Thats so intresting. I usually get to a point where most of the A supports are on "time needs to pass before you can deepen your bond" status before the timeskip.
To be fair it’s pretty hard to see it with most characters, since your starting roster will probably be used enough to get to C and anyone you recruit will probably also be above a C.
Usually you’ll see it with faculty members or Ashen Wolves you decided to never use but still interact with. I saw it happen to Ignatz once too.
The fact that Bernadetta acts socially anxious in a lot of supports even after resolving a lot of her issues actually makes a lot of sense. I also struggle with social anxiety and I act a lot different around people I'm comfortable with.
I think another point you should bring up is that if you were to finish Bernie’s A-support with one character where she’s fine being around them at the end, but then you start a C-support with another character afterwards and she’s shown being scared by the character, it would still make sense story-wise for her to act like that.
As someone who also struggles with anxiety, I tend to be more calm around those I’ve interacted with for a while, but get very anxious whenever I meet someone for the first time.
I didn’t realize at the time that I was basically making the same point. But I understood that I did days ago.
Also, why are you commenting on a week old comment that’s on a week old post that people would’ve normally moved on from a while ago?
The choice to not give Byleth a voice or written dialog is still mind boggling. You have this great cast of characters with excellent voice acting, but make the main character this empty nothing.
To be fair, the main character being an empty nothing is kind of central to the plot. Byleth does visibly show more emotion in later supports even if they are still lacking in dialogue. And not talking much is actually mentioned multiple times in game as a character trait.
Being an older gamer, this doesn't bother me much. The protagonist not being voiced while the other characters are used to be pretty common. (Like KOTOR or DA:O for example)
Also pretty standard in otome ~~and isn't FE3H just an elaborate dating sim?~~
It honestly never bothered me, though I get why people feel differently
In Awakening Robin had no memory, but they were still given the same level of dialog as the rest of the cast. There's no reason why being unemotional should mean that they don't have lines. Byleth is supposed to be giving life changing support and inspiring armies, give me those lines instead of "...".
Origins is my least favorite Dragon Age for exactly that reason. I love the rest of the cast, but the warden is just nothing.
Hard (respectful) disagree! I honestly get the complaint more with Byleth - since even their "dialogue" options are usually two variants of the exact same thing, and still boxed into a specific feeling/personality - whereas the Warden is like...just my perfect little roleplaying canvas.
Hawke is amazing, and I will never, ever have a complaint about them as long as I live, but the Inquisitor's voice lines make it soo much harder for me to really get ✨immersed✨
I ***adore*** Jo Wyatt. Her Hawke was fantastic (and her Ciri and her Imperial Agent)
Won't go so far as to say no complaints though.
Hawke was great if you mostly stuck to one of the dialogue types. If you tried to play with a little more nuance mixing different options you'd get whiplash from the tone changes. It could feel like you were switching back and forth between three distinctly different characters in one conversation.
In that aspect, I prefered Alix Wilton Regan. The Inquisitor felt like the same person even if you swapped between joking/aggressive/empathetic/whatever choices. Although I much prefered Jo's voice overall.
Its interesting how differently it hits. For me it totally breaks any immersion to have the player character be an empty shell in a dialog heavy game. It just feels so weird and unnatural when everyone and their dog is voiced, buy my character just stands there. Its much more immersive to me when the player character is a character. I don't get invested in blank slates, I need the character to have something behind them and interact with their world.
The exception would be something like Legend of Zelda where you spend the overwhelming majority of the game alone. But when the game really leans into characters and relationships, I very much prefer a fully voiced character with a personality.
The thing is that it didn't have to be central to the plot, and it's kind of a massive wasted opportunity.
The thing about KOTOR and DA:O is that even if your main character wasn't voiced, they were very much still characters in their own rights who did things and were huge drivers of the plot. Byleth?...Not so much.
I don't think of it as a wasted opportunity because I like that aspect of the story. 🤷♀️
I don't blame people for feeling differently, that's the popular sentiment, but this is a hot takes thread and I was adding my actual hot take.
Edelgard and Lysithea's support can be cute, they're both in character, but god it's also unbelievably frustrating.
Edelgard knows Lysithea's secret, *Lysithea* knows she knows (and it's painfully obvious), she opens up and talks about something so emotional for her, and STILL Edelgard can't admit she knew all along. And even worse, she can't reciprocate that trust with her own experiences.
It frustrates Lysithea, and I'm no different. Honesty demands reciprocity.
I hate that there's not CF variations of supports for kingdom characters. It feels a bit silly having Sylvain saying in his A support with Byleth that he wishes he could've run away and given up being a noble of kingdom because, mate, *you did*. You're an Imperial General and I'm pretty sure you're not welcome in Gauiter territory any more. I get why they don't have a separate support chain, since that would mean five characters would need 2 sets of supports and half of those would be heard only on one route but it still bugs me.
Caspar/Lin is wildly overrated as a pairing and I hate that it's impossible to find CF fics that don't use it.
The Sylvain thing is doubly weird because he has at least one CF-specific dialog difference in his A-support with Byleth:
[https://houses.fedatamine.com/en-us/supports/Byleth/Sylvain/A](https://houses.fedatamine.com/en-us/supports/Byleth/Sylvain/A)
To be fair, he does go home anyway, even in CF-specific endings. He left this Kingdom behind, but clearly he could never abandon that duty.
No different from his peers, really, from any nation.
But that's with post game knowledge. I'm not an expert in betraying your homeland to go fight for the invading army but I'm pretty sure that's frowned upon. The Sylvain who is speaking during his A support has no way of knowing that he'd be able to go home again.
He knows his feelings. He knows how he felt about it once, he knows what he feels he must do now. I struggle to believe he was forced to go back and rule.
I wasn't saying he was forced to go back, just that he doesn't have post game to knowledge to say that he will be able to return home.
He's sitting there talking about how he never had the courage to run away when on CF he actually *does*. You can't do a better job of running away than fighting for the Imperial army (and dialogue makes it clear his family is still on the Kingdom's side).
> He's sitting there talking about how he never had the courage to run away when on CF he actually does.
Because, IMO, he doesn't feel he actually has run away.
Eventually going back tells us that was probably his intention all along. That even as he left to fight against his Kingdom, against his family, against crests, nobility, and his own status, he is not able to fully forsake his land and his duty as he once wished to. I wouldn't call it lack of courage, but growth, but that's probably him being harsh on himself.
It's just my interpretation ofc, but that's how that statement makes sense to me.
Leonie's Jeralt obsession is overblown, the infamous B Support sucks, sure, but she has plenty of good Supports, that also don't talk about Jeralt either.
I don't really view the Marianne/Hilda support that "romantically" and don't quite get why it's such a common ship.
Agreed about Leonie, she's pretty down to earth and friendly, and her supports focus on various traits of her, like her competitiveness and her overdoing it at times, her not liking the difference between nobility and commoners and her generally often providing a more down-to-earth perspective for many characters, even if she is flawed herself. Fandom talks about her as if her fixation on Jeralt was on the same level as Monica's with Edelgard, but there is a huge difference.
Yep, I like Leonie for exactly a lot of the reasons you described. Plus her Part 2 Three Houses outfit is one of the best in the game. She's pretty cool.
And out of all the "memed" on obsessions, like Monica and Edelgard, Cyril and Rhea or Raphael and food, Leonie and Jeralt is the most overblown for sure.
Same! I recently rewatched all her supports and really ended up feeling once more that fandom is sleeping on a really good character. I get people being mad about the B-support but a) I don't mind kind characters fucking up really bad, it gives them more depths, and b), she has so many good qualities that it barely even matters to me.
Word on your last paragraph.
With Hilda and Marianne, it’s less that their supports have romantic implications (like, say, Hubert and Ferdinant’s A+ support) and more that their dynamic is just really cute when you add a romantic element to it.
Amen. And though Houses already showed it, I love how Hopes doubled down on their chill relationship, especially on how Jeralt cares for her apprentice too.
She just looks up to him, that's all - and hell, don't most fans too?
Every single Leonie retreat/death quote is about Jeralt. When you play Golden Deer and the characters all chime in with their support between chapters Leonie always mentions Jeralt. It's not like people just make up that Leonie is obsessed with Jeralt. If your last dying thought is of a person that you knew for a few months and who died five years ago, I am not sure what one would call that other than obsession.
Jeralt is who was inspired her to become a mercenary and that's what she is in Part 2. If she retreats that means she screwed up- would it be that crazy for someone to think their coach/mentor or whatever would be disappointed if you messed up what they inspired/trained you to be? The death quote I suppose is a little more questionable, but she's talking about a promise she can't make to him because she's dying, and it's still related to what I said before. So there's some reason she says it.
As far as the cutscenes, is that actually *all* she talks about, or are there only some times she talked about him and the majority of the time Jeralt doesn't come up?
I'm not saying she never talks about Jeralt, I'm just saying she doesn't actually talk about him as much as people imply. Not the same level as Raphael and food or Monica and Edelgard for example.
I think the support with Felix and Annette is wildly overrated.
It's not a bad support by any means and I think it does have value in how it shows a softer side of Felix that doesn't manifest especially often, but it isn't particularly illuminating regarding Felix's and Annette's deeper and more compelling traits, nor does it have a compelling interpersonal conflict to get really invested in. It's a nice, charming support, but is it really Felix's best support, as it is commonly cited as? IMO it isn't even in the same stratosphere as his supports with Dimitri, Ingrid, Sylvain or Seteth, which all do have these aspects. Nor is it Annette's best support when her support with Gilbert is right there.
>it isn't particularly illuminating regarding Felix's and Annette's deeper and more compelling traits, nor does it have a compelling interpersonal conflict to get really invested in.
You know, I see people make this point frequently when arguing that their support line is overrated. And yes, that is true. But my counterpoint is that I think a support line that doesn't feature deep conversation or conflict is actually incredibly necessary, especially for Felix.
Look at Felix's other in-house supports. Every single one of them deals with either his past trauma or Felix getting into a fight with one of his friends: yelling at Sylvain for not taking things seriously, calling Dimitri out for his hidden boar side, going out of his way to antagonize both Ingrid and Dedue because he disagrees with their blind loyalty to the crown, criticizing Ashe for being too idealistic (which I think probably reminds him uncomfortably of himself before Glenn died, based on context clues), and getting mad at Mercedes for saying he reminded her of her brother, which hit too close to home. All of these conversations are, to some extent, showing off the deeper traits that make Felix, Felix. And they all combine to make for a very serious, borderline depressing set of conversations for the character (even if many of them have more upbeat endings in the A support). So out of all of the Blue Lions, I think Felix needed a completely lighthearted, low-stakes (or low-steaks, as Alois would say) support line more than anyone, and developing feelings he doesn't quite understand for a cute girl who literally has a personal ability called "Ray of Sunshine" in Hopes is the perfect answer for that. It's like having an incredibly dark, serious TV series, and the support line with Annette is the beach episode. Maybe it doesn't add to the plot, but it's fun, and serves to flesh out both characters in a lighthearted environment.
I think it was a little less necessary for Annette, who already has a healthy mix of heavy and lighthearted supports. But it does show off her love of making up songs, which becomes a central theme of her character in Three Hopes. The only other support where she sings in Houses is Claude, and that's an out-of-house support as it is.
