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curiousCat posted:Should I still be confused about Dimitri's past re: tragedy at duscur Honestly, it's fair if you are, the game does a...shockingly poor job of explaining the Tragedy of Duscur. It gets caught up in a lot of intrigue about whether or not Patricia/Anselma was the one who made the entire Tragedy happen, or if she just used it as a way to get out of Faerghus for unknown reasons.
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Aug 17, 2021 20:30
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Sometimes things get lost in the fog of war and conflicting accounts, which I do think is an intentional theme of the game. No one in-universe knows the truth of the Tragedy of Duscur, except maybe Cornelia who is now dead and was not inclined to share, so why should the protagonists? There's a fair amount of questions that are frankly left unanswered on any given route, and the only way to figure them out are by playing multiple routes. And even then, I'm still not sure why, for example, Thales' big grievance that he airs when you invade Shambhala is that "you stole his light," something to which I only just now noticed Arundel also alluded on the previous map.
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Aug 17, 2021 21:06
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Also the last conversation about the Tragedy is still forthcoming.
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Aug 17, 2021 21:56
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Zulily Zoetrope posted:There's a fair amount of questions that are frankly left unanswered on any given route, and the only way to figure them out are by playing multiple routes. And even then, I'm still not sure why, for example, Thales' big grievance that he airs when you invade Shambhala is that "you stole his light," something to which I only just now noticed Arundel also alluded on the previous map. The problem, of course, is that for as much as the DLC tries to fill in the gaps, it doesn't always work or stick the landing. For instance, take our lovely mystery assassin hanging out in Abyss. You only understand what his deal is if you read between the lines of Claude's dialogue and dialogue in Verdant Wind (that Claude's the heir to Almyra's throne, and has been dodging assassins from rivals in Almyra for his entire life, which has led to Claude's trust issues). But, this event is found....in Azure Moon, the route where you find out almost nothing about the world outside of Fodlan. Thus the encounter with the mystery assassin boils down to a clunky "I'm a stealth advertisement for Verdant Wind, where maybe my dialogue will be explained except not really".
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Aug 17, 2021 22:10
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I think said assassin also pops up in Silver Snow.
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Aug 17, 2021 22:48
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The assassin pops up in every route where Claude is confirmed to flee Fodlan. And yeah, Thales’ talk of light theft is a poetic complaint about being expelled from the surface and forced to live underground.
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Aug 17, 2021 23:11
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Cythereal posted:This is something that really bothers me about every single route in 3H. The game assumes that basically everyone you conquer (or annex after they surrender) is happy living under your side's regime. Only a few characters and nameless NPCs comment on the state of the conquered territories, and they all reassure you that no one really liked the Empire/Kingdom/Alliance anyway and are happy to be part of the Empire/Kingdom/Alliance now. I think it's at its most problematic in Edelgard's route since she's explicitly on a war of conquest, but then you have Dimitri just sort of accidentally conquering all of Fodlan ala Sigurd from Genealogy of the Holy War, and Claude's fundamentally defensive war ending with Adrestia and Faerghus joining the victorious Alliance with little explanation. There's dialog in the update about how all the lords backed Claude's desire to dissolve the alliance, but I think part of it is absolutely intended that none of these noble characters have any idea how the common man lives. Sure, there are characters like Dorothea who literally lived on the street, but she's a highly educated and talented individual who managed to finagle her singing career into an education as a military officer. For all Edelgard's talk of despising nobility and promoting the common man, the Black Eagles are all wealthy members of the nobility! Let's take a look at some visual symbolism:  Edelgard is far above the common soldiery, but the stairs imply that under her vision of the world these guys would have the opportunity to ascend to where she is now. What's missing is the fact that Edelgard has no idea how these guys live, as while she's been through some pretty horrific experimentation, she still lives in a cool imperial palace, has access to personal tutors and books, is personally a hardcore warrior having access to the best personal trainers and weaponsmiths in the Empire as well as politically savvy because her family is wealthy enough that she can avoid subsistence farming. This is true of all the characters, even Dorothea, who grew up poor, can fall back on her actual magic and operatic abilities to not be a subsistence farmer.  