At first I thought she was just going to be a token villain posing as a righteous person, but after seeing the big picture, she's a mixed bag that I can't help but feel bad for. There's a lot to unpack here. Rhea is the equivalent of one of the last humans surviving the robot apocalypse, who now has the responsibility of maintaining the robots. She aims to be kind to others and does a reasonably good job at holding society together, albeit with some lying, but reacts HARSHLY to betrayal due to the Nemesis incident leaving her emotionally scarred. She's forgiving of most sins, but even a hint of betrayal and her wrathful side comes out. Her missing her people, above all Sothis, has also led to some shady experiments and an unhealthy mother complex. This is what led up to her preparing Byleth to take her place if they don't side with Edelgard. If they do side with Edelgard... well she lost her mother and daughter at the same time for Byleth to be born and always treated them kindly, only for them to engage in the ultimate act of betrayal. Edelgard is the second coming of Nemesis as far as Rhea and TWSITD are concerned. This is why she compares the invasion of Garreg Mach to the Red Canyon Incident. Her emotions make her completely lose it and, she's frenzied for the entire Empire route.
You also have to consider her relationship with Edelgard's ancestors. She seemed to genuinely trust Wilhelm Paul Hresvelg, and with his help, she pushed back against Nemesis and the Ten Elites. So, to see the last descendant of her ally act so hostile to her not only insults Rhea, it insults Rhea's memory of Wilhelm. It doesn't help that Byleth, though her own creation, is basically Nemesis 2.0. Really, Rhea is pitiable even in her evilest moments.
@@rayzas4885 Byleth in that route becomes a person seeking to destroy everything Rhea has ever loved, while using the corpse of her mother as a weapon against her. Honestly if Rhea hadn't gone insane in the BE route and was instead like she is in every other route, even with Byleth's mellowing Edelgard out, Edelgard would stay as a anti-villain instead of anti-hero she becomes in the BE route.
TheSwordsman100 Not really. Byleth literally just chooses edelgard every the sociopath. He doesn’t seek to destroy everything that rhea has loved. Infact Rhea had it coming for everything she has done to humanity and to Byleth.
Personally she is my favourite character in 3Houses. Argueably she has the most tragic backstory... She basically lost her family just like Dimitri or Edelgard but more in a more intense way, heck her entire race got almost extinct and her kin's corpses got turned to weapons to kill the remaining siblings... She was the only survival of Zanado, she probably saw everything that happened there. On top of that Nabateans seems to not "age" so she probably has to bring that dark memory for almost all eternity... no wonder she went a little bit insane and extremely punitive with those who seek to harm her or her allies. Depending on the route she may go full insane or undestand her mistakes and try to fix them. I'd argue that her character in Crimson Flower is undestandbly crazy... She litterally saw the vessel of her mother joining the killers of her species (from her point of view Flame Emperor is an ally of TWSITD) after so many centuries of trying to bring her mother back. She has indeed two sides... a caring and adorable one (she has problem to develop normal relationship due to her status as archbishop as shown in some rare random help requests in-game), she is very tollerant and forgiving to those who share a different idea as long as they don't directly harm her or believers or generally what she cares about. Despite what people may think the game did not suggest that her experiments were like the blood ones of TWSITD... actually, Byleth's mother despite being a de facto failure lived a happy life and was in a good relationship with Rhea despite her knowing the truth about the Crest Stone; so those experiments don't seem to be such a big deal. Hiding history while totally questionable make sense and you can kinda agree with her, if people knew the truth about crests then Nabateans and descendants of the 10 Elites would have probably been persecuted (just look at what happened with Marianne...). Also a little note to add to clarify some inaccuracies I've seen around: The Church and Rhea do NOT support the elitist system of crests as shown by Seteth's supports or Rhea's action of giving important positioning to Alois and Shamir (both crest-less commoners). The Church just want to make people believe that humanity has no power over crests. But she also has the "mastermind" and merciless side that whoever played Edelgard's path probably knows... So personally 10/10... a hidden gem of the game.
the best Rhea point of view I've ever read, haven't finish Empire route and church route, so I can say anything, but base on what I saw on BL and GD, I can relate with your Rhea's explanation.
I hate Rhea equally as much as I hate Edelgard. I love Rhea equally as much as I love Edelgard. Srsly though, my boys Dimitri and Claude did not deserve to be tangled up in their BS
To be fair tho edel also dragged to this bs as she was molded to be what she was. the experimet that cost her sibling and the whole crest shenanigan. Rhea in other hand is the mastermind of the system. Instead being molded by the system like the 3 faction leader, she is the one creating the mold which lead to discord in the foldlan.