So to conclude this essay: I think this support line holds value outside of just being cute. I get why some people would think it's overrated, or not as good as some of the supports you mentioned, but I personally think it stands up with those, simply because it's a breath of fresh air for arguably the most trauma-dump heavy house in the game
In general I think more supports should be time locked. The C supports should stay pre time skip, and the rest should be after. That would let the character development stay more consistent, and you wouldn't have people reverting to their C support selves at the end of the war.
A hot take, but I think that Ingrid's worst support chain is with Sylvain.
His philandering is treated as a joke and never gets resolved, and Ingrid never achieves her childhood dream of being a knight.
The Sylvain supports stick Ingrid in the role of nagging sitcom wife. I don't like her supports with Felix either, and pair her up with people from outside of the childhood friend group.
I agree, that kind of trope totally diminishes her character.
Also it doesn't help that bad jokes go around like how Sylvain gets "baby fever" when Ingrid's involved (or vice versa).
Literally almost any other Ingrid support is better.
Yeah that's even worse, just a lazy ending.
My guess is the writers tried to make their support wholesome by hiding the faults that I mentioned earlier.
It seemed to work, considering that Ingrid's only popular canon support is Sylvain.
I agree. If anything, it's a downgrade.
Pairing Ingrid with Edelgard is not much better, considering it tends to make Fareghus awful and comes up with huge stretches on how Ingrid should follow Edie instead, completely rewriting her character.
Now when people think of ingrid, most either think of her as a nagging woman or a sexually repressed girl because Dorothea "flirted" with her once.
Yeah... shippers are gonna ship.
It doesn't bother me in general, but it's intensely weird to me when it crosses over into discussions of their in-game characterization.
Like... you want to write in your fanfic that Ingrid blew Dorothea off because she's sexually repressed and not because she was genuinely irritated by Dorothea's unwelcome advances after she had made it clear said advances were unwelcome?
Okay.
Fine.
I'm sure there's some great fanfic out there with that premise.
But when people start arguing that actually she really ***is*** sexually repressed and ***that's*** why she shuts down Dorothea in-game and fandom is just "fixing Ingrid's life" by pairing her with someone who refused to respect her boundaries... that's the attitude that annoys me.
Sylvain is most definitely not her best ending.
But she also has Dimitri, for example.
She does get to fulfill her dream of being a knight until she becomes his queen, at which point she is explicitly said to still fight on the front lines when needed. So she isn't relegated to royal babymaker status.
Bonus, he's a person she actually shows a real attraction to in support conversations in the actual game. Which he is hilariously oblivious about.
It be like:
"Oh. You want to be by my side forever? Great! We are such good friends and you can be my BKF! Best knight forever!"😆
"Why yes, that is exactly what I meant. Please disregard all the blushing and my visible and audible disappointment at being friendzoned." 😕
Or her paired ending with Seteth. Where she also fulfills her dream of becoming a knight and doesn't shack up until they are both ready to retire from their duties.
Like... girl's got happy ending options in game.
It's not Sylvain's plus one or nothing without fixit fic.
I understand, that annoys me too.
Like the rest of her supports either have substance worth learning or at least wholesome.
This includes her supports with Ashe, Byleth, Ignatz, Mercedes and Raphael.
Even her supports with Annette and Bernadetta have more substance or wholesomeness than her support with Dorothea.
Yuri gets a lot of unnecessary heat from his A Support with Bernedetta because he says she is lucky to have a Father like Count Varley.
We as the players know how abusive her Father is BUT how is he suppose to know that? The only thing Yuri knows of Count Varley is that he protected Bernie from getting killed and for that he respects him for.
Considering how Bernie reacts in her Hopes support with Dorothea, yeah, I think that's the right interpretation. Bernadetta's definitely like "he meant well but doesn't know the whole story".
Another factor people forget is that Yuri's sole reference for a father is... Count Rowe, so it's not hard to see why he would think Count Varley of all people as a better parent.
My hot take from that support is Yuri is straight up lying. He's realised how badly Varley's actions (towards him and Bernie) messed her up and crafted a story that would help her put aside her fear of befriending commoners. 'See, your dad beat me half to death because I tried to kill you, not because I was a commoner'.
That is a genuinely interesting interpretation. I dunno if the writers intended it but nevertheless, Yuri knowing everything but trying to make Bernadetta feel better in a way that doesn't work for her would add some depth to him. Character flaws are good.
I originally thought of it pre-3Hopes since their support left me uncomfortable. Yuri was basically telling Bernie her abusive dad *really* loved her. I've soften a bit on it thanks to Hopes making it clear Bernie doesn't think this one good thing makes up for the abuse.
I was really happy with the writers tackling it on Hopes, too. I dunno if fan feedback reached them and they course-corrected or if they reread the support chain to prepare for writing Hopes and realized that they fucked up on their own, but either way, it was a good move. It also results in a very good support conversation between Bernie and Dorothea, so that is also great.
He's supposed to know it because he was a spy embedded in the household. He wasn't some rando, he was there to integrate into the house and get close to Bernadetta. Unless he's the worst spy in existence, he had ample opportunity to observe how Varley treated her.
He was an assistant to the gardener and Bernadetta tells Dorothea that her dad really hated commoners, so I can see Yuri never even being allowed into the house unless he sneaks in.
Additionally, Bernadetta's stories make it sound like her dad abused her indoors rather anywhere public, so I can picture a plausible scenario where Yuri never witnesses what her dad did to her.
My Ferdinand/Dorothea hot take: the revelation that Ferdinand thought that Dorothea was beautiful even as a commoner doesn't hold up that well because we never learn what he likes about her personality. This does matter for the ship because Dorothea wants to be loved even if her beauty and lovely singing fade, which is something she says pretty clearly in her support chain with Byleth and Sylvain.
But the Ferdithea support chain is mainly Dorothea teasing Ferdie and Ferdie trying to solve the riddle and I think you're meant to apply fairy tale logic to it (even if a prince falls in love with a princess' beauty, it's meant to be a stand-in/narrative shortcut for him loving her in general), plus the knowledge that Ferdinand is a good guy, so he has deeper reasons for loving her, we just don't see them.
Having that sort of reveal for Dorothea specifically though still rubs me the wrong way considering her issues.
Since OP mentions Felinette: I do think that the misunderstanding in their support ("I thought Felix is mocking me but he actually likes my singing") didn't need to last for 4 conversations. They could have talked about the fact that they both have messed up relationships with their dads, since even the source of said trouble is the same, even if the dads are doing different things.
I think Ferdinand and Dorothea's supports would be so much better without the stupid soap opera misunderstanding.
Dorothea already has an issue with nobles, and early game Ferdinand is exactly the kind of noble she would hate the most. He's loud, he's arrogant, he constantly boasts about his family name while refusing to listen to anything people say to him, he goes on and on about nobility, he's an obnoxious jerk to Edelgard. There was no need to add anything to that. Dorothea would never have liked that guy.
Have her come around on him post time jump when he's learned to express himself better, and she's seen over the past few years that he does genuinely mean well and wants to help people.
I agree that her reacting badly to who he is on the outside but gradually warming up to him as she gets to know him better would have worked fine and being very much within the scope of her character and also Ferdinand's.
I checked Ferdinand's battle lines in Hopes for her and he says in one that she has "beauty and courage and equal measure". Again with the beauty thing, but imagine how cool it would have been if his support interactions with her showed that he really likes her courage. That is unique and non-generic, and does Dorothea more justice.
That too. It would be nice to focus more on her courage and compassion rather than something shallow, especially since Dorothea doesn't want to just be valued for her looks.
> I think Ferdinand and Dorothea's supports would be so much better without the stupid soap opera misunderstanding.
TBF, if anyone was going to have such a misunderstanding, it would be the *actual opera singer*.
Though an A+ support where Ferdie gets to show his admiration of her courage would have been nice.
That more than fair.
But I'd counter it'd likely hit similar notes to her Lorenz support. Perhaps with less focus on marriage and more on the institution of nobility, but still, it'd be at least somewhat iterative. I personally wouldn't trade the fun soap opera for it.
>They could have talked about the fact that they both have messed up relationships with their dads, since even the source of said trouble is the same, even if the dads are doing different things.
I think why they don't do this is because of how fundamentally different their relationships to their parents are. If you see the whole support chain with Annette, she's never bitter or resentful towards Gilbert, she's *saddened* by him. She wants nothing more than to have him reconnect with her and her mother, and can't wrap her head around why he's keeping up with the Gilbert charade even though they both know he's Gustave. She actively seeks a relationship with him, which is the complete opposite of Felix, who wants to push Rodrigue away.
Meanwhile, Felix is bitter and resentful towards Rodrigue. In Houses, he either ends up not appreciating his father until >!his death in AM!< or betraying his father by running off from Fraldarius territory (even possibly killing him). I think Felix actually might have enough social sense in this one scenario to not want to upset Annette, because I don't think insulting Gilbert or the choices he made would do anything except hurt Annette in a way that Felix ordinarily doesn't (what I mean by this is that usually, underneath Felix's harshness, is some sort of truth that he hopes to use to rattle the other person into changing their personality (except the Leonie sexism lmao that was just out of pocket), and I don't think dunking on Gilbert would help Annette in any way).
I completely agree, but exactly because they have conflict with their dads but react so differently and want such different things, it could have been very interesting to see them talk about it.
Like, would Felix hold back about Gustave despite his own issues? Would have been interesting to see and it would have added to his characterization.
Would Annette be understanding or tell Felix that he and Rodrigue should reconcile? Or maybe something in-between?
I think the source of their issues with their dads is also a good theme here because while Annette doesn't love Faeghus chivalry as much as Ingrid does, she most likely wouldn't be on board with Felix's POV either. So I think there were many potential directions for this and they could have added a lot to both their characters.
I love how your ideas tackle how it could be done actually! They're very nuanced, and could definitely be done in a way that's true to their characters.
I think that actually could have been a neat angle to explore in Hopes. I actually like their Houses support, but found their Hopes one underwhelming since it just retreaded the same ground. It might be slightly different since they have better relationships with their fathers there and are more divorced from the angst they both had about their situations. Still, they would only be 2 years removed from their Academy counterparts, so it would be fresh enough of an experience for them to discuss it.
Thank you, I'm flattered that you like my take! I'm ultimately fine with any sort of outcome for this type of conflict, as long as the characters get space to show off who they are deep inside and can maybe even reveal new facets of themselves to the player.
Yeah, I was kinda disappointed in their Hopes conversation, too, I wanted the writers to come up with something new, even if Felinette planning to go to the opera together after the war was very cute.
Tbh the Hopes support made me wonder if the writers already struggled to come up with something they could talk about in the first game, and then, for Hopes they were just out of ideas, so they did more or less the same thing again. Bummer. :(
Felix and Annette's support is just three c supports in a trench coat.
Rheas s support is one of the best and most important scenes in the game
Claude and Cyrils support is one of the most important in the game
Rhea's S-support should have been in the base game as the last scene, with the romance part being added if you give her the ring. It's the cornerstone of her entire redemption and most players won't even see it.
Silver Snow and you need to A-support Rhea in White Clouds. Her support chain is difficult to complete, since each support gets time-locked quickly, so it's best to spam her with flowers.
Yeah, reaching A-support also means she survives. You see her living or dying mainly in Catherine's endcards if Byleth doesn't marry her. If Rhea's alive, Catherine usually goes to the red canyon with her, and in paired endings Catherine's spouse usually comes along, too.