This is the symbolism for Dmitri. As you can see, the common people are all on the ground cheering at a balcony they can never get up upon. The player never actually gets anything out of these people, just that Gilbert - a rich church knight - explains that the people are "rejoicing" at the return of the king. No one ever asks these people, because their opinions aren't important. The point I'm getting at isn't to rehash the Dmitri or Edelgard are Turbo Hitler debate, the point is that none of these characters are your everyday guy on the street. Sure, Ashe was a thief, but he was adopted by a lord. it shouldn't thus be a surprise that the commoners don't care which of these rich jerks actually wins the war because nobody actually asks them for their opinion or bothers to cultivate any kind of nationalism, and the people who do care tend to be the guys in the system who were all educated at the unified military academy for all three of these nations. We don't get a point of view from a regular person because no one cares to ask them. The entire conflict is by elites, for elites, and whatever commoners happen to be conscripted into the army so that The Alliance of Apathetic Lords/The Holy Kingdom Of Making The Craziest Guy King/Edelgard's Top Down Reforms Are Totally Going To Work You Guys can fight it out for power without their input. That said, all the characters only develop their best traits when the professor is around to tell them not to do stupid crap like running away/going extra murder/losing empathy, so I think there is some truth to IntSys wanting the player to feel vaguely heroic no matter the route.
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Aug 18, 2021 00:58
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TheGreatEvilKing posted:the point is that none of these characters are your everyday guy on the street. Sure, Ashe was a thief, but he was adopted by a lord. it shouldn't thus be a surprise that the commoners don't care which of these rich jerks actually wins the war because nobody actually asks them for their opinion or bothers to cultivate any kind of nationalism, and the people who do care tend to be the guys in the system who were all educated at the unified military academy for all three of these nations. We don't get a point of view from a regular person because no one cares to ask them. The entire conflict is by elites, for elites, and whatever commoners happen to be conscripted into the army so that The Alliance of Apathetic Lords/The Holy Kingdom Of Making The Craziest Guy King/Edelgard's Top Down Reforms Are Totally Going To Work You Guys can fight it out for power without their input. Azure Moon actually talks about this. Dimitri lived among commoners when he was on the run from the Dukedom, and one of his advice letters says he never realized how bad the common folk had it. He wants to do something to help them, but he's not sure what the right thing to do is because he knows that he doesn't know much about them. The answer he likes is 'pass legal reforms granting commoners more rights and protections.'
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Aug 18, 2021 01:05
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Cythereal posted:Azure Moon actually talks about this. Dimitri lived among commoners when he was on the run from the Dukedom, and one of his advice letters says he never realized how bad the common folk had it. He wants to do something to help them, but he's not sure what the right thing to do is because he knows that he doesn't know much about them. It's actually "strive to change Fódlan from the ground up". Dimitri doesn't really talk about any kind of specific vision or legal/political reforms. Shinji117 fucked around with this message at 01:13 on Aug 18, 2021 |
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Aug 18, 2021 01:10
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It's fine to keep in mind that, like any strategy game, 3H is mostly focused on nobles and the games between houses, but suggesting that commoners have no stake here is forgetting rather a lot about the setting. Among other things: - Faerghus is outright a failed state, with a completely dysfunctional government under Dimitri's uncle's regency. Following on from that: - Banditry in the Kingdom is off the charts - Famine in the Kingdom is widespread. - The Kingdom and Alliance have continual border skirmishes due to Fodlan's religiously-mandated isolationism - Technology and medicine are completely stagnant due to religiously-mandated stasis - The peasantry are forbidden to be taught literacy because the Church deemed it wasteful - Villages are sometimes just kinda wiped off the map under mysterious circumstances All of which are addressed on any route (with the possible exception of Silver Snow). So like... democracy and illiteracy don't mix, meaning it'd be basically impossible to properly gauge what the common folk want from their government. And those baseline conditions are bad enough that only deliberate starvation tyranny would really be worse.
