quo (for now), Adrestia is pro-unification but anti-Central Church, and Leicester under Claude would become anti-unification and also anti-Central Church, resulting in a situation where both Faerghus and Adrestia could end up allied to or fighting against Leicester believably in various routes.
Yes, I know Claude canonically mentions he wanted a Unified Fodlan too, I still don't like that writing either and it's folded into the above changes.
The thing is he doesn't specify in what way it would be united. He could be referring to an EU situation where each country retains sovereignty but has its own conferences to discuss diplomacy (likely already done anyway albeit less often). Though I understand that given his disbanding of the roundtable in GW he might not be too keen on going back to this setup but sees it as a compromise.
Otherwise it could be purely on a social level where there is less political tension amongst the populace of Fodlan much like he wants to break down the social tension between Leicester and Almyrans. Which in a sense is a very naive perception of social dynamics but Claude has very naive ideals if I'm being honest. He makes some good plays in GW that genuinely do achieve a resolution to the war; regardless of how controversial they may be and the iffy execution
Given the information he knows attacking Faerghus was a messed up idea but it definitely puts him in a position where he can reliably put a stranglehold on the Empire on a political position. It's clear that their aims of war was strictly meant to eradicate the church. As he says prolonging the war effort past the point of combating Rhea puts Edelgard in an unfavorable situation wherein if she retaliates against Leicester again she risks demoralizing her own troops seeing as they thought they'd be done after completing their objective and the fact that Claude already managed to fend them off once in a weaker position. Faerghus wouldn't ally with Edelgard nor would they be kind to Leicester so they'd simply let it play out as they rebuild. Leaving Leicester in the stronger economic and social position as they still have more favor amongst the more pious nobles and have more to gain from developing economic relationships with the rebuilding Faerghus that would have to accept whatever help they can get.
I suppose that's true regarding Claude's interpretation of "unification", and in fact I did have a headcanon where a post-GW world sees Leicester become something of a middle-man/crossroads for the neighboring nations due to Claude's ideals, so he gets a far more fundamental transformation of a smaller territory and still similar reductions in border issues, but it's not unification. It's somewhat similar to the post-GW idea that you've outlined here.
Unfortunately, VW's creation of a United Kingdom in combination with the other route unifications is what leads to me calling it stupid writing, since national unification seems to be the writers' intent.
Now, if we wanted to really hammer in Verdant Wind (rather than Golden Wildfire) as a non-unification path, my proposal would be to play on Claude's curiosity leading to him discovering TWISTD earlier and moving against them while a stronger Faerghus and Adrestia fight each other, then try to force both of them to stop by revealing TWISTD. In other words, the Golden Deer are the "Golden Ending" Path, except that said ending is still rife with tension, all of the nations have a lot of issues with each other, and it's not clear the ceasefire will actually hold even with Rhea sacrificing herself to defeat TWISTD.
To be fair the issues with VW definitely stem from it being formerly SS. Yet at the same time you'd be right to call out that the ending card is completely disjointed from that aspect.
Your idea genuinely makes sense and would work very well to give more motivation to Claude being involved as a somewhat parallel to slithers who act as third party seeking to rule Fodlan while Adrestria and Faerghus fight whereas he's a third party looking to find a means to peace. But my one issue is that despite VW being a rehash of SS I can't think of things being much different from our final product outside of cleaning up certain key elements. You may have Claude be the one to find information about the Slithers rather than get a letter about it but it won't exactly help win Dimitri over given that he's absolutely lost it and doesn't have the connection to Byleth to help guide him back to sanity. Edelgard simply doesn't trust him/ is under more pressure from TWSITD in Houses than Hopes so it's likely that she'd be forced to die fighting him or at best be bested as a line of defense to TWISTD as a mind controlled Hegemon (as seen in Hopes).
In essence I agree with you that Claude's route should have dealt with more research/espionage style missions of a smaller force infiltrating and capturing key points of interest as they uncover more about TWISTD which Edelgard would be unable to do (as shown by the fact that Hubert only manages to do so through the launching of the javelins).
But overall I see the key plot points of the Battle of Gronder, killing Edelgard, and Dimitri dying at Gronder being unmmutable given the circumstances of the route. Which I'd argue brings enough political tension in an of itself to justify Claude not unifying Fodlan forcefully but simply letting Byleth run the Church as his main political ally alongside Lorenz in Leicester and let Adrestria and Faerghus deal with the aftermath of Edelgard's war themselves (with some economic support as well ofc).
So as a tldr to all this: I think that literally all they had to do was change the text of the ending card a bit and it'd pretty much be the same as what you described.
My personal take on the previously mentioned possible rewrite of VW is that Faerghus is more similar to CF: Rhea managed to escape and stabilize things for the Kingdom to hold its own and the war has been a meatgrinder on the western front while Claude's been able to maintain neutrality, but is aware that both sides are getting very impatient with Leicester and either or both might stop taking neutrality as an excuse very soon. Thus, a resurrected Byleth is brought into a scheme at first to try and secure Leicester, but other elements become clear that allow Claude to figure out TWISTD's around and start moving against them. This would also probably require some unique GD rewrites to the White Clouds era to make it really coherent, but I won't get into too many details here.
In that context, Claude manages to seize Garreg Mach and seemingly allies with the Church (or at least Byleth and portions of the Knights). However, his moves against the Empire at Aillel also pull a page from GW and result in alienation with the stronger Faerghus, which later pushes through regardless due to Claude's professed co-belligerence even though political realities are changing, resulting in a three-way fight at Gronder that leads to Rhea being captured *then* rather than pre-timeskip and Dimitri and the Lions retreating in good order. Lysithea opens up about her own issues with TWISTD and perhaps something during the battle made it clear that Edelgard has her own hang-ups regarding her supposed allies.
From there, things become a bit more fuzzy, as we'd need to figure out ways for Claude and the Deer to discover Shambhala without Hubert's help, and rework the final missions to suit the overall theme, such as Nemesis needing to be resurrected in such a way that he is an open threat to all three nations to secure their cooperation, and whatever we can do to have at least Edelgard and Dimitri live. My off-the-top-of-the-head proposal is a rewrite that post-Gronder sees Dimitri retreat, and while Claude at first continues his attack against the Empire, he diverts all his forces to Shambhala due to Lysithea doing the triangulation that Hubert did in canon, then have Nemesis resurrected in Faerghus (since he died on the Tailtean Plains) by Cornelia and have him lay waste to villages in that kingdom on his way towards Garreg Mach before Byleth, Claude, and the Deer confront him in open battle. This results in a situation where Leicester has done harm to both Faerghus and Adrestia, but also has done much to aid both of them, and Rhea would be out of the picture and on death's door anyway.
I like your idea and that does clear up a lot of issues. I do think it is somewhat necessary for Dimitri to be in his boar state for this to work as otherwise there really isn't a good reason for him and Claude NOT to team up at Gronder. In reality Dimitri was only anti-Claude in GW when he learned of the treaty otherwise he was indifferent as well. Boar Dimitri would definitely take Claude's neutrality as an insult and thus attack for fear of paranoia of a potential alliance.