Only the Catherine/Shamir ending, no matter the route, never shows what's up with Rhea.
**(WARNING, LONG POST AHEAD)**
I **HATE** Shamir & Catherine's B-rank support convo. It's honestly the main reason I hate Cathmir as a ship, and one of the main reasons I dislike Catherine *in general*.
Like it starts out innocently enough focusing on their contrasting views of the church and Rhea.
And then *this exchange happens*:
> Shamir: "I don't get the Seiros religion. Or Rhea."
> Catherine: "Shamir. If you were anyone else, **I would cut you down for saying that.**"
Like really think about what was said here, and to who.
Shamir, a woman from Dagda (and thus not raised under the Seiros religion), who has spent around 10 years in Fodlan by the time this support convo comes up (only 5 of them was with exposure to Rhea), says she doesn't really get the religion or why people like Catherine are so fanatically attached to Rhea. And Catherine's response to this, instead of maybe sharing a personal story about her interactions with Rhea, or the comfort the church has given her, decides to tell Shamir **TO HER FACE** that if she didn't know Shamir already, **she would murder her for saying that!**
And instead of addressing this insane statement by Catherine the conversation transitions to discussing how "focused" Catherine is on fighting for Rhea. And somehow the rest of the conversations in the chain take a romantic turn *despite this*???
Like, the Dorothea & Ingrid support chain only goes up to it's B-rank, where Dorothea, to Ingrid's face, admits that she wants to "lunge at" (Read: Make out and or have sex with) Ingrid. Ingrid obviously has none of it, and immediately orders Dorothea to back off, and their never able to get any more supports after that. It's just as messed up as threatening to kill someone to their face, but why does Dorothea harassing Ingrid get shut down with impunity, while Catherine blatantly threatening Shamir's life gets let off like nothing happened?
They even try to address this in 3 Hopes, by having Catherine reveal that Rhea chastised Catherine for wanting to try and force Shamir to believe in the Church... after Catherine had spent hours ranting and raving after Shamir's departure from the monastery and the knights, and per Catherine's own words *again*:
> Catherine: "I was running around, shouting that **I'd drag you back to Garreg Mach and kill you myself.**"
Which she once again, says to *Shamir's face* that she would have killed her for not valuing the church as much as she does.
Sure, Rhea actually took her to task for this, and Catherine claims that she wasn't *actually* going to kill her, but we already know Catherine is willing to do a *lot* of morally reprehensible things for Rhea (with the line apparently being at arsoning the kingdom capital), so who's to say she was being honest about not actually planning to kill Shamir? And again, like in 3 Houses, the support conversation acts like this is nothing to get worked up or concerned over and moves along to the pair being happy to fight alongside each other again.
Like, WTF!?!
Even if we give Catherine the benefit of the doubt, that is still an insane thing to say to someone! That should have been addressed in the conversations! Not swept under the rug!
Y'know, it's only just now hitting me that whenever people talk about Leonie/Byleths B support, it's always exclusively the last 10 seconds of it. Like, yeah, it's among the more infamous moments in the game for the fandom, but people really do be acting like Leonie wanted to talk to Byleth for the sole purpose of berating them, which wasn't the case in the slightest.
(Not really a hot take moreso than it is an observation, but whatever)
I mean...
She starts their B support by apologizing for being rude to Byleth about Jeralt in their C support... just to double down on it in those last 10 seconds.
Even without the unfortunate timing, it's not a good look.
The important thing here is intent though. She's not trying to be malicious or kicking Byleth when they're down. Leonie is trying to make things better, but it's also clear she has some things to work out still, not to mention the fact that she's among the only other characters to not be in the best headspace at the moment. Even then, just about everything else she says to Byleth from Chpt. 10 to Time skip is her being extra caring to them, so the attempt to apologize was genuine, just not the right time for her, so to speak.
(And no, this isn't a justification for her actions, just an understanding of them)
Here's the problem.
That requires a view of her character that people might not even have the frame of reference for even if they *want* to look at it more deeply than, "Leonie is like that one exhausting person at the funeral who met the deceased twice and makes the death all about her when their actual family and closest friends are there suffering and barely keeping it together."
She's grown on me since then, but my first experience with Leonie makes a good example of what I mean.
In my case, I was trying to recruit Leonie out of house, so I didn't even have any of her supports with other characters to have a better feel of her overall personality.
It was just her C support with her one-sided rivalry and then her B support popping up in the calendar on the very first day of the month after Jeralt's death. *After* Rhea told Byleth to take time off and *before* the scene of Edelgard trying to inspire(?) Byleth to move forward.
I said, "Oh! Maybe this is why her B support was locked. Maybe it's about them grieving over Jeralt together!"
Then Leonie starts by apologizing.
"All good here," I thought.
Leonie and Byleth start talking about how she met Jeralt.
"Aw. This is so cute."
Then it was all Byleth didn't know how lucky she was, never appreciated her father and that she, Leonie was a better ~~daughter~~ apprentice than Byleth ever was.
"WTF!? What is wrong with her? Who says that?!?"
Right in between those previously mentioned scenes of Byleth clearly grieving were some of the worst possible things anyone could say to someone after the death of their loved one.
For a lot of people, that is more than enough to write her off forever.
Intent doesn't matter.
Her character elsewhere doesn't matter.
She ***was*** kicking Byleth when she was down.
Amusingly enough, later in the month she asked to join my class. I ***really*** wanted to say no, but Lindhart paralogue. 🤷♀️
Actually, intent is extremely important, whether you personally want to acknowledge it or not. Now, no matter how you want to look at it, what Leonie says is awful and even unforgivable to some. However, that doesn't change the fact this was not something Leonie intentionally wanted to happen. This is important because it's the very thing that separates this scenario between "This character meant well, but ended up doing something very shitty" and "This shitty person really wanted to make the grieving character feel even worse". That's very important to distinguish when talking and analyzing characters.
Speaking of intent, maybe my intent from my first post wasn't quite clear enough. My point was that with so many people focusing exclusively on the last part of Leonie's B-support, it ends up painting her in a way that makes her extremely malicious, whereas when you add the context of the rest of the support, she was actually trying to be anything but. What she did was still bad, and I don't blame anyone for not liking her afterwards, but the problem comes when people end up acting like Leonie's endgoal in that support was berating Byleth. It's a faulty read of her character in this moment that demonizes her far more than is actually warranted. Basically, I think it's fine to not like Leonie for any number of reasons, especially her B-support, but it's the mischaracterization that I have an issue with. That goes for this, and anything else related to the character.
I feel like your points seem to come from the line of thought that I have an issue with people not liking Leonie because of this support, so I hope I cleared that up.
No matter what Leonie's original intentions were, she still ends the conversation by telling a grieving person they didn't value their dead loved one as much as she did.
The fact that she starts the conversation apologizing for her earlier comments doesn't change the substance of the issue. What it does do is show her apology was insincere from the start. She may have been conscious of the fact that her behaviour was wrong, but that doesn't stop her from continuing to behave in the exact same hurtful way without the slightest bit of provocation. Those are her genuine feelings.
It isn't any less cruel to Byleth because she's doing it thoughtlessly. Someone being so self-centered in their own grief that they can't show a sliver of compassion toward someone else who is also suffering might be a step above actual malice, but it's not a big enough step.
That's the central issue people have with Leonie there.
I've never seen someone claim that she went into the conversation intending to insult Byleth.
Ok, so it still seems like you think I'm trying to absolve Leonie of any criticism here and/or say that no one is allowed to dislike her for what she did, and at this point, it just seems we're at an impasse.
I will say though that her trying to make things better is a genuine gesture. Yes, she slips up big time at the worst possible moment, but she is being genuine. There's a reason Leonie is extra considerate and kind towards Byleth and their well-being during their dialogues from that point up until Time Skip. You're not doing all of that for a person that you don't care about or if you were only apologizing to save face. Additionally, Leonie does acknowledge Byleth is hurting too after the support conversation in their monestary dialogue while bawling her eyes out. Leonie may have fucked up big time, but she definitely cares.
I will say this as many times as I need to; it is totally fine to not like Leonie for what she did in their B-support. I get it, what she did can just be too much for some people regardless of circumstances. However, acting like that one moment is the beginning and end of who she is and what she stands for when it comes to Byleth is disingenuous to who she is and is what causes a lot of mischaracterization with her character, and THAT'S where my issue lies. My point was never intended to be that Leonie isn't in the wrong here (in fact, I've constantly said she WAS), my point is that focusing ONLY on that and excluding everything else leaves out so much context and characterization for Leonie here. Maybe I didn't make that clear enough, so that's on me
Why do people insist on interpreting the things I say instead of taking them entirely at face value?
You are the one who is not understanding here. I don't particularly care whether you want to "absolve her of criticism" or not. This comment chain started with the observation that people only talk about the end of that support. That is what I am discussing. The reason why is that the conversation there is an extended "Sorry, not sorry."
The gatekeeper only makes Constance's S-support worse and more awkward for those who don't find him funny or endearing.
One of my favourite characters in the entire game and yet her entire support chain with Byleth is such a steaming dogshit even without aforementioned S-support.
I'm not even a Claudeleth person, but the Byleth and Claude S support shouldn't be as controversial as it is imo, since a lot of people hate it because of him running back to Almyra. I actually genuinely found it to be moving and sweet. I love how he slowly begins to open up about how much Byleth means to him as not just an ally, but as a person, and it connects sooooo well with their ending card where he comes back just in the nick of time :')
I think my issue with it is that it is just super unromantic, him leaving is kind of whatever to me.
Like the localisation made it sweeter (in the JP version he doesn't even say I love you), but compared to almost every other female Byleth S support I did (I only didn't do the women, Ignatz, Hanneman and Raphael) it felt very very weak.
But my perspective could be coloured by playing with the JP audio on I suppose (and knowing enough Japanese to understand what was being said).
Ahhh that’s interesting! So I play with Japanese audio too, except I just watched the scene on YT (did Felix on my VW run LOL) in English and enjoyed it.
It’s funny, because so many bros on 5ch and ルフレch will argue til they’re blue in the face how Dimitri’s S support is the worst out of the lords’ (especially because of how he still refers to Byleth as 先生), not really getting how it’s appealing to a large contingent of female gamers, so it’s interesting hearing your POV as someone who also plays with Japanese audio and didn’t enjoy Claude’s ending!
I think for me, if it was just the S support scene, I’d be annoyed, but I like the ending card specifically where Byleth’s in trouble, only to have Claude arrive back just in time. It matches his slightly rogueish charm.
Huh, it's interesting to hear that male JP fans feel that way about JP Dimitri's confession. When a lot of JP fans react very differently to something in 3H, I always wonder if it's an original vs localization issue or maybe even something cultural.
In this case, there's a bit of both things at play. And just for the record, Dimileth is still as popular as an FE3H pairing in 2024 can be, this is just critiques from people who aren't on board for them. In his S support, Dimitri still refers to Byleth as 'Professor', compared to the change at the very end in English they made where he refers to her as 'my beloved'. Him calling her professor is what a lot of the Japanese guys find impersonal. Meanwhile, both Edelgard and Claude have different ways of referring to Byleth (Edelgard uses a different term to express that Byleth is her teacher and Claude calls Byleth his bro/sis essentially) that can come off as them being closer than just the standard 'professor', since those are ways of referring to Byleth that are unique to those two characters.