@@RePhantomz Mastermind is a very strong word for how hands off the church is when it comes to matters that don't involve them. She made what seemed like reasonable choices when first forming the religion and overall her results were pretty dang good. A 700 year span of peace is unheard of in the real world.
@@Avengedtenfold actually no. From the beginning of the church by manufacturing false history and to the current affair such as the split of kingdom and empire are actually their doing. Not to mention child experimentation via blood transfusions. Byleth is not seiros 1st attempt to create goddess vessel and prior to byleth, all attempt ended in failure. Lastly church did use their position to meddle to the point of overuling the kingdom hierarchy to sentence lonato son a traitor without proper investigation despite dimitri attempt to fix the incident, which also make dedude tribe to be discriminated as additional mess. The list goes on.
@@TayNez63 Fair enough, but even her backstory doesn't really justify her actions in my opinion. I understand the first cutscene we see and stuff with Those who slither but...
@@BMVfilms It's actually quite interesting. THe Godess is never painted in a negative light, but all the power structure (including the church, but the empire is on the same boat) are faillible. And a simple human having full power isn't really a good thing (That's also a point in Dimitri's route, causing many death in his desire of revenge. Actually Mirroring Rhea in Edegrad's route somewhat.)
@@BMVfilms ok I wasnt sure if you knew her story or not. Definitely not justifiable. I like to think that she's just had such tremendous stress, that she's basically a loon
For me, I played El's route first and my vision of Rhea was "Crazy Psycho Dragon Lady". But when I played the Golden Deer route, her craziness and insanity made sense, she is someone in deep pain over the Red Canyon and the near extinction of her brethren. If you look at it like that, the fact that the Flame Emperor defiled the tomb of her mother and her brothers and sisters to steal the crest stones, the bodies of her siblings, kind of makes her fury at that event more understandable. To me, if you look at Rhea as a damaged soul with the pain of the past haunting her even to today, many of her actions make sense.
Anita Rossi Im even surprised that she didnt kill humanity and still seeked for peace. I would be so mad if someone would kill my whole family and use their dead bodies
Yes but Edelgard also lost everything including all of her siblings by the people who Rhea was suppose to stop. So I understand why Edelgard believes that Rhea is not capable in leading Fodlan.
@@jeffreyliu3043 here's the difference. When Rhea's family gets wiped out, she deceives everyone to create peace. When Edelgard's family gets wiped out she deceives everyone to create war.
@@genericyoutubeaccount4756 Edelgard literally created a fake persona (Flame Emperor) to do sneaky things that she knew her fellow students wouldn't approve of to trigger a war allying with the very people who caused all of her pain. She deceived everyone around her.
I believe they tried their best to not make each side seem like the obvious good guy or the obvious bad guys. During my first playthrough I decided to side with Edelgard, and after everything I said "okay so this was the right choice to go with.... Even though I had to kill certain people in battle" Now that I'm with Rhea....it somehow feels...a little different. The game does a good job by showing you a certain point of view and making it feel believable. "So what I told you was true...from a certain point of view" - Obi-Wan Kenobi
Almost unanimously, the community still regards Edelgard as the villain though. And you really ONLY get to know her character if you play through crimson flower and go through all her unique combat dialogue and supports... which MOST people do not. Playing Crimson Flower first, and siding with Edelgard (with no information going into the story), only assured me I had made the right decision. I was legitimately an emotional wreck when Edelgard executed Dimitri, just like she was. That was peak writing. I pity Rhea, but I do not sympathize with her. She had every opportunity to prevent war and didn't. If you have to boil a character down to their motivations, ask yourself, what were Rhea's? Yes, you find a beaten, battered, and traumatized woman. One of the last of her kind. But you also find a narcissistic nabataean supremacist that believed her kind were above humanity and humanity owed themselves to her. She was a dictator and her mandate was "don't question me and we'll get along fine." No she didn't require people to follow the teachings of the church, but how gracious of her to do that when society at large is dictated by a nobility system the church regulates.