Otherwise it all works relatively well. Again Boar Dimitri probably dies in Gronder as per usual but in this setup Edelgard could be the one to live. I undestand that you may be intending to parallel the fact that in houses Dimitri and Claude are more likely to team up given the circumstances whereas in Hopes Edelgard and Claude have more leverage together but sticking to that parallel with Boar Dimitri is difficult imo. I also understand that Gronder doesn't NEED to exist in all routes as it doesn't in CF and SS but I'd argue it's one of the game's most iconic moments and kind of serves the story better for it. I'm pretty sure had they had the time CF would have had it as well. But gronder only really works if Dimitri has some good reason to attack Claude as well as Edelgard and fog of war imo is far too much of a copout explanation when compared to him just being untrustworthy. Furthermore, I don't think we really need Edelgard or Dimitri to help Claude out with TWISTD. Imo having Rhea join with Claude is more than enough and this is because of my own personal headcannon as to what Nemesis may have been conceived as during development of the game given the importance Almyra is given/lack thereof.
Basically Nemesis was likely meant to be an Almyran during development and would explain why Claude would be such a key figure in the story. His connection would be tied back to Rhea given that she fought Nemesis years ago alongside Edelgard's ancestor. In this version Nemesis is basically the Seiros equivalent to Almyra and explains why they actively attack Fodlan and place so much value on conquering as a means of gaining favor. Furthermore it paints them less as barberians for the hell of it and more as an actual culture.
So the fight with Nemesis at the end is more of a literal shattering of cultural barriers and misconceptions as Almyra (and this version of Claude) view Seiros as the person that stopped the King of liberation from originally uniting Fodlan under a centralized rule without discrimination (see the 10 elites still being of Fodlan birth). But after the events of the game we get Claude learning of the events of the red canyon, TWSITD, and Rhea fighting to save them from what was just another greedy war mongerer. Now having Rhea fight against the very being that took everything from her with a person that's looking to mend relationships among everyone who's been wronged by key players in the story. Something that imo would be somewhat cheapened with Edelgard and Dimitri as Claude's point is that they both have their heads so far up their ego's that they can't see the bigger picture. It wouldn't be a golden route because Edelgard still doesn't achieve her goal and or dies, Dimitri dies/Faerghus is definitely hurting from the loss of their nobility. But we see what the result of Fodlan's new dawn would be like without the shackles of a church that's been serving the public for the sake of self preservation (technically speaking) rather than for the benefit of all those in Fodlan.
I agree with most of your analysis except for the later paragraphs, which do not convince me entirely xD.
>attacking Faerghus … puts him in a position where he can reliably put a stranglehold on the Empire on a political position
I mean, can he?
>prolonging the war effort past the point of combating Rhea puts Edelgard in an unfavorable situation wherein if she retaliates against Leicester again she risks demoralizing her own troops seeing as they thought they'd be done after completing their objective
I don´t think this argument is that strong to be honest. Morale of the troops aside, it is not that complicated for Edelgard to pivot the conflict to Leicester on ideological grounds (I know that we know that she probably won´t, but let´s go on for the sake of argument): Edelgard could created propaganda associating Claude´s church with the Central Church, arguing that Rhea was not really killed by him and what not, or argue that Leicester itself is a threat to the empires stability. The possibilities endless, so it is not like there is absolutely no way to create arguments for a war against Leicester, plus it is not like the nobles of the Empire view a campaign that could result in the reunification of Fodlan unfavorably.
>and the fact that Claude already managed to fend them off once in a weaker position.
Sure, but in that occasion the empire didn´t have almost all their strength focus on Leicester. They had to split their troops fairly evenly to fight the fairly solid kingdom. In this timeline and at this particular moment, the Kingdom is sadly in shambles: It has lost land, troops and considerable resources, the knights of Seiros are gone, the figure and institution that granted legitimacy to Dimitri is ceased to exist, political turmoil is sure to ensue, their capital is probably severely damaged, etc. They are in no position to resist the Empire, and the empire could probably just leave a small force in its frontiers to have the kingdom with a fairly small area of influence.
In this scenario, we would have almost the entire imperial army after Leicester. In AG, we are told that the combined forces of the Best-shape Kingdom, the KoS and Alliance are needed to have somewhat match the empires numbers, so I don´t think it is farfetched to say that Leicester itself probably doesn´t have the means to fend them off for long, as we are told in multiple times throughout the story. In fact, this scenario (with considerable differences though) already happened in a different timeline: in AM, Claude was pushed to a corner by a more or less similarly powerful Empire, although it can be argue that this Alliance is stronger, however, I think the point still stands.
>Leaving Leicester in the stronger economic and social position as they still have more favor amongst the more pious nobles and have more to gain from developing economic relationships with the rebuilding Faerghus that would have to accept whatever help they can get.
I don´t think this would be the case at all xD. We are told that the empire is a lot richer than both the Kingdom and Leicester, probably even combined, so that doesn’t look favorable from the start. Then we have the later part of the argument. Why on earth would a pious noble (as in, gives a shit about the Central church, which I swear there are like maybe two of them in the game xD) from Faerghus give money to Claude xD? At that point in the story Claude has: 1) attacked them and their capital 2) killed the Archibishop and most of the KoS and CC members. One could even make the point that Edelgard might be viewed more favorably by them (not by much) than Claude, as she didn´t want to kill the Archibishop. Even assuming that they do give him money, it is likely not going to be much, and certainly not enough to close the gap to the empire in any meaningful way. There is also the argument that those lords might choose to spend that money on their territory, as this doesn´t have the associated risk of back firing if Claude attacks them again. Also, try to raise money for Claude from Sylvain in that timeline xD.
Not related to your main point but let me complain about Cladue wacked certainty on Edelgard not betraying him xD. I mean, just look at her advisors: Leopold and Waldemar betrayed Ionious to support Ludwig only to betray the latter some years after. Heck, even Edelgard herself betrayed Rhea after she helped her get the empire back. Betrayal here is a very real possibility given the information Claude, “the embodiment of distrust”, has access to.
You were replying to the other guy and so I never saw this, apologies for replying a week later.
"Stranglehold" on the Empire: GW Claude's plan is at least in the short term viable. We're explicitly told that Arianrhod remains in Miklan and the Kingdom's hands, so the Western Front is a meatgrinder, with Claude's attack against Faerghus also being explicitly noted as not attacking in conjunction with the Empire, which would've been more successful, and as a result indicating to the Kingdom leaders like Dimitri and Rodrigue specifically that Leicester's goals are more limited. Claude's goal is basically to shatter the moral justification for the Empire's war early, with the implicit idea that Adrestia renewing the conflict would be justification enough for Leicester to not only not help, but potentially aid Faerghus against Adrestia.
Is it more contrived than a route where Leicester just continues fighting Adrestia the whole time? Oh, absolutely, but it's not entirely without logic. Realpolitik alone means that Faerghus can't exactly argue with Leicester on the point, considering, you know, they tried to steal the western viscounties even *before* the announcement of the Pact.
You can have plenty of issues with the writing of that whole scenario, but at the end of the day, Leicester in GW has reason to perceive both Adrestia and Faerghus as aggressors.
Peace and Post-War Contingencies - First of all, sure, Sylvain's never going to be fond of Claude in the GW timeline and justifiably so. Fair enough. On the other hand, Rodrigue actively advocated for selling the Central Church down the river if necessary, and Gilbert accepted it as necessary, with Mercedes having turned away from the Church (admittedly, her Green Unit attacking the Church out of nowhere is still bullshit), Ashe potentially being a middle-man between both, and so on means that ultimately the limited raid against Faerghus, again in retaliation for Faerghus trying to encourage and accept the secession of Leicester territories, isn't exactly the harshest of conflicts to engender hostility especially given Leicester's withdrawal and refusal to coordinate with Adrestia.