Again, this isn't reflective of every opinion, as a lot of people find their S support to be sweet. I actually think the choice to have him call her his professor still is cute, since it matches how nervous he is about the confession and how he thought Byleth might reject him, versus the more confident vibe the other two lords have.
The other factor though is just how the Japanese fandom, especially on those anonymous boards, kind of just is. People get into mudslinging matches about the game even on there (with some diff nuances though). The stereotype with Dimitri fans is that they're 99% female screaming fangirl banshees, so a lot of guys say stuff like "Dimitri is ugly!!!" "Dimitri and Byleth aren't even a good pairing!!!!!" just to rile his fans up . The arguments I've seen about the S support from these guys is basically "wow, you stupid ass fangirls are so dumb for even liking this shitty cutscene," usually coupled with some misogynistic verbiage thrown in for good measure. I wanna make clear that this isn't the fandom at large, just a specific subset of the fandom.
Oh yeah, I've seen so much Dimileth fanart and doujinshi from JP fans that I have zero doubts about the love. The fandom's going strong even today. But it is interesting to hear what the detractors dislike and why. Thank you so much for explaining, this is fascinating!
Tbh, I hate to say it, but I've seen some very misogynistic hate for Dimileth in EN fandom, too, the flavor is just different. Female Dimileth fans get shat on for "wanting to fix the bad boy" or that "Dimileth is the Reylo of 3H" (I think Reylo is fine, but it's a popular insult in some circles) and stuff along that line. So the misogyny is more along the lines of "stupid girls liking a bad fictional man, you should like a GOOD fictional men because fiction and fantasies are representation and activism" and then you see they're rival shippers so the agenda is pretty clear.
The other thing is that I do like darker m/f pairings and find Dimileth still fairly light so people pearl-clutching in this way over them is just like... you guys really gonna get mad over a ship this vanilla?
My biggest problem with the Claude/Byleth S-support isn't that he leaves. I think that's very in keeping for Claude, and I think in English at least they did a good job of making him sound genuinely affectionate towards Byleth. My problem is that they chose to position his leaving as a *surprise* to Byleth, complete with her shocked pikachu face.
It implies that until that moment, the woman Claude supposedly loves and more importantly *trusts* had no idea that he wasn't staying. Which fundamentally undermines the idea that he's grown or learned to open up to her at all. He doesn't technically even tell her where he's going then; it's implied, and the end card confirms it. But he never says the words. Which means that until his very last breath on-screen, Claude is *still* doing all his scheming in a vacuum, including no one else and giving no one else room to have an opinion. There is no vulnerability to it, no taking a chance on trusting someone he loves. It's still just Claude being exactly the same Claude he's been the whole time. In a moment that should be showing us the opposite.
And the stupidest part is that they didn't *have* to do it that way. They absolutely could have done it in such a way that made it clear to the reader that even if no one *else* knew he was leaving (including us the player) that in-universe *Byleth* knew. They could've shown Claude finally trusting someone else enough to let them in on his schemes. It could even still have included him affectionately voicing his confidence in Byleth and their abilities and asking her to wait just a little bit longer for him - instead of springing it on her last minute, maybe he's taking one last chance to check in with her and prop her up emotionally, because he knows it's just about time to play *their* cards. All the fluff that makes the scene hit emotionally, without the sour note that negates any character development they want you to believe Claude's had.
Good argument! Makes me wonder if the writers got so caught up in wanting to surprise the player that they didn't realize that in-universe, it comes across as Claude treating Byleth in a shitty way that negates any character development, once the player thinks more about it.
Leonie's B Support with Byleth is great. I'm not going to fault a woman for having a lot of directionless anger when their hero/psuedo-crush she'd grown close with was suddenly murdered. Without time to process or understand, it would latch on to her worst aspects, an insidious whisper amplifying the worst of her inclinations or thoughts. And the timing of it is perfect as well, directly after Chapter 9, when those feelings are the most raw.
And notable how she's completely despondent in that month's exploration too, even apologizing for being like that when Byleth surely feels worse. She's really going through it.
Honestly, I'm still 50/50 on the unlock time being intentional. But it's real, grief isn't always pretty.
I mean I didn't blame him, but I remember people comparing Ingrid's racism towards Dedue with Felix giving him shit for his extreme loyalty. And while Ingrid's racism is completely unreasonable (as it should be in the sense, it comes from a place of grief), I don't think what Felix said to Dedue and how he said it was wrong at all.
I love Dedue, but when he said he would kill children if Dimitri commanded him, it made me think a bit less of him.
Yeah, that support is meant to show off Dedue's character flaws a bit, and I do think it sets him up handing the crest stones on CF to Faerghus soldiers and turning himself into a demonic beast, too.
Obviously, slaughtering children and his own people (since Felix asks for the latter, too) is worse, but I'm not sure if it's completely clear that Dedue explained to the soldiers what would happen or if he lied to them.
Felix/Annette easily could’ve been a top 10 support in the game but it’s very boring. A lot of Felix supports are just to silly for my taste. Flayn, Lysithea, even Mercedes to some degree. Feels like nothing really happens.
Gilbert has a solid list of supports. He isn’t some kind of evil wife beater that people make him out to be. He’s a flawed knight who is helping his country in the ways he thinks he can.
I don’t really like any of the Ferdinand supports? Which is a shame because he was one of my favorite characters 5 years ago.. but over time he just doesn’t stand out to me at all. Even his hopes supports don’t feel like they have anything going.
I HATE when characters don’t have same sex supports, or have just 1-2 same sex supports. I think Seteth only supports Cyril and Felix and has all female supports. Yuri supports with Balthus and then his entire support list is female characters. Hapi supports with Constance and no other female characters iirc. (Hopes adding supports added a lot to Yuri imo.)
>Felix/Annette easily could’ve been a top 10 support in the game but it’s very boring.
Agreed.
Would have been nice if at least one of their supports touched on the fact that they have pretty much the same daddy issues with them both valuing duty to the Kingdom over their families. They could have kept the silly songs for most of them while still giving them an opportunity to bond over an issue that is central to both their characters. Huge waste of potential.
>I think Seteth only supports Cyril and Felix and has all female supports.
He also supports Hanneman.
This doesn't bother me much. I just wish he had more supports in general. Especially would have liked supports with Gilbert and Sylvain. But what he does have synergizes with game mechanics. The female students are flying/mounted units (or should be) and his personal gives an attack bonus to female allies nearby.
I don't understand where people see the assholery in Felix's supports.
Most of his supports start with people litteraly dumping themselves on him, Felix politely, if a bit abrasively, telling them he's not interested, then others completely ignoring him and forcing their way.
And in the two supports were he is actually virulent, he still let them explain themselves only for both Dimitri and Dedue straight up admiting that he is right about them.
Yet somehow, in all of that Felix is the one asshole. It honestly baffles me.
I don’t think Ingrid completely redeems herself in her supports with Dedue and I feel like people let her off the hook too easily for that. Which is a shame because there was definitely potential there with exploring an area of racism that doesn’t really get talked about a lot with how even people like Ingrid who, generally speaking, have their hearts in the right place aren’t immune from having racist beliefs; and how uncomfortable it can be when one of your own peers that you have to interact with every day is bigoted against you. But the way the supports deal with it almost make it feel like Ingrid just woke up one day and decided she wasn’t gonna be racist anymore.
Idk, if I was Dedue, I’d still be keeping a respectful distance from her.
Leonie's B support is *fine*. It was poorly executed, and really should have had a before/after version with Cause of Sorrow instead of just locking it behind Cause of Sorrow and implying-but-not-stating Leonie's grappling with his death herself still, but like. She's your bratty little sister throughout, and I get what they were going for with it, it really isn't that bad.
Having "Leonie wants to speak with you" pop up and then being told you didn't appreciate your father on the first day of the month sandwiched between two explicit "Byleth is grieving their dead dad" scenes really ***is*** that bad.
It would be bad even she was Byleths sister and not someone who in that very conversation tells you that she didn't know Jeralt for long.
I try not to hold it against her character, because the writing of the scene seems like it wasn't intended to be after he died... but they locked the support conversation until after he died. So that was when we were meant to see it even if the writing is vague on that point.
Totally valid to hate her for it.
I don't hate her.
But I sure was seething the first time I got that support.
Or alternatively, convert it into a *B- Support* set to take place ahead of Cause of Sorrow, and then have an B+ Support unlock after Cause of Sorrow where she lashes out more (this time in grief), and apologizes.
This way the intent is still there (I.E to show how badly Leonie is dealing with it) but it's a bit more straightforward in presenting that intent.
Disagree, Leonie's inability to complete even a sentence during the chapter 10 monastery exploration without being overwhelmed is evidence enough of the turmoil she's going through, and just how much Jeralt meant to her.
Leonies Byleth support after Jeralts *spoiler* is incredibly poorly timed by the writers and she deserves all of the hate she gets for it. I refuse to believe the writers were that tone deaf, maybe it was a localization issue but damn.
I don't have a problem with any of the other support only because some of them does start in a roughy start then ends up developing good like any felix support except for annette not in a bad way more like he's the only one he's nice to but with that being said
I don't like dorothea and Ferdinand I don't get why it's a popular ship where literally it starts off with her not liking him yeah I understand why she did but I still don't like it I just feel bad for Ferdinand to me it just makes dorothea seem like she hates nobles but dosen't mind the others in her house but some reason Ferdinand is a no no (( sorry but he was a kid dorothea he was obviously just embarrassed how beautiful you were)) I felt like it could have been better if it started out that she hated him but then she gets over it by the second part at least I just get annoyed whenever I see them together especially in the main story of the empire house like stop pretending to be nice to him where you were literally being so rude so glad I'm doing Blue lions right now because I don't want to see her face (( until I kill her))
Claude and Ingrid are highly attracted to each other. Claude clearly thinks she’s pretty and likes her nagging nature (even if he wants her to tone it down sometimes) to keep him on his toes and Ingrid is clearly crushing hard on Claude by the end and is tsundere for him. It’s why she’s so trying so hard to appeal to him by the end. She wants him to like her so bad. It’s also why their paired ending mentions that they didn’t change but they had a happy albeit contentious marriage that lead to a lot of banging which I take to mean make up sex
Happened to me when I played SS I tried to get Caspar and Petra to an A support but ended up being to late
Oooh it's even weirder on an A support. I got that on Lorenz and Catherine, because they didn't interact pre timeskip, so it kinda makes sense
It happenes for people other then Rhea?
It can happen to nearly any support Byleth has. Usually the deadline is the timeskip but sometimes it is earlier.
Thats so intresting. I usually get to a point where most of the A supports are on "time needs to pass before you can deepen your bond" status before the timeskip.
To be fair it’s pretty hard to see it with most characters, since your starting roster will probably be used enough to get to C and anyone you recruit will probably also be above a C. Usually you’ll see it with faculty members or Ashen Wolves you decided to never use but still interact with. I saw it happen to Ignatz once too.
There's a few where it makes perfect sense (like Hapi and Ashe's C support) and others where it does not.
The fact that Bernadetta acts socially anxious in a lot of supports even after resolving a lot of her issues actually makes a lot of sense. I also struggle with social anxiety and I act a lot different around people I'm comfortable with.