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Aug 18, 2021 01:44
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As an unrelated, minor note, neither Baron Dominic or Gilbert have Annette's Crest. It's not unheard of for Crests to skip a generation, but it is slightly unusual especially in the Kingdom for her to be free of the pressures that Sylvain or Ingrid had, for instance.
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Aug 18, 2021 03:45
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CmdrKing posted:- The peasantry are forbidden to be taught literacy because the Church deemed it wasteful When is this stated?
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Aug 18, 2021 03:55
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Perfect Potato posted:When is this stated? quote:Metal-Hold Printing Machine The reason why commoners are illiterate is because stuff like the printing press gets banned, so the Church using that as a reason to ban it is rich. ApplesandOranges posted:As an unrelated, minor note, neither Baron Dominic or Gilbert have Annette's Crest. It's not unheard of for Crests to skip a generation, but it is slightly unusual especially in the Kingdom for her to be free of the pressures that Sylvain or Ingrid had, for instance. She isn't exactly free from pressure, as her perfectionist nature seems to come from her uncle threatening that she'd be sold/married off for her Crest unless she excelled. She's better off than Ingrid or Sylvain, but Faerghus still found ways to try and ruin her life over Crest bullshit.
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Aug 18, 2021 04:31
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Shinji117 posted:It isn't quite accurate, but it isn't like the actual reasons why the Church banned the printing press are any better. ...You do realize banning literacy and banning printing presses* are two totally different things, right? *If printing presses are banned, then how can Seteth become a famous children's book author (paired ending w/ Hilda or Bernie) if books are not mass produced entertainment? How can Hilda be allowed to keep books (rare and precious artifacts without mass production) from the library until they gather dust (Sylvain supports)? There's a third good example, but it's Crimson Flower specific, but the alternative would probably involve Hubert copying thousands of documents by hand. Yeah, I don't think the devs totally thought this through when they made it canon.
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Aug 18, 2021 05:22
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Melomane Mallet posted:...You do realize banning literacy and banning printing presses* are two totally different things, right? It specifies metal printing is what is banned. Wood printing is explicitly allowed, but that still only allows for limited printing, which keep widespread literacy and books stuck in the upper classes (which is where Seteth, Bernie and Hilda all, as members of the upper 0.001% of Fodlan, comfortably sit). If you want an example how expensive books are in Fodlan see the Byleth-Ashe support where a commoner steals a book from Anna (something she describes as “a huge loss”) with the intent of selling it to buy medicine for his sick child. If books were just being churned out by metal printing presses, I’m not sure a (admittedly illustrated) book of children’s fables would go for the equivalent of lifesaving medicine. Ashe’s support also talks about how he only learnt to read after being adopted into nobility and that before, as a commoner, he was illiterate. As for the other example, maybe Edelgard, in declaring war v Church, might have some ability to ignore the Church’s commands. Maybe. Shinji117 fucked around with this message at 06:10 on Aug 18, 2021 |
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Aug 18, 2021 05:52
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Shinji117 posted:It specifies metal printing is what is banned. Wood printing is explicitly allowed, but that still only allows for limited printing, which keep widespread literacy and books stuck in the upper classes (which is where Seteth, Bernie and Hilda all, as members of the upper 0.01% of Fodlan, comfortably sit) and special circumstances like Garreg Mach. "His stories became famous among children throughout Fodlan." (Seteth/Bernie) "The completed fables were distributed far and wide, and the children who loved them eventually passed the famous and beloved works on to their own children and grandchildren." (Seteth/Hilda) Yup, definitely presented as a 0.01%er thing. And I'm still not seeing any evidence of the Church banning literacy, which is what set this whole thing off. Edit: Commoners like Ashe not being literate is, again, not the same thing as the Church banning literacy. E2: I"m off to bed, will look at w/e in the morning. Melomane Mallet fucked around with this message at 06:14 on Aug 18, 2021 |
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Aug 18, 2021 06:11
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Melomane Mallet posted:"His stories became famous among children throughout Fodlan." (Seteth/Bernie) And I said the comment about banning literacy wasn’t accurate, so going after me for something I didn’t say (that the Church banned literacy) feels off. I never said they banned literacy, “just” that they banned the tools that would easily spread literacy to the commoner populace (that the Church repeatedly ignores in favour of the nobility and the status quo). Shinji117 fucked around with this message at 06:25 on Aug 18, 2021 |
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Aug 18, 2021 06:18
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The added after the fact DLC books are in the church's garbage bin and probably don't correlate 1:1 to modern Fodlan, given the thousand years of history. Plus the game is terrified to even comment one way or the other on their legitimacy given Lindhart's comments
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Aug 18, 2021 06:22
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Why would they introduce a bunch of new lore just for it to be handwaved away with "nope all fake."