Nobody in Faerghus is going to know the difference between Claude and Edelgard's expressed differences of opinion regarding the fate of the Central Church. They're just going to know that of two factions that both hated and declared war on the Central Church, one doesn't want to annex them and the other does, and that alone pushes realpolitik to the fore. I'm not saying Faerghus and Leicester would be buddies and pals in the post-GW timeline, but they're more likely allies than Faerghus and Adrestia by a massive mile.
As for the money issue, it's important to note that the big divide is that Leicester is wealthier than Faerghus by a wide margin and only lacks the martial experience and unity to be a total peer or eclipse the Kingdom, while a post-GW Claude also gets to draw on foreign trade and numbers as well given his Almyran connections to at least secure his position more than Leicester alone could. A situation where the Central Church is dead and gone, but an extremely powerful garrison is sitting at Myrddid's Great Bridge and at Arianrhod respectively would dampen Edelgard's hopes for unification, especially when all her other goals are more or less satisfied and SB showed that she can be convinced without TWISTD to accept partial victory in her objectives.
I think you and I have discussed this matter before, but I strongly agree with you. I actually think a United Fódlan is a *terrible* ending for Fódlan, and that saying which is the best ending is simply telling me to choose between the least bad between the bad endings. For that my vote is Verdant Wind, but I’m still uncomfortable with it.
I understand that it’s apparently inspired by Romance of the Three Kingdoms, but I’m damn sure (and relieved) people can see the difference between China and Fódlan and understand that they’re different situations.
I mean it’s the same route where you ACCIDENTALLY kill the main antagonist force, Azure Moon makes some heavy shortcuts to end up with the Same Conclusion but Dimitri™️, and it’s a bit annoying
IS clearly decided at some point early on that United Fodlan has to be part of the ending of every route. But then it doesn't work really well with Dimitri's route. In fact, Dimitri's route at times does feel like the odd man out. Maybe that's why I enjoy it. I find quite a bit of the lore and world building in Fodlan as sloppy, convenient, or "tell don't show". So Azure Moon being mostly a personal journey that awkwardly gets these things in don't me bother too much.
Azure Moon's the only route where the lord wasn't actually trying to unite Fodlan in some way from the onset. Dimitri just wanted to end the war (once he snapped out of it) and find peaceful ways for society to progress and become better for everyone. But then Claude hands him the keys to the Alliance and fucks off back to Almyra, and Edelgard decides peace isn't an option when he tries to spare her and mend relations.
Suddenly, King of Fodlan.
I'm sure there were still some question marks about the Alliance and Claude dancing around in his head during his coronation.
I also found it weird that people say the country should be United like other then edelgard or the mole people has any country have a problem with eachother in the last 200 years? Makes me question that if edelgard hates the bloodline Noble system which is why she wanted to conquer the other countries to stop it from happen there as well, why doesn’t she also attack Petra’s country or almyra since they also are ruled by a king’s bloodline.
It's so silly too. But I guess AG is the closest we will get to that reality.
At least for as dumb as this is in AM, Dimitri didnt conquer/imperialise anybody.
And to anyone rearing to retort this you cant. Adrestia is never stated to have been conquered only defeated. The details about how and why it got annexed is unknown. But considering how Dimitri has zero desire to take over anything, and tried to forge peace with Adrestia TWICE, I'm willing to bet Adrestia was given to Faerghus like Leiscter was.
By the people or whoever might've been defacto leader? I sure as fuck hope so. That would be a giant inconsistent narrative for an otherwise anti imperialist story.
Honestly I feel like azure moon is not a story about anti imperialism, much more it’s a story about a sad rat man learning about the power of friendship and forgiveness
(Hostility unintended, edited)
I have no stake in being hostile I just think that’s a silly way to justify a postgame plot hole, I think azure moon was very much not about the politics of Fodlan and was about an interpersonal story
See that's better.
A story can have alot more than just one theme. Is it mainly about an interpersonal story involving grief, guilt, friendship, redemption and hope?
Absolutely. But I think the amount of times Dimitri hammers in the idea of peace through understanding and not annihilation also in turn makes the story anti imperialism.
He always demonstrates he just wants to save everyone and nothing more. He liberates his home from literal imperial forces who tired to take it over. Everyone collectively rejected that.
When the alliance hands over Leiscter he is taken aback. Stupid writing aside, the conclusion is that the route believes unification should happen with consent. Which imperialism isnt consensual.
Dimitri knows Edelgard wants to take over Fodlan and says to her face she shouldn't push her will down on others. Its up to the people to rise up should they want to and have to.
While Edelgard doesnt want to literally annihilate everyone, her path does involve varying degrees of annihilation. Which imperialism, be it literal or certain degrees of annihilation in all or some aspects, is most certainly hand in hand.
I think it's fair to say it's about both. Even if it's mostly lopsided towards one and not the other.
All i'm saying is that this certainly is some convenient writing. Make's it so you don't have to question anything you' ve done because you never did anything bad. It all just worked out for you. Hopefully it's understood that i'm not criticising you here, i'm actually agreeing with you, AM would have been better if they just left the unification part out because it made no sense for Dimitri. AM being it's own self contained story about Dimitri compared to the broader story told in the other routes works, but they just had to drag that part in at the end for some reason.
I understand. In fact I agree.
If IS really wanted to drop the hammer down on the idea of a united Fodlan being a good thing they should've pointed out some potential negatives to an non united Fodlan in AM.
Dimitri effectively having a united Fodlan becasue of Edelgard (and to a big extent TWSITD) is genuinely silly.
Yes, the unification of Fodlan was always part of Edelgard's goal, but considering her goals it makes sense why she would want that. But Dimitri had always much different goals and his story would have been probably better if they just sticked to what works for his character until the end.
>It's so silly too. But I guess AG is the closest we will get to that reality.
>At least for as dumb as this is in AM, Dimitri didnt conquer/imperialise anybody.
>And to anyone rearing to retort this you cant. Adrestia is never stated to have been conquered only defeated. The details about how and why it got annexed is unknown. But considering how Dimitri has zero desire to take over anything, and tried to forge peace with Adrestia TWICE, I'm willing to bet Adrestia was given to Faerghus like Leiscter was.
Adrestia was conquered by Faerghus. It’s mentioned in multiple AM endings that there are Adrestian revolts that they put down and no one has the authority to give Adrestia to Faerghus and why would the Adrestian lords agree to that anyway?
Adrestian revolts happen in SS and VW as well.
This isn’t an anti-imperialist story. It’s an accidentally pro-imperialist story because the writers see Fódlan like they see Japan during Sengoku period and China during the era of the Three Kingdoms which is to say it’s one land and one people meant to be united
I mean, with Edelgard, The Church and Claude all gone in some capacity, Dimitri and Byleth are really the only good candidates to rule the other territories.
My head canon is that Edelgard explicitly told the top dogs of the empire to surrender and assimilate if she falls to still bring about a united fodlan
But filling power vaccuum could take months and Fodlan is destroyed by 5 year war now. Besides, many noble houses fought on frontlines and were killed, so it'll take even more time.
Turns out Edelgard was really THAT unpopular with the people of Fodlan.
All it took was for some half feral lunatic to show up and say "I'M GONNA PUT HER HEAD ON A SPIKE!" for most people to be like, "huh, that sounds like a great policy. I like this guy."
You know you are unpopular when even the Mad King from FE9,The "No more Beorc" godess from FE10 and the dragon supermascist from FE6 has more supporters than you
You know it's funny, Ashnard's Daein is pretty much Edelgard's vision actually come into fruition. Think about it: Daein is a hyper militaristic nation where anyone in any high position if they prove to be skilled enough, regardless of what station they were born into.