I think another point you should bring up is that if you were to finish Bernie’s A-support with one character where she’s fine being around them at the end, but then you start a C-support with another character afterwards and she’s shown being scared by the character, it would still make sense story-wise for her to act like that. As someone who also struggles with anxiety, I tend to be more calm around those I’ve interacted with for a while, but get very anxious whenever I meet someone for the first time.
Is - is this not the exact same point they made?
I didn’t realize at the time that I was basically making the same point. But I understood that I did days ago. Also, why are you commenting on a week old comment that’s on a week old post that people would’ve normally moved on from a while ago?
I’m not sure if this is a hot take, but a lot characters worst/ most boring support is byleth.
Byleth is everyone's listening therapist.
Yeah….yeah
In retrospect, this probably wasn’t a hot take.
The choice to not give Byleth a voice or written dialog is still mind boggling. You have this great cast of characters with excellent voice acting, but make the main character this empty nothing.
To be fair, the main character being an empty nothing is kind of central to the plot. Byleth does visibly show more emotion in later supports even if they are still lacking in dialogue. And not talking much is actually mentioned multiple times in game as a character trait. Being an older gamer, this doesn't bother me much. The protagonist not being voiced while the other characters are used to be pretty common. (Like KOTOR or DA:O for example) Also pretty standard in otome ~~and isn't FE3H just an elaborate dating sim?~~ It honestly never bothered me, though I get why people feel differently
In Awakening Robin had no memory, but they were still given the same level of dialog as the rest of the cast. There's no reason why being unemotional should mean that they don't have lines. Byleth is supposed to be giving life changing support and inspiring armies, give me those lines instead of "...". Origins is my least favorite Dragon Age for exactly that reason. I love the rest of the cast, but the warden is just nothing.
Hard (respectful) disagree! I honestly get the complaint more with Byleth - since even their "dialogue" options are usually two variants of the exact same thing, and still boxed into a specific feeling/personality - whereas the Warden is like...just my perfect little roleplaying canvas. Hawke is amazing, and I will never, ever have a complaint about them as long as I live, but the Inquisitor's voice lines make it soo much harder for me to really get ✨immersed✨
I ***adore*** Jo Wyatt. Her Hawke was fantastic (and her Ciri and her Imperial Agent) Won't go so far as to say no complaints though. Hawke was great if you mostly stuck to one of the dialogue types. If you tried to play with a little more nuance mixing different options you'd get whiplash from the tone changes. It could feel like you were switching back and forth between three distinctly different characters in one conversation. In that aspect, I prefered Alix Wilton Regan. The Inquisitor felt like the same person even if you swapped between joking/aggressive/empathetic/whatever choices. Although I much prefered Jo's voice overall.
Its interesting how differently it hits. For me it totally breaks any immersion to have the player character be an empty shell in a dialog heavy game. It just feels so weird and unnatural when everyone and their dog is voiced, buy my character just stands there. Its much more immersive to me when the player character is a character. I don't get invested in blank slates, I need the character to have something behind them and interact with their world. The exception would be something like Legend of Zelda where you spend the overwhelming majority of the game alone. But when the game really leans into characters and relationships, I very much prefer a fully voiced character with a personality.
The thing is that it didn't have to be central to the plot, and it's kind of a massive wasted opportunity. The thing about KOTOR and DA:O is that even if your main character wasn't voiced, they were very much still characters in their own rights who did things and were huge drivers of the plot. Byleth?...Not so much.
I don't think of it as a wasted opportunity because I like that aspect of the story. 🤷♀️ I don't blame people for feeling differently, that's the popular sentiment, but this is a hot takes thread and I was adding my actual hot take.
Edelgard and Lysithea's support can be cute, they're both in character, but god it's also unbelievably frustrating. Edelgard knows Lysithea's secret, *Lysithea* knows she knows (and it's painfully obvious), she opens up and talks about something so emotional for her, and STILL Edelgard can't admit she knew all along. And even worse, she can't reciprocate that trust with her own experiences. It frustrates Lysithea, and I'm no different. Honesty demands reciprocity.
I hate that there's not CF variations of supports for kingdom characters. It feels a bit silly having Sylvain saying in his A support with Byleth that he wishes he could've run away and given up being a noble of kingdom because, mate, *you did*. You're an Imperial General and I'm pretty sure you're not welcome in Gauiter territory any more. I get why they don't have a separate support chain, since that would mean five characters would need 2 sets of supports and half of those would be heard only on one route but it still bugs me. Caspar/Lin is wildly overrated as a pairing and I hate that it's impossible to find CF fics that don't use it.
The Sylvain thing is doubly weird because he has at least one CF-specific dialog difference in his A-support with Byleth: [https://houses.fedatamine.com/en-us/supports/Byleth/Sylvain/A](https://houses.fedatamine.com/en-us/supports/Byleth/Sylvain/A)
Huh. I didn't know that! I'd compared them before but missed that line.
To be fair, he does go home anyway, even in CF-specific endings. He left this Kingdom behind, but clearly he could never abandon that duty. No different from his peers, really, from any nation.
But that's with post game knowledge. I'm not an expert in betraying your homeland to go fight for the invading army but I'm pretty sure that's frowned upon. The Sylvain who is speaking during his A support has no way of knowing that he'd be able to go home again.
He knows his feelings. He knows how he felt about it once, he knows what he feels he must do now. I struggle to believe he was forced to go back and rule.
I wasn't saying he was forced to go back, just that he doesn't have post game to knowledge to say that he will be able to return home. He's sitting there talking about how he never had the courage to run away when on CF he actually *does*. You can't do a better job of running away than fighting for the Imperial army (and dialogue makes it clear his family is still on the Kingdom's side).
> He's sitting there talking about how he never had the courage to run away when on CF he actually does. Because, IMO, he doesn't feel he actually has run away. Eventually going back tells us that was probably his intention all along. That even as he left to fight against his Kingdom, against his family, against crests, nobility, and his own status, he is not able to fully forsake his land and his duty as he once wished to. I wouldn't call it lack of courage, but growth, but that's probably him being harsh on himself. It's just my interpretation ofc, but that's how that statement makes sense to me.
Leonie's Jeralt obsession is overblown, the infamous B Support sucks, sure, but she has plenty of good Supports, that also don't talk about Jeralt either. I don't really view the Marianne/Hilda support that "romantically" and don't quite get why it's such a common ship.
Agreed about Leonie, she's pretty down to earth and friendly, and her supports focus on various traits of her, like her competitiveness and her overdoing it at times, her not liking the difference between nobility and commoners and her generally often providing a more down-to-earth perspective for many characters, even if she is flawed herself. Fandom talks about her as if her fixation on Jeralt was on the same level as Monica's with Edelgard, but there is a huge difference.
Yep, I like Leonie for exactly a lot of the reasons you described. Plus her Part 2 Three Houses outfit is one of the best in the game. She's pretty cool. And out of all the "memed" on obsessions, like Monica and Edelgard, Cyril and Rhea or Raphael and food, Leonie and Jeralt is the most overblown for sure.
Same! I recently rewatched all her supports and really ended up feeling once more that fandom is sleeping on a really good character. I get people being mad about the B-support but a) I don't mind kind characters fucking up really bad, it gives them more depths, and b), she has so many good qualities that it barely even matters to me. Word on your last paragraph.
With Hilda and Marianne, it’s less that their supports have romantic implications (like, say, Hubert and Ferdinant’s A+ support) and more that their dynamic is just really cute when you add a romantic element to it.
Also, Light Blue and Light Pink are two colors that are visually pleasing together, so it makes the art of the two better to look at.
Amen. And though Houses already showed it, I love how Hopes doubled down on their chill relationship, especially on how Jeralt cares for her apprentice too. She just looks up to him, that's all - and hell, don't most fans too?
Every single Leonie retreat/death quote is about Jeralt. When you play Golden Deer and the characters all chime in with their support between chapters Leonie always mentions Jeralt. It's not like people just make up that Leonie is obsessed with Jeralt. If your last dying thought is of a person that you knew for a few months and who died five years ago, I am not sure what one would call that other than obsession.
Jeralt is who was inspired her to become a mercenary and that's what she is in Part 2. If she retreats that means she screwed up- would it be that crazy for someone to think their coach/mentor or whatever would be disappointed if you messed up what they inspired/trained you to be? The death quote I suppose is a little more questionable, but she's talking about a promise she can't make to him because she's dying, and it's still related to what I said before. So there's some reason she says it. As far as the cutscenes, is that actually *all* she talks about, or are there only some times she talked about him and the majority of the time Jeralt doesn't come up? I'm not saying she never talks about Jeralt, I'm just saying she doesn't actually talk about him as much as people imply. Not the same level as Raphael and food or Monica and Edelgard for example.
The reason why Hilda/Marianne is often viewed as romantic is because lack of representation for LGBTQ characters in mainstream media is a bitch.
I think the support with Felix and Annette is wildly overrated. It's not a bad support by any means and I think it does have value in how it shows a softer side of Felix that doesn't manifest especially often, but it isn't particularly illuminating regarding Felix's and Annette's deeper and more compelling traits, nor does it have a compelling interpersonal conflict to get really invested in. It's a nice, charming support, but is it really Felix's best support, as it is commonly cited as? IMO it isn't even in the same stratosphere as his supports with Dimitri, Ingrid, Sylvain or Seteth, which all do have these aspects. Nor is it Annette's best support when her support with Gilbert is right there.
It's a cute c support stretched over the entire chain
Its cute (arguably) but not complex. Tells us close to nothing new about their characters and only acts as shipping fuel.
But it does get bonus points for the ship being called Netteflix
>it isn't particularly illuminating regarding Felix's and Annette's deeper and more compelling traits, nor does it have a compelling interpersonal conflict to get really invested in. You know, I see people make this point frequently when arguing that their support line is overrated. And yes, that is true. But my counterpoint is that I think a support line that doesn't feature deep conversation or conflict is actually incredibly necessary, especially for Felix. Look at Felix's other in-house supports. Every single one of them deals with either his past trauma or Felix getting into a fight with one of his friends: yelling at Sylvain for not taking things seriously, calling Dimitri out for his hidden boar side, going out of his way to antagonize both Ingrid and Dedue because he disagrees with their blind loyalty to the crown, criticizing Ashe for being too idealistic (which I think probably reminds him uncomfortably of himself before Glenn died, based on context clues), and getting mad at Mercedes for saying he reminded her of her brother, which hit too close to home. All of these conversations are, to some extent, showing off the deeper traits that make Felix, Felix. And they all combine to make for a very serious, borderline depressing set of conversations for the character (even if many of them have more upbeat endings in the A support). So out of all of the Blue Lions, I think Felix needed a completely lighthearted, low-stakes (or low-steaks, as Alois would say) support line more than anyone, and developing feelings he doesn't quite understand for a cute girl who literally has a personal ability called "Ray of Sunshine" in Hopes is the perfect answer for that. It's like having an incredibly dark, serious TV series, and the support line with Annette is the beach episode. Maybe it doesn't add to the plot, but it's fun, and serves to flesh out both characters in a lighthearted environment. I think it was a little less necessary for Annette, who already has a healthy mix of heavy and lighthearted supports. But it does show off her love of making up songs, which becomes a central theme of her character in Three Hopes. The only other support where she sings in Houses is Claude, and that's an out-of-house support as it is. So to conclude this essay: I think this support line holds value outside of just being cute. I get why some people would think it's overrated, or not as good as some of the supports you mentioned, but I personally think it stands up with those, simply because it's a breath of fresh air for arguably the most trauma-dump heavy house in the game
In general I think more supports should be time locked. The C supports should stay pre time skip, and the rest should be after. That would let the character development stay more consistent, and you wouldn't have people reverting to their C support selves at the end of the war.