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Aug 18, 2021 07:13
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TheGreatEvilKing posted:Edelgard is far above the common soldiery, but the stairs imply that under her vision of the world these guys would have the opportunity to ascend to where she is now. What's missing is the fact that Edelgard has no idea how these guys live, as while she's been through some pretty horrific experimentation, she still lives in a cool imperial palace, has access to personal tutors and books, is personally a hardcore warrior having access to the best personal trainers and weaponsmiths in the Empire as well as politically savvy because her family is wealthy enough that she can avoid subsistence farming. This is true of all the characters, even Dorothea, who grew up poor, can fall back on her actual magic and operatic abilities to not be a subsistence farmer. fwiw, Edelgard actually acknowledges this in at least one of her supports that I can think of off the top of my head and concedes she doesn't have all the answers, and is completely open to new ideas to uplift the common folk. I think it's the Ferdinand B in which he proposes a system of universal education.
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Aug 18, 2021 07:41
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OK, probably enough about CF specific stuff now.
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Aug 18, 2021 07:44
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McTimmy posted:Why would they introduce a bunch of new lore just for it to be handwaved away with "nope all fake." Mostly to stop people complaining that every point made by said lore is in favour of tearing the system down.
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Aug 18, 2021 08:34
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I particularly like the book that has church agents centuries ago refer to those who slither in the dark when that is literally a term Hubert made up
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Aug 18, 2021 08:47
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Perfect Potato posted:I particularly like the book that has church agents centuries ago refer to those who slither in the dark when that is literally a term Hubert made up That seems to just be a case of bad translation: apparently it reads something like "he [Pan] also...slither[s] in the dark of Fodlan...towards the goddess"- it's used as a derogatory description of this group moving around in the dark of Fodlan's political/criminal underworld, not as the actual proper noun title Hubert gave them (though the origins of his name could be from the Church's description, and just isn't attributing the source he used as inspiration) Shinji117 fucked around with this message at 09:01 on Aug 18, 2021 |
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Aug 18, 2021 08:51
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Clawtopsy posted:fwiw, Edelgard actually acknowledges this in at least one of her supports that I can think of off the top of my head and concedes she doesn't have all the answers, and is completely open to new ideas to uplift the common folk. I think it's the Ferdinand B in which he proposes a system of universal education. That is their A support.
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Aug 18, 2021 14:04
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Please cool it with the discussions about CF until we get there.
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Aug 18, 2021 14:16
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So I want to apologize. This was what I meant when I said "original claim", since it was what started the discussion: CmdrKing posted:- The peasantry are forbidden to be taught literacy because the Church deemed it wasteful I was tired and did not realize that I was being clear as mud about what I was referring to. So again, apologies and I hope this clears things up. 
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Aug 18, 2021 23:19
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 Update 115. (SSLP Test Poster version here.) We're only one update away from finishing Azure Moon! Exciting, huh?
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Aug 18, 2021 23:34
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Here we go. When push comes to shove, Edelgard's principles mean nothing if it might cost her victory.
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Aug 18, 2021 23:42
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wow it took a whole 8 minutes for you to talk about how much you hate Edelgard Also, nice cheese.