My main problem of this video is that it doesn't dive into the golden deer/church route spoilers where you get to understand Rhea's full story. Nor does it highlight that Rhea saved the life of Catherine, Jeralt, Shamir or that she took Cyril in from the Goneril's. It's not a requirement that you participate in the faith to be a member of the knights or an academy attendant. Shamir and Cyril are non believers, and Rhea told Cyril that he doesn't have to participate unless he feels like it. She also allowed the survivors of the Remire Village incident to stay at the monastery very likely because she understood the same pain as they did in regards to losing family to tragedy. There's also a sidequest where she asks you to give calming herbs to help 2 students of your class because they're having trouble adjusting. So for me I don't feel that Rhea is as intolerant as some people would have you believe. And the fact that Rhea is willing to sacrifice herself to protect the students of the academy while saying 'No, I will not allow another Red Canyon tragedy to happen here' convinced me that Edelgard's claims in the Crimson Flower route that Rhea's only interest is ruling the world in secret and she doesn't care for anyone but herself are not true. Her actions regarding Edelgard attempting to steal crest stones is valid since just a few chapters before that Edelgard ordered the Death Knight to kidnap Flayn for her blood, and she intended to steal them for the empire to make more crest beasts that are seen in chapter 9. And on top of that those crest stones are made from the corpses of her brethren and seeing someone trying to steal the bones of your family for their personal use would anger anyone. I don't condone her experiments to try and bring her mother back, she herself says that they're questionable and feels shame for what she did. She's got 1,000 years of trauma that she never got over and one of her advice box questions suggests that she must always feign dauntlessness in front of everyone despite how taxing she feels it is shows that she needs therapy and emotional support ASAP
Firenze 64 actually, he does more than just announce. He studies the difference, and got the two hero’s of both to meet and befriend each other. They also fought side by side in a war. Will it be immediately? No, but it’s not as brush off as you said ether
Joe Green it’s the way he just says he gonna tear open fodlans throat, the cultures of almyra and fodlan are drastically different, conflicting even, and fodlan also just came out of war, Will almyra be expected to help pay for the recovery of a country they were previously hostile towards, what if one of them decides to show off their strength and kills the wrong member of the wrong family?
Edlegard is a lot like Alvis from FE 4. Good intentions, questionable methods. But those questionable methods are used for the good of the people against their oppressors.
Michi Chi CHi Rhea became more of a pure villain when she sacrificed innocent lives to try to resurrect Sothis, burnt an entire village to try and kill Byleth, and sacrificed her own soldiers during the burning of that village
Short answer, yes. She however has lost the most out of anyone in this game. Nearly the entirety of her race was wiped out for no fault other than powering the holy relics. Despite how her spirit should be aching for revenge, she chose instead to guide humanity like her mother, because her love for her was greater than whatever hatred for humanity she may have. Yes she has blood lust, but I find her role as leader of the church necessary for maintaining order. Those who slither in the dark are the only true villains, Rhea only does evil out of necessity. My answer to anyone who thinks Rhea is evil, just don't betray her, then she won't be.
That's her greatest weakness. She's reactionary. Because of this, The Tragedy of Zanado, the Red Canyon, took place. She only did something AFTERWARDS, and because no one is alive to recall those events, she and the survivors had rewritten history to inscribe they bury events as a bad thing. If anything, she's just a changling version of Dimitri with his incident in Duscar. They both handle they're problems the exact same way.
@@MisteRRYouTuby ok but rhea was in no position to stop the red canyon tragedy before it began. You think any of her race woild have seen the murder of sothis coming? Or that they could fight someone wielding sothis' power?
I hate that people think simple betrayal is enough to set Rhea off. Keep in mind those we see her retaliate against all ACTIVELY SEEK HER DEATH. The Western Church, although being manipulated, did commit a laundry list of crimes against the church. Two separate ploys to assassinate Rhea (Christophe and Lanato), inciting an open rebellion in the latter case, trespassing upon holy ground with intention to steal what they thought would be *the remains of the goddess* and attacking Church students and faculty with the intention to kill.
@@Avengedtenfold Oh yeah and she sends literal teenagers to fight against Lanato for the sole purpose of showing them what happens if they go against the Church. If that isn't ruthless I don't know what is
@@sarahluise3153 Within the context of the story, those teenagers are old enough to be involved in combat as a normal thing. Keep in mind that 2 years prior to the beginning of the story, Dimitri and his friends were already involved in putting down a small uprising (that was when Felix saw the side of Dimitri that left him referring to the prince as 'the boar'). Byleth is only slightly older than most of the students and has clearly been following his/her father on mercenary combat jobs for years.It's not reasonable to condemn a single individual character for doing something that everyone else in the story is also doing. It's open to debate whether Rhea can be blamed for the fact that it *is* normal for teenagers to be fighting. We don't have enough background information to infer much about whether Rhea has done anything to promote or discourage it over the years, or if she's just going along with what the humans have settled on. There's enough fighting going on in the background of the story that it seems like it's potentially just a pragmatic necessity.