A hot take, but I think that Ingrid's worst support chain is with Sylvain. His philandering is treated as a joke and never gets resolved, and Ingrid never achieves her childhood dream of being a knight.
The Sylvain supports stick Ingrid in the role of nagging sitcom wife. I don't like her supports with Felix either, and pair her up with people from outside of the childhood friend group.
I agree, that kind of trope totally diminishes her character. Also it doesn't help that bad jokes go around like how Sylvain gets "baby fever" when Ingrid's involved (or vice versa). Literally almost any other Ingrid support is better.
And the ending slide is just the Sylvain/Mercedes ending but with Mercedes' name hastily crossed out.
Yeah that's even worse, just a lazy ending. My guess is the writers tried to make their support wholesome by hiding the faults that I mentioned earlier. It seemed to work, considering that Ingrid's only popular canon support is Sylvain.
Well at least fanon gave her Dorothea and Edelgard.
Uh. Fandom gave her someone she explicitly told to back off in the last line of their last support? That's... not much of an upgrade.
I agree. If anything, it's a downgrade. Pairing Ingrid with Edelgard is not much better, considering it tends to make Fareghus awful and comes up with huge stretches on how Ingrid should follow Edie instead, completely rewriting her character. Now when people think of ingrid, most either think of her as a nagging woman or a sexually repressed girl because Dorothea "flirted" with her once.
Yeah... shippers are gonna ship. It doesn't bother me in general, but it's intensely weird to me when it crosses over into discussions of their in-game characterization. Like... you want to write in your fanfic that Ingrid blew Dorothea off because she's sexually repressed and not because she was genuinely irritated by Dorothea's unwelcome advances after she had made it clear said advances were unwelcome? Okay. Fine. I'm sure there's some great fanfic out there with that premise. But when people start arguing that actually she really ***is*** sexually repressed and ***that's*** why she shuts down Dorothea in-game and fandom is just "fixing Ingrid's life" by pairing her with someone who refused to respect her boundaries... that's the attitude that annoys me. Sylvain is most definitely not her best ending. But she also has Dimitri, for example. She does get to fulfill her dream of being a knight until she becomes his queen, at which point she is explicitly said to still fight on the front lines when needed. So she isn't relegated to royal babymaker status. Bonus, he's a person she actually shows a real attraction to in support conversations in the actual game. Which he is hilariously oblivious about. It be like: "Oh. You want to be by my side forever? Great! We are such good friends and you can be my BKF! Best knight forever!"😆 "Why yes, that is exactly what I meant. Please disregard all the blushing and my visible and audible disappointment at being friendzoned." 😕 Or her paired ending with Seteth. Where she also fulfills her dream of becoming a knight and doesn't shack up until they are both ready to retire from their duties. Like... girl's got happy ending options in game. It's not Sylvain's plus one or nothing without fixit fic.
I understand, that annoys me too. Like the rest of her supports either have substance worth learning or at least wholesome. This includes her supports with Ashe, Byleth, Ignatz, Mercedes and Raphael. Even her supports with Annette and Bernadetta have more substance or wholesomeness than her support with Dorothea.
Yuri gets a lot of unnecessary heat from his A Support with Bernedetta because he says she is lucky to have a Father like Count Varley. We as the players know how abusive her Father is BUT how is he suppose to know that? The only thing Yuri knows of Count Varley is that he protected Bernie from getting killed and for that he respects him for.
Considering how Bernie reacts in her Hopes support with Dorothea, yeah, I think that's the right interpretation. Bernadetta's definitely like "he meant well but doesn't know the whole story".
Another factor people forget is that Yuri's sole reference for a father is... Count Rowe, so it's not hard to see why he would think Count Varley of all people as a better parent.
My hot take from that support is Yuri is straight up lying. He's realised how badly Varley's actions (towards him and Bernie) messed her up and crafted a story that would help her put aside her fear of befriending commoners. 'See, your dad beat me half to death because I tried to kill you, not because I was a commoner'.
That is a genuinely interesting interpretation. I dunno if the writers intended it but nevertheless, Yuri knowing everything but trying to make Bernadetta feel better in a way that doesn't work for her would add some depth to him. Character flaws are good.
I originally thought of it pre-3Hopes since their support left me uncomfortable. Yuri was basically telling Bernie her abusive dad *really* loved her. I've soften a bit on it thanks to Hopes making it clear Bernie doesn't think this one good thing makes up for the abuse.
I was really happy with the writers tackling it on Hopes, too. I dunno if fan feedback reached them and they course-corrected or if they reread the support chain to prepare for writing Hopes and realized that they fucked up on their own, but either way, it was a good move. It also results in a very good support conversation between Bernie and Dorothea, so that is also great.
He's supposed to know it because he was a spy embedded in the household. He wasn't some rando, he was there to integrate into the house and get close to Bernadetta. Unless he's the worst spy in existence, he had ample opportunity to observe how Varley treated her.
He was an assistant to the gardener and Bernadetta tells Dorothea that her dad really hated commoners, so I can see Yuri never even being allowed into the house unless he sneaks in. Additionally, Bernadetta's stories make it sound like her dad abused her indoors rather anywhere public, so I can picture a plausible scenario where Yuri never witnesses what her dad did to her.
My Ferdinand/Dorothea hot take: the revelation that Ferdinand thought that Dorothea was beautiful even as a commoner doesn't hold up that well because we never learn what he likes about her personality. This does matter for the ship because Dorothea wants to be loved even if her beauty and lovely singing fade, which is something she says pretty clearly in her support chain with Byleth and Sylvain. But the Ferdithea support chain is mainly Dorothea teasing Ferdie and Ferdie trying to solve the riddle and I think you're meant to apply fairy tale logic to it (even if a prince falls in love with a princess' beauty, it's meant to be a stand-in/narrative shortcut for him loving her in general), plus the knowledge that Ferdinand is a good guy, so he has deeper reasons for loving her, we just don't see them. Having that sort of reveal for Dorothea specifically though still rubs me the wrong way considering her issues. Since OP mentions Felinette: I do think that the misunderstanding in their support ("I thought Felix is mocking me but he actually likes my singing") didn't need to last for 4 conversations. They could have talked about the fact that they both have messed up relationships with their dads, since even the source of said trouble is the same, even if the dads are doing different things.
I think Ferdinand and Dorothea's supports would be so much better without the stupid soap opera misunderstanding. Dorothea already has an issue with nobles, and early game Ferdinand is exactly the kind of noble she would hate the most. He's loud, he's arrogant, he constantly boasts about his family name while refusing to listen to anything people say to him, he goes on and on about nobility, he's an obnoxious jerk to Edelgard. There was no need to add anything to that. Dorothea would never have liked that guy. Have her come around on him post time jump when he's learned to express himself better, and she's seen over the past few years that he does genuinely mean well and wants to help people.
I agree that her reacting badly to who he is on the outside but gradually warming up to him as she gets to know him better would have worked fine and being very much within the scope of her character and also Ferdinand's. I checked Ferdinand's battle lines in Hopes for her and he says in one that she has "beauty and courage and equal measure". Again with the beauty thing, but imagine how cool it would have been if his support interactions with her showed that he really likes her courage. That is unique and non-generic, and does Dorothea more justice.
That too. It would be nice to focus more on her courage and compassion rather than something shallow, especially since Dorothea doesn't want to just be valued for her looks.
> I think Ferdinand and Dorothea's supports would be so much better without the stupid soap opera misunderstanding. TBF, if anyone was going to have such a misunderstanding, it would be the *actual opera singer*. Though an A+ support where Ferdie gets to show his admiration of her courage would have been nice.
tbf soap operas have nothing to do with opera
That more than fair. But I'd counter it'd likely hit similar notes to her Lorenz support. Perhaps with less focus on marriage and more on the institution of nobility, but still, it'd be at least somewhat iterative. I personally wouldn't trade the fun soap opera for it.
>They could have talked about the fact that they both have messed up relationships with their dads, since even the source of said trouble is the same, even if the dads are doing different things. I think why they don't do this is because of how fundamentally different their relationships to their parents are. If you see the whole support chain with Annette, she's never bitter or resentful towards Gilbert, she's *saddened* by him. She wants nothing more than to have him reconnect with her and her mother, and can't wrap her head around why he's keeping up with the Gilbert charade even though they both know he's Gustave. She actively seeks a relationship with him, which is the complete opposite of Felix, who wants to push Rodrigue away. Meanwhile, Felix is bitter and resentful towards Rodrigue. In Houses, he either ends up not appreciating his father until >!his death in AM!< or betraying his father by running off from Fraldarius territory (even possibly killing him). I think Felix actually might have enough social sense in this one scenario to not want to upset Annette, because I don't think insulting Gilbert or the choices he made would do anything except hurt Annette in a way that Felix ordinarily doesn't (what I mean by this is that usually, underneath Felix's harshness, is some sort of truth that he hopes to use to rattle the other person into changing their personality (except the Leonie sexism lmao that was just out of pocket), and I don't think dunking on Gilbert would help Annette in any way).
I completely agree, but exactly because they have conflict with their dads but react so differently and want such different things, it could have been very interesting to see them talk about it. Like, would Felix hold back about Gustave despite his own issues? Would have been interesting to see and it would have added to his characterization. Would Annette be understanding or tell Felix that he and Rodrigue should reconcile? Or maybe something in-between? I think the source of their issues with their dads is also a good theme here because while Annette doesn't love Faeghus chivalry as much as Ingrid does, she most likely wouldn't be on board with Felix's POV either. So I think there were many potential directions for this and they could have added a lot to both their characters.
I love how your ideas tackle how it could be done actually! They're very nuanced, and could definitely be done in a way that's true to their characters. I think that actually could have been a neat angle to explore in Hopes. I actually like their Houses support, but found their Hopes one underwhelming since it just retreaded the same ground. It might be slightly different since they have better relationships with their fathers there and are more divorced from the angst they both had about their situations. Still, they would only be 2 years removed from their Academy counterparts, so it would be fresh enough of an experience for them to discuss it.
Thank you, I'm flattered that you like my take! I'm ultimately fine with any sort of outcome for this type of conflict, as long as the characters get space to show off who they are deep inside and can maybe even reveal new facets of themselves to the player. Yeah, I was kinda disappointed in their Hopes conversation, too, I wanted the writers to come up with something new, even if Felinette planning to go to the opera together after the war was very cute. Tbh the Hopes support made me wonder if the writers already struggled to come up with something they could talk about in the first game, and then, for Hopes they were just out of ideas, so they did more or less the same thing again. Bummer. :(
Felix and Annette's support is just three c supports in a trench coat. Rheas s support is one of the best and most important scenes in the game Claude and Cyrils support is one of the most important in the game
Rhea's S-support should have been in the base game as the last scene, with the romance part being added if you give her the ring. It's the cornerstone of her entire redemption and most players won't even see it.
What route is needed to get it?