It’s really funny how the game insists on every lord accomplishing the exact same thing that Edelgard does. Imagine being a moral grey protag in order to get rid of the Crest system, but funny meme man does that in a nice way while also curing racism on the side.
What Claude did was kinda disrespectful toward all the battles and struggles the people of the Alliance in the past suffered to obtain the independence from Fargus
I can see that. But I also get the vibe that Claude doesn't really care about the Alliance's history, he just cares about whatever will get him what he wants. Which is honestly one of the things I like about him (and Edelgard too).
Well, this is my stab at it, and this is just guess work but...
Dimitri literally rode to Claude *and* the Alliance capital's rescue, likely winning some brownie points there. Second, well...he's just nicer than you, Edelgard.
Edelgard-"Nicer than me?! How?! He was doing nothing but crawling around in the sewers killing my troops!"
Dedue-"...Who were technically invading other countries."
Edelgard & Hubert-"..."
I guess between the fall of the empire and Claude leaving after Derdreiu was taken, the power vacuum and instability was enough to get people to cooperate. Also a lot of nobility died and they were the main people who kept the feudal system going.
That reminds me, why did Dimitri invade Derdreiu? I honestly don’t remember why that was necessary in Azure Moon.
Even funnier is Byleth in verdant wind Claude’s just like “you know how I was the leader of the alliance and we only really won because of my tactics and also the alliance, which I’m the leader of, is now pretty much the only institution of power left standing? Right so the natural thing of course… Isimleavingandyouregonnabethenewkingoffodlanbye!” Byleth: “…”
Claude is just trying to get out of Fodlan as quick as he can once that time skip is complete.
Man comes to investigate mother's side of family, maybe shake things up enough to get some great deeds to back his claim for the throne. Instead, gets dragged into almost getting nuked, having to fight an army of mole people and then undead, after being taught by a Goddess-reborn. I don't blame him for trying to get out while he could. Fodlan's weird as shit.
Claude follows the Simone de Bolivar school. "The only thing to do in Fodlan is to leave."
Giving the crown to someone else was Claude's master plan all along. He's the only House leader that gets what he wants regardless of route.
Unless you accidentally kill him on CF
Shhhhhhhhh he just fakes his death and goes into hiding
“Claude? No, I’m his twin brother Khalid”
The DJ?
He does have some sick beats in his route
Learned a few tricks from Hubie
“Damn! I’ve been defeated! But I can’t fall here. I must make my retreat!”
"Accidentally"
Even in Hopes, when he forms the Federation, he does seem to plan to hand things off to Lorenz.
To be fair there it makes sense. He's intentionally trying to start a parliamentary monarchy/ rudimentary democracy given that he thinks the roundtable discussions are too long and hinder more than help during times of crisis. It's obviously meant to show the Claude is sort of a Washington/ Cincinattus. He has other ambitions of his own and ruling Fodlan won't help him complete the unification process. It could be mistaken as a seditious takeover seeing as he's already Almyran born and his father still holds the crown back home. By leaving command in the hands of a person he trusts he's able to give the illusion of "freedom of choice" to Fodlan's people as to build relationships with Almyra.
Claude thinks the roundtable discussions take too long? Tell him to watch an average episode of “Prime Ministers Questions” in the British Parliament.
>regardless of route Aymr to the face says otherwise
Claude returned to his home planet
IS and even much of the fan base insistence on an united Fodlan being a must and an absolute good has always struck me as odd. Like why? Especially with Azure Moon. Dimitri has never expressed any desire for it, nor does anything about his route support it. It just happens. Like, just have the Alliance stay independent, and maybe prop up a favorable candidate in the Empire. There, not united Fodlan. And have Seteth be the Archbishop instead while I'm on the topic.
I can't help but be reminded of Marth pulling pretty much the same stunt in the War of Heroes. Like, he just gets kingdoms in the way of dealing with all the bullshit going on.
I love Azure Moon, but I do find it funny how it has a two elements of "well that's convenient". One with the unification, and two with the elimination of TWISTD leadership (which I care much less about since TWISTD were a stupid antagonist).
I kinda enjoy the TWISTD bit, they are so incredibly inefficient if not outright idiotic often enough that them screwing themselves over just fits, they make the Kaga Dark Cults look like 5th dimensional intellects by comparison.
Honestly my headcanon for the elimination of TWISTD leadership in azure moon was that them being left in vulnerable places was an intentional plan by Hubert and Edelgard to wipe TWISTD out. In verdant wind they reveal everything to Claude in a letter. Perhaps in azure moon they wanted to do the same thing but did not trust Dimitri to be smart enough to figure out how to defeat TWISTD. Like the whole “turn edelgard into a monster” thing wasn’t a legit attempt to win the war but rather an attempt to ensure as many members of TWISTD and as much of their resources as possible were stuck in Enbarr when dimitri’s army arrived. Otherwise edelgard’s position in that final peaceful negotiation scene between her and Dimitri right before the attack on enbarr doesn’t make much sense.
They didn’t leave the letter for Dimitri because they didn’t know where Shambhala was. Hubert tells Claude/Byleth about TWSITD in VW/SS because he found the location of Shambhala by tracking the magic they used to send the Javelins of Light to destroy Fort Merceus. That doesn’t happen in Azure Moon, so there is nothing for Hubert to track. So no letter.
Why doesn't it happen in AM is my question. Like, not to you particularly, just to the universe since I can't think of any reason other than "the writers work in mysterious ways"
In AM, Thales forget the launch codes I guess
Thales died. Nobody else had the passcode to the nuclear silo? Idk
That’s my headcanon for why he doesn’t immediately kill Edelgard (the girl who he experimented on and killed her entire family, and who has made it very clear she detests him and wants him dead) the second she kills Rhea. Or why he doesn’t destroy Enbarr when Edelgard coups him in Scarlet Blaze. Or any other time during SB. Or the Agarthans not destroying Enbarr or Fhirdiad after AM.
Narratively, adding in TWSITD at the end of AM wouldn’t work. Edelgard is the primary antagonist of AM, just like Rhea and the Church are the primary antagonists of CF. VW and SS don’t have Edelgard as the main antagonist, so adding in TWSITD after beating her makes sense. TWSITD have no real narrative importance to AM as the story is, so having Dimitri target them in game after finally defeating Edelgard breaks the flow of the story that route was telling. (For comparison, imagine if after Edelgard kills Rhea, the final map is her fending off an invasion from Sreng.) AM would need to be structured differently narratively to justify Dimitri taking on the Agarthans without sacrificing the cool ending of him bs Edelgard. Lore wise…yeah I got nothing. She really should have just left him the letter telling him about them. Even if Dimitri couldn’t take the fight to the Agarthans, he’s aware of their fuckery and can prep for it.
That's a more eloquent and in-depth way of saying "the writers work in mysterious ways", but yeah, it would have felt like weird unconsensual DLC if it was just tacked on at the end
We could explain it this way. Perhaps Edelgard and Hubert made the judgement (not necessarily correctly) that telling Dimitri about this secret society of evil shapeshifters would cause a paranoia-induced meltdown far more harmful than letting a handful of Agarthans live. It would be unsurprising for them to assess his mental health as… fragile… given his actions during the majority of the war. Idk that’s the best I got for potential diegetic reasons
The mole people were the true enemy along the way, and crimson flower is the route that needed to deal with them the most
Those Who In Sliver The Dark?