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Aug 18, 2021 23:47
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Cythereal posted:Here we go. When push comes to shove, Edelgard's principles mean nothing if it might cost her victory. That is certainly a way of reading what happened I guess. Certainly not my reading though. - Also, Ferdinand v Hubert is one of the worst (emotionally) lines in the game. You have Hubert trying to stop Yet Another Aegir from loving over the Hresvelgs, while Ferdinand has gone full on "Just Following Orders", which is an exceptionally ironic development for his character, especially given how it surfaces against Hubert, the person Ferdinand accuses of being a mindless supporter. - Edit: There's this out-of-the-way AM specific line this chapter from an Abyss resident, which sure is a thing. quote:We're getting along a lot better with the Kingdom soldiers recently. Everyone's in higher spirits. When they first got here, some of them were aggressive toward us...even abusive. All that's changed now. They've been courteous with us. Generous, even. It's nice to see. None of the other routes so far have had any talk about those armies being abusive towards the helpless. I guess we'll see in CF if Byleth's allies abusing the Abyss residents is a one-off Kingdom thing or not. Shinji117 fucked around with this message at 23:59 on Aug 18, 2021 |
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Aug 18, 2021 23:50
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Dimitri's beautiful speech of nonsense and gibberish.
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Aug 19, 2021 01:12
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This is hard to talk about without the context of CF. So much of what Edelgard plans to do is tied up in that story and the supports around it. Additionally, I mentioned early that I had disengaged emotionally with Dimitri pretty much immediately upon the timeskip. I'm trying very, very hard to view what Dimitri says here as dispassionately as possible. His argument seems to be that you as a leader can't engage in something like a war of liberation. His claim being that firstly, the individuals who will benefit from the war are those who are "strong." How this is defined isn't the clearest to me, but he seems to imply that the strong are those that would benefit from the war or who can operate on an individual basis without need for input or help from others. His secondary claim is then that should such a thing be required then it is the people that should rise up and facilitate that change rather than leaders. This feels like a bizarre set of claims. It is immediately unclear to me why there is a moral supremacy for those who benefit from established systems over those who would benefit from a postwar system. Indeed Edelgard points this out saying that she already weighed those suffering under the current system and concluded that a more just system would lead to fewer people suffering. But let's take the argument at it's best and say that Dimitri feels that the new system created would also lead to oppression. Even if it does, if the subset of people oppressed and unfairly benefiting is smaller than the system as it stands now, then the desire to change in favour of a still imperfect, but better system seems to be reasonable. The secondary case is equally strange. Absent leaders and under an oppressive system how exactly do the people rise up? Especially when the system isn't democratic or populist in any way as the church is currently. Presumably they'd do so via a rebellion? But Dimitri merrily crushed the rebellion in Duscur when he had the chance. And why exactly is a popular rebellion preferable to one by leaders. Is Nemesis a desirable leader according to Dimitri because he's a bandit? Further if all of the above is true, Dimitri is fighting a war currently as a noble leader. Isn't that inconsistent with his beliefs as stated? If he believes that the only people who can meaningfully change the system for the better are the common people then why does he fight the war to begin with? Surely his aims would be achieved as easily under Edelgard as they would under him? There is a portion of me that will never be unbiased here. I can't stand Dimitri or what his story represents and after the final update I'll get into some of the stuff around race and representation that I've held off on, but I just think that this entire scene does nothing to help justify his path.
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Aug 19, 2021 02:03
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I think what Dimitri is getting at here is that you can't order change from the top down. Imposing change from the top will benefit the top. Edelgard's crusade is ostensibly a meritocracy, but meritocracy is a myth. Advantages of wealth and politics will remain entrenched features of society no matter the nominal governing system. Killing the person in charge and telling the peasants that they're free now accomplishes nothing. Systematic legal reform and change to grant more rights to the disadvantaged and restrict the prerogatives of the nobility, however, creates circumstances where the common folk can begin to flourish without a mandate from the top. My impression of Dimitri is that he's basically in favor of a move towards some kind of republicanism and imposing a constitution on the monarchy, and that he favors doing so by means of working within the system and reforming it. Write the Magna Carta, establish a constitution, let the people decide for themselves what kind of future they want - and give them the ability to do so. I believe Dimitri takes the view that real change can't be rushed in that regard. quote:But Dimitri merrily crushed the rebellion in Duscur when he had the chance. Dimitri was never a part of the purge in Duscur. He tried to prevent it. The rebellions Dimitri fought against were among Faerghus' own minor nobles in the west. Natural 20 posted:Further if all of the above is true, Dimitri is fighting a war currently as a noble leader. Isn't that inconsistent with his beliefs as stated? If he believes that the only people who can meaningfully change the system for the better are the common people then why does he fight the war to begin with? Surely his aims would be achieved as easily under Edelgard as they would under him? He's fighting in self-defense against the Empire and its allies that invaded his home, killed his family, and almost killed him. Yes yes we know that was the Agarthans, not Edelgard, but she's never publicly repudiated them or broken with them and Dimitri's only gotten a whiff that it wasn't a straight up Imperial coup after liberating Fhirdiad.