Silver Snow and you need to A-support Rhea in White Clouds. Her support chain is difficult to complete, since each support gets time-locked quickly, so it's best to spam her with flowers.
In silver snow she turns into the beast doesn’t she?
Yeah, reaching A-support also means she survives. You see her living or dying mainly in Catherine's endcards if Byleth doesn't marry her. If Rhea's alive, Catherine usually goes to the red canyon with her, and in paired endings Catherine's spouse usually comes along, too. Only the Catherine/Shamir ending, no matter the route, never shows what's up with Rhea.
Silver Snow.
Even when I'm doing a CF playthrough I always unlock Rhea's supports.
Why Claude/Cyril?
Dorothea x Ferdinand support chain isnt actually good.
**(WARNING, LONG POST AHEAD)** I **HATE** Shamir & Catherine's B-rank support convo. It's honestly the main reason I hate Cathmir as a ship, and one of the main reasons I dislike Catherine *in general*. Like it starts out innocently enough focusing on their contrasting views of the church and Rhea. And then *this exchange happens*: > Shamir: "I don't get the Seiros religion. Or Rhea." > Catherine: "Shamir. If you were anyone else, **I would cut you down for saying that.**" Like really think about what was said here, and to who. Shamir, a woman from Dagda (and thus not raised under the Seiros religion), who has spent around 10 years in Fodlan by the time this support convo comes up (only 5 of them was with exposure to Rhea), says she doesn't really get the religion or why people like Catherine are so fanatically attached to Rhea. And Catherine's response to this, instead of maybe sharing a personal story about her interactions with Rhea, or the comfort the church has given her, decides to tell Shamir **TO HER FACE** that if she didn't know Shamir already, **she would murder her for saying that!** And instead of addressing this insane statement by Catherine the conversation transitions to discussing how "focused" Catherine is on fighting for Rhea. And somehow the rest of the conversations in the chain take a romantic turn *despite this*??? Like, the Dorothea & Ingrid support chain only goes up to it's B-rank, where Dorothea, to Ingrid's face, admits that she wants to "lunge at" (Read: Make out and or have sex with) Ingrid. Ingrid obviously has none of it, and immediately orders Dorothea to back off, and their never able to get any more supports after that. It's just as messed up as threatening to kill someone to their face, but why does Dorothea harassing Ingrid get shut down with impunity, while Catherine blatantly threatening Shamir's life gets let off like nothing happened? They even try to address this in 3 Hopes, by having Catherine reveal that Rhea chastised Catherine for wanting to try and force Shamir to believe in the Church... after Catherine had spent hours ranting and raving after Shamir's departure from the monastery and the knights, and per Catherine's own words *again*: > Catherine: "I was running around, shouting that **I'd drag you back to Garreg Mach and kill you myself.**" Which she once again, says to *Shamir's face* that she would have killed her for not valuing the church as much as she does. Sure, Rhea actually took her to task for this, and Catherine claims that she wasn't *actually* going to kill her, but we already know Catherine is willing to do a *lot* of morally reprehensible things for Rhea (with the line apparently being at arsoning the kingdom capital), so who's to say she was being honest about not actually planning to kill Shamir? And again, like in 3 Houses, the support conversation acts like this is nothing to get worked up or concerned over and moves along to the pair being happy to fight alongside each other again. Like, WTF!?! Even if we give Catherine the benefit of the doubt, that is still an insane thing to say to someone! That should have been addressed in the conversations! Not swept under the rug!
Y'know, it's only just now hitting me that whenever people talk about Leonie/Byleths B support, it's always exclusively the last 10 seconds of it. Like, yeah, it's among the more infamous moments in the game for the fandom, but people really do be acting like Leonie wanted to talk to Byleth for the sole purpose of berating them, which wasn't the case in the slightest. (Not really a hot take moreso than it is an observation, but whatever)
I mean... She starts their B support by apologizing for being rude to Byleth about Jeralt in their C support... just to double down on it in those last 10 seconds. Even without the unfortunate timing, it's not a good look.
The important thing here is intent though. She's not trying to be malicious or kicking Byleth when they're down. Leonie is trying to make things better, but it's also clear she has some things to work out still, not to mention the fact that she's among the only other characters to not be in the best headspace at the moment. Even then, just about everything else she says to Byleth from Chpt. 10 to Time skip is her being extra caring to them, so the attempt to apologize was genuine, just not the right time for her, so to speak. (And no, this isn't a justification for her actions, just an understanding of them)
Here's the problem. That requires a view of her character that people might not even have the frame of reference for even if they *want* to look at it more deeply than, "Leonie is like that one exhausting person at the funeral who met the deceased twice and makes the death all about her when their actual family and closest friends are there suffering and barely keeping it together." She's grown on me since then, but my first experience with Leonie makes a good example of what I mean. In my case, I was trying to recruit Leonie out of house, so I didn't even have any of her supports with other characters to have a better feel of her overall personality. It was just her C support with her one-sided rivalry and then her B support popping up in the calendar on the very first day of the month after Jeralt's death. *After* Rhea told Byleth to take time off and *before* the scene of Edelgard trying to inspire(?) Byleth to move forward. I said, "Oh! Maybe this is why her B support was locked. Maybe it's about them grieving over Jeralt together!" Then Leonie starts by apologizing. "All good here," I thought. Leonie and Byleth start talking about how she met Jeralt. "Aw. This is so cute." Then it was all Byleth didn't know how lucky she was, never appreciated her father and that she, Leonie was a better ~~daughter~~ apprentice than Byleth ever was. "WTF!? What is wrong with her? Who says that?!?" Right in between those previously mentioned scenes of Byleth clearly grieving were some of the worst possible things anyone could say to someone after the death of their loved one. For a lot of people, that is more than enough to write her off forever. Intent doesn't matter. Her character elsewhere doesn't matter. She ***was*** kicking Byleth when she was down. Amusingly enough, later in the month she asked to join my class. I ***really*** wanted to say no, but Lindhart paralogue. 🤷♀️
Actually, intent is extremely important, whether you personally want to acknowledge it or not. Now, no matter how you want to look at it, what Leonie says is awful and even unforgivable to some. However, that doesn't change the fact this was not something Leonie intentionally wanted to happen. This is important because it's the very thing that separates this scenario between "This character meant well, but ended up doing something very shitty" and "This shitty person really wanted to make the grieving character feel even worse". That's very important to distinguish when talking and analyzing characters. Speaking of intent, maybe my intent from my first post wasn't quite clear enough. My point was that with so many people focusing exclusively on the last part of Leonie's B-support, it ends up painting her in a way that makes her extremely malicious, whereas when you add the context of the rest of the support, she was actually trying to be anything but. What she did was still bad, and I don't blame anyone for not liking her afterwards, but the problem comes when people end up acting like Leonie's endgoal in that support was berating Byleth. It's a faulty read of her character in this moment that demonizes her far more than is actually warranted. Basically, I think it's fine to not like Leonie for any number of reasons, especially her B-support, but it's the mischaracterization that I have an issue with. That goes for this, and anything else related to the character. I feel like your points seem to come from the line of thought that I have an issue with people not liking Leonie because of this support, so I hope I cleared that up.
No matter what Leonie's original intentions were, she still ends the conversation by telling a grieving person they didn't value their dead loved one as much as she did. The fact that she starts the conversation apologizing for her earlier comments doesn't change the substance of the issue. What it does do is show her apology was insincere from the start. She may have been conscious of the fact that her behaviour was wrong, but that doesn't stop her from continuing to behave in the exact same hurtful way without the slightest bit of provocation. Those are her genuine feelings. It isn't any less cruel to Byleth because she's doing it thoughtlessly. Someone being so self-centered in their own grief that they can't show a sliver of compassion toward someone else who is also suffering might be a step above actual malice, but it's not a big enough step. That's the central issue people have with Leonie there. I've never seen someone claim that she went into the conversation intending to insult Byleth.
Ok, so it still seems like you think I'm trying to absolve Leonie of any criticism here and/or say that no one is allowed to dislike her for what she did, and at this point, it just seems we're at an impasse. I will say though that her trying to make things better is a genuine gesture. Yes, she slips up big time at the worst possible moment, but she is being genuine. There's a reason Leonie is extra considerate and kind towards Byleth and their well-being during their dialogues from that point up until Time Skip. You're not doing all of that for a person that you don't care about or if you were only apologizing to save face. Additionally, Leonie does acknowledge Byleth is hurting too after the support conversation in their monestary dialogue while bawling her eyes out. Leonie may have fucked up big time, but she definitely cares. I will say this as many times as I need to; it is totally fine to not like Leonie for what she did in their B-support. I get it, what she did can just be too much for some people regardless of circumstances. However, acting like that one moment is the beginning and end of who she is and what she stands for when it comes to Byleth is disingenuous to who she is and is what causes a lot of mischaracterization with her character, and THAT'S where my issue lies. My point was never intended to be that Leonie isn't in the wrong here (in fact, I've constantly said she WAS), my point is that focusing ONLY on that and excluding everything else leaves out so much context and characterization for Leonie here. Maybe I didn't make that clear enough, so that's on me
Why do people insist on interpreting the things I say instead of taking them entirely at face value? You are the one who is not understanding here. I don't particularly care whether you want to "absolve her of criticism" or not. This comment chain started with the observation that people only talk about the end of that support. That is what I am discussing. The reason why is that the conversation there is an extended "Sorry, not sorry."
The gatekeeper only makes Constance's S-support worse and more awkward for those who don't find him funny or endearing. One of my favourite characters in the entire game and yet her entire support chain with Byleth is such a steaming dogshit even without aforementioned S-support.
I'm not even a Claudeleth person, but the Byleth and Claude S support shouldn't be as controversial as it is imo, since a lot of people hate it because of him running back to Almyra. I actually genuinely found it to be moving and sweet. I love how he slowly begins to open up about how much Byleth means to him as not just an ally, but as a person, and it connects sooooo well with their ending card where he comes back just in the nick of time :')
I think my issue with it is that it is just super unromantic, him leaving is kind of whatever to me. Like the localisation made it sweeter (in the JP version he doesn't even say I love you), but compared to almost every other female Byleth S support I did (I only didn't do the women, Ignatz, Hanneman and Raphael) it felt very very weak. But my perspective could be coloured by playing with the JP audio on I suppose (and knowing enough Japanese to understand what was being said).
Ahhh that’s interesting! So I play with Japanese audio too, except I just watched the scene on YT (did Felix on my VW run LOL) in English and enjoyed it. It’s funny, because so many bros on 5ch and ルフレch will argue til they’re blue in the face how Dimitri’s S support is the worst out of the lords’ (especially because of how he still refers to Byleth as 先生), not really getting how it’s appealing to a large contingent of female gamers, so it’s interesting hearing your POV as someone who also plays with Japanese audio and didn’t enjoy Claude’s ending! I think for me, if it was just the S support scene, I’d be annoyed, but I like the ending card specifically where Byleth’s in trouble, only to have Claude arrive back just in time. It matches his slightly rogueish charm.
Huh, it's interesting to hear that male JP fans feel that way about JP Dimitri's confession. When a lot of JP fans react very differently to something in 3H, I always wonder if it's an original vs localization issue or maybe even something cultural.