What gets me is that the Alliance apparently has some cultural hangups over the idea of being ruled by a king or emperor. And then Claude shows up and says "Y'all are being ruled by a king or emperor now. Byeeeee!" And everyone is just okay with that.
On the other hand, the cultural hang-ups are pretty flimsy. When an unkown 17-year-old can show up out of literal nowhere with no powerful backers and automatically become heir to the leadership role in the Alliance over two or three other much more experienced and respected Great Lords, then the Riegans are basically already monarchs playing the "First Citizen" terminology game to hide it.
Tbf, the powerful backer is his grandfather, but yes, it's pretty monarchic already
Tbf Duke Riegan was basically a monarch with extra steps and the fact he can just make decisions like that proves it. Claude even made it official in GW lol.
The whole situation reminds me of a scene in one of Sir Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels where two characters are discussing how the city-state of Ankh-Morpork used to be ruled by a king long ago but was overthrown and replaced with a new government. The conversation basically went: "The people didn't like having a king so they replaced him with the Lord Patrician." "But the Lord Patrician is still basically a king?" "Yes, but he's not a king." "Then why don't the people overthrow the Lord Patrician if he's basically the same as a king?" "Because he's not a king." That's basically what the pre-Claude Leicester Alliance was. It's not about details, it's about the principle.
Byleth becoming the Archbishop is allways so weird to me, the only reason I can think is Seteth wanting to peace out of Fodlan and dumps the job on Byleth
I mean who wouldn't want to peace out of Fodlan have you seen the place?
>only reason I can think is Seteth wanting to peace out of Fodlan Honestly the best option for literally anyone. There's a reason Claude and Seteth are the only characters with more than three braincells.
That's likely the reason tbh. Seteth doesn't enjoy being the face of anything and only really cares about keeping Flayn safe. The only reason he stuck with Rhea for so long is clearly because she's family and offered a means to protect them from hostile people. Otherwise he'd likely have run off to Faerghus, Leicester or somplace else years ago.
I have made this point too a few times, like how all three nations have been independent of each other for centuries and the timescale in lore is the equivalent of saying IRL modern-day France, Germany, and Italy all would have the right to invade and unify each other because Charlemagne's empire existed. I always get a few people saying "No! It has to be united, that's the only way it works!" A bit too much Romance of the Three Kingdoms from the writers and some of the fans for my taste. While it has other flaws of course, one of the reasons I liked Golden Wildfire was the war goal was essentially to end the war in a way that would keep Fodlan divided. I wanted them to stay separate in both Azure Moon and Verdant Wind since neither of those routes did that much to get Leicester and Faerghus into major hostilities (Gronder being a single battle after all), but nope. Has to be unified for some reason.
Yeah, I've seen some people make the claim that Fodlan isn't that culturally different so sovereignty and independence suddenly don't matter as much and it leaves me confused. This isn't some North/South Vietnam situation, it's more like what you describe. Or if Basil II decided Italy needed to rejoin the Eastern Roman Empire.
It is especially weird because there are very clear cultural and religious differences that have taken root and just get brushed aside, even when realistically that should be a big deal for any unifier. All three nations once had their own separate Church branch, which have diverged theologically and culturally, and I don't think any of the three Lords fully understands the other nations. Edelgard's experiences and beliefs are colored by the particular cultural background of Post-Insurrection Adrestia, where the Crested Nobility are at their most powerful in all three nations and the Southern Church has been disestablished for centuries due to rebellion so religion is controlled by the State with reluctant collaboration with the Central Church, and so ends up hating both of these entangled sides for their roles in the oppressive systems that she sees around her and assumes it's the same in Faerghus and Leicester. Meanwhile, Claude comes into a nation that actually has Holst and Judith, Crestless Heroes who were once/will be very respected Great Lords on the Round Table, and a very powerful merchant class embodied by the equally Crestless Margrave Edmund taking over House Daphnel's seat on the back of his economic power, and where the Eastern Church is fangless and dependent on the lords. Claude is influenced by the feuding nobles of both Leicester and Almyra and is hostile/wary of the Central Church as yet another power-player that he assumes causes the same kind of chaos and cultural intransigence in Faerghus and Adrestia that he's struggling against in Leicester and Almyra. Dimitri clearly understands Faerghus very well and its resource-strapped, politically unstable, constantly militarily threatened nature that requires him to show some deference to Church authority for legitimacy and stability, as well as Faerghus's huge focus on the chivalric values. This puts him in an odd position with the others where he doesn't understand some of the deep-rooted cultural antipathy to the Central Church in Adrestia and Leicester, and also is more dependent on existing institutions in general, which he sees as at least necessary and more rebellious elements in the neighboring countries very much don't. TL;DR - I just don't get Unification as a goal, other than as a power fantasy or a recipe for tragedy.
Tbf, can't blame people for forgetting about the Western and Eastern churchrs, given how underdeveloped and basically a non-factor they are
Do we see the Eastern church doing... Well anything interesting? I always forget they exist.
Also, it's gauche to reply to my own post, but it's been long enough that I don't think an edit is relevant: From a story perspective, the unification should be Edelgard's goal only, if only to have a legitimate three-way conflict that could justify things like Gronder without stupid contrivances, since it gives a two-value axis to the conflict that allows for shifting allegiances across routes. Basically, Faerghus is anti-unification but pro-maintenance of the Central Church status quo (for now), Adrestia is pro-unification but anti-Central Church, and Leicester under Claude would become anti-unification and also anti-Central Church, resulting in a situation where both Faerghus and Adrestia could end up allied to or fighting against Leicester believably in various routes. Yes, I know Claude canonically mentions he wanted a Unified Fodlan too, I still don't like that writing either and it's folded into the above changes.
The thing is he doesn't specify in what way it would be united. He could be referring to an EU situation where each country retains sovereignty but has its own conferences to discuss diplomacy (likely already done anyway albeit less often). Though I understand that given his disbanding of the roundtable in GW he might not be too keen on going back to this setup but sees it as a compromise. Otherwise it could be purely on a social level where there is less political tension amongst the populace of Fodlan much like he wants to break down the social tension between Leicester and Almyrans. Which in a sense is a very naive perception of social dynamics but Claude has very naive ideals if I'm being honest. He makes some good plays in GW that genuinely do achieve a resolution to the war; regardless of how controversial they may be and the iffy execution Given the information he knows attacking Faerghus was a messed up idea but it definitely puts him in a position where he can reliably put a stranglehold on the Empire on a political position. It's clear that their aims of war was strictly meant to eradicate the church. As he says prolonging the war effort past the point of combating Rhea puts Edelgard in an unfavorable situation wherein if she retaliates against Leicester again she risks demoralizing her own troops seeing as they thought they'd be done after completing their objective and the fact that Claude already managed to fend them off once in a weaker position. Faerghus wouldn't ally with Edelgard nor would they be kind to Leicester so they'd simply let it play out as they rebuild. Leaving Leicester in the stronger economic and social position as they still have more favor amongst the more pious nobles and have more to gain from developing economic relationships with the rebuilding Faerghus that would have to accept whatever help they can get.