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Aug 19, 2021 02:17
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Dimitri's beliefs are not complicated, he doesn't want normal, ordinary people being killed over petty noble bullshit and he believes in the intrinsic good of humanity. If he wasn't bugfuck crazy and unga strong from his crest he'd probably be the worst wartime king imaginable but a great one otherwise
Perfect Potato fucked around with this message at 02:30 on Aug 19, 2021 |
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Aug 19, 2021 02:24
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If I had one criticism of the last cutscene of this update, it's that the scene should have ended right after Edelgard's last line. Letting us see what happens to her kind of undercuts the big grand reveal of the final map. Or, alternately, blow the budget and make that sequence into a big, fancy, animated cutscene.
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Aug 19, 2021 02:25
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Dimitri's entire crusade is powered by the top and forged forward by the top. It is literally Gilbert's entire existence to repeatedly say that Faerghus needs its king more than anything. The lower class have no voice in this ongoing fight whatsoever. Dimitri's is perfectly fine beating back the Duscur rebels in Dedue's paralogue to keep them from rebelling justly - sure not by killing but like hell he's in the right there. So the Duscur should just sit and wait for Dimitri to fix all their problems but when Adrestia takes over by half the country just flipping houses and frankly doing way less vile poo poo than Faerghus did it's suddenly impossibly horrible for Dimitri to stand. Dimitri's primary goal is never to protect Faerghus until he gets the stab of character development on Azure Moon. It's always to get bloody vengeance on those who wronged him.
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Aug 19, 2021 02:31
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I think the simplest way to resolve Dimitri’s comments here is to understand that he’s arguing from a morally sound set of premises, but either lacks the information or is unable to see clearly to understand that they don’t apply here. That is, he has erroneous beliefs about the state of Fodlan and it’s history, and thus drawn insound conclusions about how best to fulfill his moral beliefs and duties. He seems to believe that nobody in Fodlan was calling for change at the scale Edelgard is imposing, without understanding that the church has engineered society such that the masses lack the tools to properly identify and combat the ills in society. And he believes that war can only be a means for the powerful to crush and subjugate the weak, because he understands battle through the framework of how he fought as the Boar rather than in a historical/political contest. And these aren’t knocks on him as a person or character, but they do speak to him being very limited in how he views and thinks about the world and morality/philosophy/politics, because he’s a man of big feelings, not big ambitions. He’s a direct problem solver, so the issue in front of him (the ongoing war) has primacy over other issues (what caused that war or what to do after)
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Aug 19, 2021 02:32
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quote:He seems to believe that nobody in Fodlan was calling for change at the scale Edelgard is imposing, without understanding that the church has engineered society such that the masses lack the tools to properly identify and combat the ills in society The Empire splitting into 3 distinct countries with vastly different cultures was also part of their long term con to strengthen their iron grip too I'm sure The sheeple just don't know that they're suffering, luckily my yass slay queen is there to set them straight Perfect Potato fucked around with this message at 02:44 on Aug 19, 2021 |
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Aug 19, 2021 02:40
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Perfect Potato posted:The Empire splitting into 3 distinct countries with vastly different cultures was also part of their long term con to strengthen their iron grip too I'm sure aren't there in-game documents explicitly stating that the church supported faerghus splitting away from the adrestian empire lmao
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Aug 19, 2021 02:51
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