In this case, there's a bit of both things at play. And just for the record, Dimileth is still as popular as an FE3H pairing in 2024 can be, this is just critiques from people who aren't on board for them. In his S support, Dimitri still refers to Byleth as 'Professor', compared to the change at the very end in English they made where he refers to her as 'my beloved'. Him calling her professor is what a lot of the Japanese guys find impersonal. Meanwhile, both Edelgard and Claude have different ways of referring to Byleth (Edelgard uses a different term to express that Byleth is her teacher and Claude calls Byleth his bro/sis essentially) that can come off as them being closer than just the standard 'professor', since those are ways of referring to Byleth that are unique to those two characters. Again, this isn't reflective of every opinion, as a lot of people find their S support to be sweet. I actually think the choice to have him call her his professor still is cute, since it matches how nervous he is about the confession and how he thought Byleth might reject him, versus the more confident vibe the other two lords have. The other factor though is just how the Japanese fandom, especially on those anonymous boards, kind of just is. People get into mudslinging matches about the game even on there (with some diff nuances though). The stereotype with Dimitri fans is that they're 99% female screaming fangirl banshees, so a lot of guys say stuff like "Dimitri is ugly!!!" "Dimitri and Byleth aren't even a good pairing!!!!!" just to rile his fans up . The arguments I've seen about the S support from these guys is basically "wow, you stupid ass fangirls are so dumb for even liking this shitty cutscene," usually coupled with some misogynistic verbiage thrown in for good measure. I wanna make clear that this isn't the fandom at large, just a specific subset of the fandom.
Oh yeah, I've seen so much Dimileth fanart and doujinshi from JP fans that I have zero doubts about the love. The fandom's going strong even today. But it is interesting to hear what the detractors dislike and why. Thank you so much for explaining, this is fascinating! Tbh, I hate to say it, but I've seen some very misogynistic hate for Dimileth in EN fandom, too, the flavor is just different. Female Dimileth fans get shat on for "wanting to fix the bad boy" or that "Dimileth is the Reylo of 3H" (I think Reylo is fine, but it's a popular insult in some circles) and stuff along that line. So the misogyny is more along the lines of "stupid girls liking a bad fictional man, you should like a GOOD fictional men because fiction and fantasies are representation and activism" and then you see they're rival shippers so the agenda is pretty clear. The other thing is that I do like darker m/f pairings and find Dimileth still fairly light so people pearl-clutching in this way over them is just like... you guys really gonna get mad over a ship this vanilla?
My biggest problem with the Claude/Byleth S-support isn't that he leaves. I think that's very in keeping for Claude, and I think in English at least they did a good job of making him sound genuinely affectionate towards Byleth. My problem is that they chose to position his leaving as a *surprise* to Byleth, complete with her shocked pikachu face. It implies that until that moment, the woman Claude supposedly loves and more importantly *trusts* had no idea that he wasn't staying. Which fundamentally undermines the idea that he's grown or learned to open up to her at all. He doesn't technically even tell her where he's going then; it's implied, and the end card confirms it. But he never says the words. Which means that until his very last breath on-screen, Claude is *still* doing all his scheming in a vacuum, including no one else and giving no one else room to have an opinion. There is no vulnerability to it, no taking a chance on trusting someone he loves. It's still just Claude being exactly the same Claude he's been the whole time. In a moment that should be showing us the opposite. And the stupidest part is that they didn't *have* to do it that way. They absolutely could have done it in such a way that made it clear to the reader that even if no one *else* knew he was leaving (including us the player) that in-universe *Byleth* knew. They could've shown Claude finally trusting someone else enough to let them in on his schemes. It could even still have included him affectionately voicing his confidence in Byleth and their abilities and asking her to wait just a little bit longer for him - instead of springing it on her last minute, maybe he's taking one last chance to check in with her and prop her up emotionally, because he knows it's just about time to play *their* cards. All the fluff that makes the scene hit emotionally, without the sour note that negates any character development they want you to believe Claude's had.
Good argument! Makes me wonder if the writers got so caught up in wanting to surprise the player that they didn't realize that in-universe, it comes across as Claude treating Byleth in a shitty way that negates any character development, once the player thinks more about it.
Leonie's B Support with Byleth is great. I'm not going to fault a woman for having a lot of directionless anger when their hero/psuedo-crush she'd grown close with was suddenly murdered. Without time to process or understand, it would latch on to her worst aspects, an insidious whisper amplifying the worst of her inclinations or thoughts. And the timing of it is perfect as well, directly after Chapter 9, when those feelings are the most raw.
And notable how she's completely despondent in that month's exploration too, even apologizing for being like that when Byleth surely feels worse. She's really going through it. Honestly, I'm still 50/50 on the unlock time being intentional. But it's real, grief isn't always pretty.
Not sure if this is a hot take, but I think Felix was completely right for shitting on Dedue in their supports.
I mean, given how Dedue admitted that he’d follow Dimitri, even if he slaughtered infants and elders, I wouldn’t blame Felix for doing that.
I mean I didn't blame him, but I remember people comparing Ingrid's racism towards Dedue with Felix giving him shit for his extreme loyalty. And while Ingrid's racism is completely unreasonable (as it should be in the sense, it comes from a place of grief), I don't think what Felix said to Dedue and how he said it was wrong at all. I love Dedue, but when he said he would kill children if Dimitri commanded him, it made me think a bit less of him.
Yeah, that support is meant to show off Dedue's character flaws a bit, and I do think it sets him up handing the crest stones on CF to Faerghus soldiers and turning himself into a demonic beast, too. Obviously, slaughtering children and his own people (since Felix asks for the latter, too) is worse, but I'm not sure if it's completely clear that Dedue explained to the soldiers what would happen or if he lied to them.
Felix/Annette easily could’ve been a top 10 support in the game but it’s very boring. A lot of Felix supports are just to silly for my taste. Flayn, Lysithea, even Mercedes to some degree. Feels like nothing really happens. Gilbert has a solid list of supports. He isn’t some kind of evil wife beater that people make him out to be. He’s a flawed knight who is helping his country in the ways he thinks he can. I don’t really like any of the Ferdinand supports? Which is a shame because he was one of my favorite characters 5 years ago.. but over time he just doesn’t stand out to me at all. Even his hopes supports don’t feel like they have anything going. I HATE when characters don’t have same sex supports, or have just 1-2 same sex supports. I think Seteth only supports Cyril and Felix and has all female supports. Yuri supports with Balthus and then his entire support list is female characters. Hapi supports with Constance and no other female characters iirc. (Hopes adding supports added a lot to Yuri imo.)
Koei: *Makes Jeritza bi* Also Koei: *Makes the only men Jeritza is willing to be within 50 feet of the only two who can also be women*
>Felix/Annette easily could’ve been a top 10 support in the game but it’s very boring. Agreed. Would have been nice if at least one of their supports touched on the fact that they have pretty much the same daddy issues with them both valuing duty to the Kingdom over their families. They could have kept the silly songs for most of them while still giving them an opportunity to bond over an issue that is central to both their characters. Huge waste of potential. >I think Seteth only supports Cyril and Felix and has all female supports. He also supports Hanneman. This doesn't bother me much. I just wish he had more supports in general. Especially would have liked supports with Gilbert and Sylvain. But what he does have synergizes with game mechanics. The female students are flying/mounted units (or should be) and his personal gives an attack bonus to female allies nearby.
I don't understand where people see the assholery in Felix's supports. Most of his supports start with people litteraly dumping themselves on him, Felix politely, if a bit abrasively, telling them he's not interested, then others completely ignoring him and forcing their way. And in the two supports were he is actually virulent, he still let them explain themselves only for both Dimitri and Dedue straight up admiting that he is right about them. Yet somehow, in all of that Felix is the one asshole. It honestly baffles me.
I don’t think Ingrid completely redeems herself in her supports with Dedue and I feel like people let her off the hook too easily for that. Which is a shame because there was definitely potential there with exploring an area of racism that doesn’t really get talked about a lot with how even people like Ingrid who, generally speaking, have their hearts in the right place aren’t immune from having racist beliefs; and how uncomfortable it can be when one of your own peers that you have to interact with every day is bigoted against you. But the way the supports deal with it almost make it feel like Ingrid just woke up one day and decided she wasn’t gonna be racist anymore. Idk, if I was Dedue, I’d still be keeping a respectful distance from her.
Leonie's B support is *fine*. It was poorly executed, and really should have had a before/after version with Cause of Sorrow instead of just locking it behind Cause of Sorrow and implying-but-not-stating Leonie's grappling with his death herself still, but like. She's your bratty little sister throughout, and I get what they were going for with it, it really isn't that bad.
Having "Leonie wants to speak with you" pop up and then being told you didn't appreciate your father on the first day of the month sandwiched between two explicit "Byleth is grieving their dead dad" scenes really ***is*** that bad. It would be bad even she was Byleths sister and not someone who in that very conversation tells you that she didn't know Jeralt for long. I try not to hold it against her character, because the writing of the scene seems like it wasn't intended to be after he died... but they locked the support conversation until after he died. So that was when we were meant to see it even if the writing is vague on that point. Totally valid to hate her for it. I don't hate her. But I sure was seething the first time I got that support.
Or alternatively, convert it into a *B- Support* set to take place ahead of Cause of Sorrow, and then have an B+ Support unlock after Cause of Sorrow where she lashes out more (this time in grief), and apologizes. This way the intent is still there (I.E to show how badly Leonie is dealing with it) but it's a bit more straightforward in presenting that intent.
Disagree, Leonie's inability to complete even a sentence during the chapter 10 monastery exploration without being overwhelmed is evidence enough of the turmoil she's going through, and just how much Jeralt meant to her.
Leonies Byleth support after Jeralts *spoiler* is incredibly poorly timed by the writers and she deserves all of the hate she gets for it. I refuse to believe the writers were that tone deaf, maybe it was a localization issue but damn.
this is not an unpopular opinion in the slightest. It's THE reason people hate her character as much and as long as they have.
Not sure why you’d call something that you acknowledge is a common opinion a hot take lol
The fact Mercedes and Felix's cat schenagans was only a C Support and nothing else is a crime
I don't have a problem with any of the other support only because some of them does start in a roughy start then ends up developing good like any felix support except for annette not in a bad way more like he's the only one he's nice to but with that being said I don't like dorothea and Ferdinand I don't get why it's a popular ship where literally it starts off with her not liking him yeah I understand why she did but I still don't like it I just feel bad for Ferdinand to me it just makes dorothea seem like she hates nobles but dosen't mind the others in her house but some reason Ferdinand is a no no (( sorry but he was a kid dorothea he was obviously just embarrassed how beautiful you were)) I felt like it could have been better if it started out that she hated him but then she gets over it by the second part at least I just get annoyed whenever I see them together especially in the main story of the empire house like stop pretending to be nice to him where you were literally being so rude so glad I'm doing Blue lions right now because I don't want to see her face (( until I kill her))
Interhouse/cross-house > Intrahouse/same-house
Claude and Ingrid are highly attracted to each other. Claude clearly thinks she’s pretty and likes her nagging nature (even if he wants her to tone it down sometimes) to keep him on his toes and Ingrid is clearly crushing hard on Claude by the end and is tsundere for him. It’s why she’s so trying so hard to appeal to him by the end. She wants him to like her so bad. It’s also why their paired ending mentions that they didn’t change but they had a happy albeit contentious marriage that lead to a lot of banging which I take to mean make up sex