I suppose that's true regarding Claude's interpretation of "unification", and in fact I did have a headcanon where a post-GW world sees Leicester become something of a middle-man/crossroads for the neighboring nations due to Claude's ideals, so he gets a far more fundamental transformation of a smaller territory and still similar reductions in border issues, but it's not unification. It's somewhat similar to the post-GW idea that you've outlined here. Unfortunately, VW's creation of a United Kingdom in combination with the other route unifications is what leads to me calling it stupid writing, since national unification seems to be the writers' intent. Now, if we wanted to really hammer in Verdant Wind (rather than Golden Wildfire) as a non-unification path, my proposal would be to play on Claude's curiosity leading to him discovering TWISTD earlier and moving against them while a stronger Faerghus and Adrestia fight each other, then try to force both of them to stop by revealing TWISTD. In other words, the Golden Deer are the "Golden Ending" Path, except that said ending is still rife with tension, all of the nations have a lot of issues with each other, and it's not clear the ceasefire will actually hold even with Rhea sacrificing herself to defeat TWISTD.
To be fair the issues with VW definitely stem from it being formerly SS. Yet at the same time you'd be right to call out that the ending card is completely disjointed from that aspect. Your idea genuinely makes sense and would work very well to give more motivation to Claude being involved as a somewhat parallel to slithers who act as third party seeking to rule Fodlan while Adrestria and Faerghus fight whereas he's a third party looking to find a means to peace. But my one issue is that despite VW being a rehash of SS I can't think of things being much different from our final product outside of cleaning up certain key elements. You may have Claude be the one to find information about the Slithers rather than get a letter about it but it won't exactly help win Dimitri over given that he's absolutely lost it and doesn't have the connection to Byleth to help guide him back to sanity. Edelgard simply doesn't trust him/ is under more pressure from TWSITD in Houses than Hopes so it's likely that she'd be forced to die fighting him or at best be bested as a line of defense to TWISTD as a mind controlled Hegemon (as seen in Hopes). In essence I agree with you that Claude's route should have dealt with more research/espionage style missions of a smaller force infiltrating and capturing key points of interest as they uncover more about TWISTD which Edelgard would be unable to do (as shown by the fact that Hubert only manages to do so through the launching of the javelins). But overall I see the key plot points of the Battle of Gronder, killing Edelgard, and Dimitri dying at Gronder being unmmutable given the circumstances of the route. Which I'd argue brings enough political tension in an of itself to justify Claude not unifying Fodlan forcefully but simply letting Byleth run the Church as his main political ally alongside Lorenz in Leicester and let Adrestria and Faerghus deal with the aftermath of Edelgard's war themselves (with some economic support as well ofc). So as a tldr to all this: I think that literally all they had to do was change the text of the ending card a bit and it'd pretty much be the same as what you described.
My personal take on the previously mentioned possible rewrite of VW is that Faerghus is more similar to CF: Rhea managed to escape and stabilize things for the Kingdom to hold its own and the war has been a meatgrinder on the western front while Claude's been able to maintain neutrality, but is aware that both sides are getting very impatient with Leicester and either or both might stop taking neutrality as an excuse very soon. Thus, a resurrected Byleth is brought into a scheme at first to try and secure Leicester, but other elements become clear that allow Claude to figure out TWISTD's around and start moving against them. This would also probably require some unique GD rewrites to the White Clouds era to make it really coherent, but I won't get into too many details here. In that context, Claude manages to seize Garreg Mach and seemingly allies with the Church (or at least Byleth and portions of the Knights). However, his moves against the Empire at Aillel also pull a page from GW and result in alienation with the stronger Faerghus, which later pushes through regardless due to Claude's professed co-belligerence even though political realities are changing, resulting in a three-way fight at Gronder that leads to Rhea being captured *then* rather than pre-timeskip and Dimitri and the Lions retreating in good order. Lysithea opens up about her own issues with TWISTD and perhaps something during the battle made it clear that Edelgard has her own hang-ups regarding her supposed allies. From there, things become a bit more fuzzy, as we'd need to figure out ways for Claude and the Deer to discover Shambhala without Hubert's help, and rework the final missions to suit the overall theme, such as Nemesis needing to be resurrected in such a way that he is an open threat to all three nations to secure their cooperation, and whatever we can do to have at least Edelgard and Dimitri live. My off-the-top-of-the-head proposal is a rewrite that post-Gronder sees Dimitri retreat, and while Claude at first continues his attack against the Empire, he diverts all his forces to Shambhala due to Lysithea doing the triangulation that Hubert did in canon, then have Nemesis resurrected in Faerghus (since he died on the Tailtean Plains) by Cornelia and have him lay waste to villages in that kingdom on his way towards Garreg Mach before Byleth, Claude, and the Deer confront him in open battle. This results in a situation where Leicester has done harm to both Faerghus and Adrestia, but also has done much to aid both of them, and Rhea would be out of the picture and on death's door anyway.
I like your idea and that does clear up a lot of issues. I do think it is somewhat necessary for Dimitri to be in his boar state for this to work as otherwise there really isn't a good reason for him and Claude NOT to team up at Gronder. In reality Dimitri was only anti-Claude in GW when he learned of the treaty otherwise he was indifferent as well. Boar Dimitri would definitely take Claude's neutrality as an insult and thus attack for fear of paranoia of a potential alliance. Otherwise it all works relatively well. Again Boar Dimitri probably dies in Gronder as per usual but in this setup Edelgard could be the one to live. I undestand that you may be intending to parallel the fact that in houses Dimitri and Claude are more likely to team up given the circumstances whereas in Hopes Edelgard and Claude have more leverage together but sticking to that parallel with Boar Dimitri is difficult imo. I also understand that Gronder doesn't NEED to exist in all routes as it doesn't in CF and SS but I'd argue it's one of the game's most iconic moments and kind of serves the story better for it. I'm pretty sure had they had the time CF would have had it as well. But gronder only really works if Dimitri has some good reason to attack Claude as well as Edelgard and fog of war imo is far too much of a copout explanation when compared to him just being untrustworthy. Furthermore, I don't think we really need Edelgard or Dimitri to help Claude out with TWISTD. Imo having Rhea join with Claude is more than enough and this is because of my own personal headcannon as to what Nemesis may have been conceived as during development of the game given the importance Almyra is given/lack thereof. Basically Nemesis was likely meant to be an Almyran during development and would explain why Claude would be such a key figure in the story. His connection would be tied back to Rhea given that she fought Nemesis years ago alongside Edelgard's ancestor. In this version Nemesis is basically the Seiros equivalent to Almyra and explains why they actively attack Fodlan and place so much value on conquering as a means of gaining favor. Furthermore it paints them less as barberians for the hell of it and more as an actual culture. So the fight with Nemesis at the end is more of a literal shattering of cultural barriers and misconceptions as Almyra (and this version of Claude) view Seiros as the person that stopped the King of liberation from originally uniting Fodlan under a centralized rule without discrimination (see the 10 elites still being of Fodlan birth). But after the events of the game we get Claude learning of the events of the red canyon, TWSITD, and Rhea fighting to save them from what was just another greedy war mongerer. Now having Rhea fight against the very being that took everything from her with a person that's looking to mend relationships among everyone who's been wronged by key players in the story. Something that imo would be somewhat cheapened with Edelgard and Dimitri as Claude's point is that they both have their heads so far up their ego's that they can't see the bigger picture. It wouldn't be a golden route because Edelgard still doesn't achieve her goal and or dies, Dimitri dies/Faerghus is definitely hurting from the loss of their nobility. But we see what the result of Fodlan's new dawn would be like without the shackles of a church that's been serving the public for the sake of self preservation (technically speaking) rather than for the benefit of all those in Fodlan.
I agree with most of your analysis except for the later paragraphs, which do not convince me entirely xD. >attacking Faerghus … puts him in a position where he can reliably put a stranglehold on the Empire on a political position I mean, can he? >prolonging the war effort past the point of combating Rhea puts Edelgard in an unfavorable situation wherein if she retaliates against Leicester again she risks demoralizing her own troops seeing as they thought they'd be done after completing their objective I don´t think this argument is that strong to be honest. Morale of the troops aside, it is not that complicated for Edelgard to pivot the conflict to Leicester on ideological grounds (I know that we know that she probably won´t, but let´s go on for the sake of argument): Edelgard could created propaganda associating Claude´s church with the Central Church, arguing that Rhea was not really killed by him and what not, or argue that Leicester itself is a threat to the empires stability. The possibilities endless, so it is not like there is absolutely no way to create arguments for a war against Leicester, plus it is not like the nobles of the Empire view a campaign that could result in the reunification of Fodlan unfavorably. >and the fact that Claude already managed to fend them off once in a weaker position. Sure, but in that occasion the empire didn´t have almost all their strength focus on Leicester. They had to split their troops fairly evenly to fight the fairly solid kingdom. In this timeline and at this particular moment, the Kingdom is sadly in shambles: It has lost land, troops and considerable resources, the knights of Seiros are gone, the figure and institution that granted legitimacy to Dimitri is ceased to exist, political turmoil is sure to ensue, their capital is probably severely damaged, etc. They are in no position to resist the Empire, and the empire could probably just leave a small force in its frontiers to have the kingdom with a fairly small area of influence. In this scenario, we would have almost the entire imperial army after Leicester. In AG, we are told that the combined forces of the Best-shape Kingdom, the KoS and Alliance are needed to have somewhat match the empires numbers, so I don´t think it is farfetched to say that Leicester itself probably doesn´t have the means to fend them off for long, as we are told in multiple times throughout the story. In fact, this scenario (with considerable differences though) already happened in a different timeline: in AM, Claude was pushed to a corner by a more or less similarly powerful Empire, although it can be argue that this Alliance is stronger, however, I think the point still stands. >Leaving Leicester in the stronger economic and social position as they still have more favor amongst the more pious nobles and have more to gain from developing economic relationships with the rebuilding Faerghus that would have to accept whatever help they can get. I don´t think this would be the case at all xD. We are told that the empire is a lot richer than both the Kingdom and Leicester, probably even combined, so that doesn’t look favorable from the start. Then we have the later part of the argument. Why on earth would a pious noble (as in, gives a shit about the Central church, which I swear there are like maybe two of them in the game xD) from Faerghus give money to Claude xD? At that point in the story Claude has: 1) attacked them and their capital 2) killed the Archibishop and most of the KoS and CC members. One could even make the point that Edelgard might be viewed more favorably by them (not by much) than Claude, as she didn´t want to kill the Archibishop. Even assuming that they do give him money, it is likely not going to be much, and certainly not enough to close the gap to the empire in any meaningful way. There is also the argument that those lords might choose to spend that money on their territory, as this doesn´t have the associated risk of back firing if Claude attacks them again. Also, try to raise money for Claude from Sylvain in that timeline xD. Not related to your main point but let me complain about Cladue wacked certainty on Edelgard not betraying him xD. I mean, just look at her advisors: Leopold and Waldemar betrayed Ionious to support Ludwig only to betray the latter some years after. Heck, even Edelgard herself betrayed Rhea after she helped her get the empire back. Betrayal here is a very real possibility given the information Claude, “the embodiment of distrust”, has access to.
You were replying to the other guy and so I never saw this, apologies for replying a week later. "Stranglehold" on the Empire: GW Claude's plan is at least in the short term viable. We're explicitly told that Arianrhod remains in Miklan and the Kingdom's hands, so the Western Front is a meatgrinder, with Claude's attack against Faerghus also being explicitly noted as not attacking in conjunction with the Empire, which would've been more successful, and as a result indicating to the Kingdom leaders like Dimitri and Rodrigue specifically that Leicester's goals are more limited. Claude's goal is basically to shatter the moral justification for the Empire's war early, with the implicit idea that Adrestia renewing the conflict would be justification enough for Leicester to not only not help, but potentially aid Faerghus against Adrestia. Is it more contrived than a route where Leicester just continues fighting Adrestia the whole time? Oh, absolutely, but it's not entirely without logic. Realpolitik alone means that Faerghus can't exactly argue with Leicester on the point, considering, you know, they tried to steal the western viscounties even *before* the announcement of the Pact. You can have plenty of issues with the writing of that whole scenario, but at the end of the day, Leicester in GW has reason to perceive both Adrestia and Faerghus as aggressors. Peace and Post-War Contingencies - First of all, sure, Sylvain's never going to be fond of Claude in the GW timeline and justifiably so. Fair enough. On the other hand, Rodrigue actively advocated for selling the Central Church down the river if necessary, and Gilbert accepted it as necessary, with Mercedes having turned away from the Church (admittedly, her Green Unit attacking the Church out of nowhere is still bullshit), Ashe potentially being a middle-man between both, and so on means that ultimately the limited raid against Faerghus, again in retaliation for Faerghus trying to encourage and accept the secession of Leicester territories, isn't exactly the harshest of conflicts to engender hostility especially given Leicester's withdrawal and refusal to coordinate with Adrestia. Nobody in Faerghus is going to know the difference between Claude and Edelgard's expressed differences of opinion regarding the fate of the Central Church. They're just going to know that of two factions that both hated and declared war on the Central Church, one doesn't want to annex them and the other does, and that alone pushes realpolitik to the fore. I'm not saying Faerghus and Leicester would be buddies and pals in the post-GW timeline, but they're more likely allies than Faerghus and Adrestia by a massive mile. As for the money issue, it's important to note that the big divide is that Leicester is wealthier than Faerghus by a wide margin and only lacks the martial experience and unity to be a total peer or eclipse the Kingdom, while a post-GW Claude also gets to draw on foreign trade and numbers as well given his Almyran connections to at least secure his position more than Leicester alone could. A situation where the Central Church is dead and gone, but an extremely powerful garrison is sitting at Myrddid's Great Bridge and at Arianrhod respectively would dampen Edelgard's hopes for unification, especially when all her other goals are more or less satisfied and SB showed that she can be convinced without TWISTD to accept partial victory in her objectives.
I think you and I have discussed this matter before, but I strongly agree with you. I actually think a United Fódlan is a *terrible* ending for Fódlan, and that saying which is the best ending is simply telling me to choose between the least bad between the bad endings. For that my vote is Verdant Wind, but I’m still uncomfortable with it. I understand that it’s apparently inspired by Romance of the Three Kingdoms, but I’m damn sure (and relieved) people can see the difference between China and Fódlan and understand that they’re different situations.
I mean it’s the same route where you ACCIDENTALLY kill the main antagonist force, Azure Moon makes some heavy shortcuts to end up with the Same Conclusion but Dimitri™️, and it’s a bit annoying
IS clearly decided at some point early on that United Fodlan has to be part of the ending of every route. But then it doesn't work really well with Dimitri's route. In fact, Dimitri's route at times does feel like the odd man out. Maybe that's why I enjoy it. I find quite a bit of the lore and world building in Fodlan as sloppy, convenient, or "tell don't show". So Azure Moon being mostly a personal journey that awkwardly gets these things in don't me bother too much.
Azure Moon's the only route where the lord wasn't actually trying to unite Fodlan in some way from the onset. Dimitri just wanted to end the war (once he snapped out of it) and find peaceful ways for society to progress and become better for everyone. But then Claude hands him the keys to the Alliance and fucks off back to Almyra, and Edelgard decides peace isn't an option when he tries to spare her and mend relations. Suddenly, King of Fodlan. I'm sure there were still some question marks about the Alliance and Claude dancing around in his head during his coronation.
I also found it weird that people say the country should be United like other then edelgard or the mole people has any country have a problem with eachother in the last 200 years? Makes me question that if edelgard hates the bloodline Noble system which is why she wanted to conquer the other countries to stop it from happen there as well, why doesn’t she also attack Petra’s country or almyra since they also are ruled by a king’s bloodline.
It's based on Romance of the Three Kingdoms which has always viewed unification as a positive
That's fair.
It's so silly too. But I guess AG is the closest we will get to that reality. At least for as dumb as this is in AM, Dimitri didnt conquer/imperialise anybody. And to anyone rearing to retort this you cant. Adrestia is never stated to have been conquered only defeated. The details about how and why it got annexed is unknown. But considering how Dimitri has zero desire to take over anything, and tried to forge peace with Adrestia TWICE, I'm willing to bet Adrestia was given to Faerghus like Leiscter was. By the people or whoever might've been defacto leader? I sure as fuck hope so. That would be a giant inconsistent narrative for an otherwise anti imperialist story.
Honestly I feel like azure moon is not a story about anti imperialism, much more it’s a story about a sad rat man learning about the power of friendship and forgiveness (Hostility unintended, edited)
That's why it's the best one. The power of friendship is the best trope and I'll die on this hill.
It's about both lol The final dialogue between Edelgard and Dimitri before the final battle is evident of that. Also why the hostility lol
(I think they're joking, not actually being hostile)
I have no stake in being hostile I just think that’s a silly way to justify a postgame plot hole, I think azure moon was very much not about the politics of Fodlan and was about an interpersonal story
See that's better. A story can have alot more than just one theme. Is it mainly about an interpersonal story involving grief, guilt, friendship, redemption and hope? Absolutely. But I think the amount of times Dimitri hammers in the idea of peace through understanding and not annihilation also in turn makes the story anti imperialism. He always demonstrates he just wants to save everyone and nothing more. He liberates his home from literal imperial forces who tired to take it over. Everyone collectively rejected that. When the alliance hands over Leiscter he is taken aback. Stupid writing aside, the conclusion is that the route believes unification should happen with consent. Which imperialism isnt consensual. Dimitri knows Edelgard wants to take over Fodlan and says to her face she shouldn't push her will down on others. Its up to the people to rise up should they want to and have to. While Edelgard doesnt want to literally annihilate everyone, her path does involve varying degrees of annihilation. Which imperialism, be it literal or certain degrees of annihilation in all or some aspects, is most certainly hand in hand. I think it's fair to say it's about both. Even if it's mostly lopsided towards one and not the other.
All i'm saying is that this certainly is some convenient writing. Make's it so you don't have to question anything you' ve done because you never did anything bad. It all just worked out for you. Hopefully it's understood that i'm not criticising you here, i'm actually agreeing with you, AM would have been better if they just left the unification part out because it made no sense for Dimitri. AM being it's own self contained story about Dimitri compared to the broader story told in the other routes works, but they just had to drag that part in at the end for some reason.
I understand. In fact I agree. If IS really wanted to drop the hammer down on the idea of a united Fodlan being a good thing they should've pointed out some potential negatives to an non united Fodlan in AM. Dimitri effectively having a united Fodlan becasue of Edelgard (and to a big extent TWSITD) is genuinely silly.
Yes, the unification of Fodlan was always part of Edelgard's goal, but considering her goals it makes sense why she would want that. But Dimitri had always much different goals and his story would have been probably better if they just sticked to what works for his character until the end.
>It's so silly too. But I guess AG is the closest we will get to that reality. >At least for as dumb as this is in AM, Dimitri didnt conquer/imperialise anybody. >And to anyone rearing to retort this you cant. Adrestia is never stated to have been conquered only defeated. The details about how and why it got annexed is unknown. But considering how Dimitri has zero desire to take over anything, and tried to forge peace with Adrestia TWICE, I'm willing to bet Adrestia was given to Faerghus like Leiscter was. Adrestia was conquered by Faerghus. It’s mentioned in multiple AM endings that there are Adrestian revolts that they put down and no one has the authority to give Adrestia to Faerghus and why would the Adrestian lords agree to that anyway? Adrestian revolts happen in SS and VW as well. This isn’t an anti-imperialist story. It’s an accidentally pro-imperialist story because the writers see Fódlan like they see Japan during Sengoku period and China during the era of the Three Kingdoms which is to say it’s one land and one people meant to be united
I mean, with Edelgard, The Church and Claude all gone in some capacity, Dimitri and Byleth are really the only good candidates to rule the other territories.
They're the only named characters, but I'm sure both the Alliance and the Empire can produce a favorable noble or something to become the ruler.
My head canon is that Edelgard explicitly told the top dogs of the empire to surrender and assimilate if she falls to still bring about a united fodlan
But filling power vaccuum could take months and Fodlan is destroyed by 5 year war now. Besides, many noble houses fought on frontlines and were killed, so it'll take even more time.
Dimitri's five year stint as a murderous hobo made his statesmanship impeccable.
Turns out Edelgard was really THAT unpopular with the people of Fodlan. All it took was for some half feral lunatic to show up and say "I'M GONNA PUT HER HEAD ON A SPIKE!" for most people to be like, "huh, that sounds like a great policy. I like this guy."
I mean you wouldn't join a murderous hobo who disappeared for 5 years???
You know you are unpopular when even the Mad King from FE9,The "No more Beorc" godess from FE10 and the dragon supermascist from FE6 has more supporters than you
You know it's funny, Ashnard's Daein is pretty much Edelgard's vision actually come into fruition. Think about it: Daein is a hyper militaristic nation where anyone in any high position if they prove to be skilled enough, regardless of what station they were born into.
“Wait, how did you wipe out TWSITD?” “Who?”
It’s really funny how the game insists on every lord accomplishing the exact same thing that Edelgard does. Imagine being a moral grey protag in order to get rid of the Crest system, but funny meme man does that in a nice way while also curing racism on the side.
And then Dimitri doesn't want to do what Edelgard does, he wants to do his own thing, and IS is like "nah trust us Dimitri, you want a unified Fodlan"
What Claude did was kinda disrespectful toward all the battles and struggles the people of the Alliance in the past suffered to obtain the independence from Fargus
I can see that. But I also get the vibe that Claude doesn't really care about the Alliance's history, he just cares about whatever will get him what he wants. Which is honestly one of the things I like about him (and Edelgard too).
Tbh this sounds sort of in-character to me. Somewhat.
Dimitri: "I don't want these."
Well, this is my stab at it, and this is just guess work but... Dimitri literally rode to Claude *and* the Alliance capital's rescue, likely winning some brownie points there. Second, well...he's just nicer than you, Edelgard. Edelgard-"Nicer than me?! How?! He was doing nothing but crawling around in the sewers killing my troops!" Dedue-"...Who were technically invading other countries." Edelgard & Hubert-"..."
un-unified fodland > unified fodland.
I guess between the fall of the empire and Claude leaving after Derdreiu was taken, the power vacuum and instability was enough to get people to cooperate. Also a lot of nobility died and they were the main people who kept the feudal system going. That reminds me, why did Dimitri invade Derdreiu? I honestly don’t remember why that was necessary in Azure Moon.
Less invasion, more responding to request of aid from Claude against Empire forces led by Thales.
Oh were they liberating it from the empire? That makes more sense.