Rhea is a strange character, but not a bad one per se. She survives in all routes except Crimson Flower, but resigns in every route in which she lives. Meanwhile, Edelgard dies in every route exceot Crimson Flower. As someone who played Crimson Flower last, it was very hard for me to see Rhea as a villain. I saw what Edelgard did to her in the other routes, I learned of her past in Verdant Wind, and it made me feel during Crimson Flower like I was the bad guy. Ending the route made me feel terrible. The Crest System was problematic in every route, but in most routes, it was seen more as the fault of the noble houses themselves, rather than Rhea. Something that could be solved once people like Sylvain or Mercedes would become the leaders of their own houses. "But she burns down Fhirdiad with all the people in it!" Yup, she does. After her mother and the majority of her race get butchered and turned into weapons, after she is forced to see the people responsible turn into noble lords, after the Death Knight tries to drain Flayn's blood, after the Remire massacre, after the death of Jeralt, after Edelgard betraying her and stealing more remains of her people, after the reincarnation of her mother betrayed her and took the bones of her mother with them, after her monastery got turned first into a den of thieves and later a base of operations for her enemies, after Seteth and Flayn were either killed or forced to go into hiding, after the death of her final ally Dimitri... I'm surprised she didn't go murderhobo crazy long before.
Her sense of violence is somewhat explained in claude's route. Nemesis did kill all of her people and he then turned them all into weapons of mass destruction. I think she has a deep resentment for humanity that hasn't truly manifested until the climax of edelgards route.
I’m with you on that, it’s what I believe too, also intentional or not she’s responsible for the horrible crest system that has plagued fodlan for over 300 years
@Waluijo Ehhh, she is responsible for the system that places value in crests and the nobility being crest based. While she, nor Sothis gave out crests to humans, she did make it so that those who have crests have responsibilities as nobility. Which could either be a way to honor her fallen brethren, or could just be because the of Heroes Relics being as powerful as they are and “with great power comes great responsibility” or something. The game never makes it clear why she decided to form nobility around crests, but the game does explain that the Church of Seiros is what upholds the nobility system and has to oversee the crowning of new monarchs.
@@wrestlerboy500I’m pretty sure the game explains the Crest-Based Nobility thing, actually. The 10 Elites and Nemesis had already been accepted by α large portion of Fodlan’s population at the time, and so fully denouncing them wouldn’t have been possible without angering those people and potentially continuing the war. Rhea made up the “Fallen Hero” angle to justify her war to the citizens without breaking their images of the Elites. Plus, she really didn’t want the descendants of the Elites to suffer for their ancestors’ crimes. We see with Marianne how likely that is, even hundreds of years later. All that, plus she had to figure out how to reconstruct α government out of the ashes of what was essentially α World War.
Honestly I didn't expect to like Rhea, nor did I expect Edelgard to become an antagonist. I was surprised on both accounts and I'm happy that they game was able to successfully surprise me this way. I think Rhea works as an excellent morally grey character. She has every reason to hate and fear humanity (especially those who slither) and is rightfully cautious around them. Unfortunately it gets to the point of controlling humanity which is where aspects become shady and immoral at times. Trying to revive her mother through a human host is obviously shady, but our mother directly asked Rhea to save her child at the cost of her own life, so that wasn't exactly Rhea fault even if Jeralt didn't trust her ever since. Hiding the true history behind the crests and the legendary heroes is also questionable but slightly understandable. And of course, her strict view where the church executes traitors who opposed them is obviously dubious and it's what makes the player suspect her from the start. However, I hate when people (mainly Edelgard fans) paint the church as just as evil as those who slither. Obviously they needed to give Edelgard an antagonist on crimson flower route because she was siding with those who slither and thus needed the church to become her big bad to justify her war against the continent. Except that I don't understand why or how Edelgard can claim that the church is the greater threat when clearly those who slither are the more pressing concern. It's really only Rhea who shows any kind of corruption, and it's corruption in the face of Rhea own suffering in a way. She is wrong to attempt to revive her mother with these experiments but she even seems to regret her actions and accepts Byleth as the true savior of Fodlan. She was wrong to hide the secrets behind the crests, but Edelgard is mistaken in most of her information because those who slither are influencing her drastically. The majority of the church are fine (Seteth, Flayn, Catherine, Alois) and clearly show no history of corruption. If anything, once Rhea steps down and acknowledged Byleth as the true successor to her mother's power, then the church likely wouldn't even be corrupt anymore and can easily be reformed with the influence of Rhea. I have no idea why Edelgard believes an entire war is necessary for this, nor why she can't accept reform of the existing system vs outright abolishment of the system. The crest system is wrong but to declare war on the continent is far too extreme and her anger is misplaced as well. Rhea seems worse on crimson flower because losing Byleth was her final straw and understandably, the story needed her to be worse for Edelgard to have any sort of justification in her actions. But Rhea doesn't lose her sanity on the other routes and peacefully steps down in favor of Byleth. I've finished Blue Lions and am halfway through Golden Deer right now. During the empire invasion of the monastery, I was shocked at how much Rhea resonated with me in that cut scene. She claims that all of Fodlan is in our hands, and she's essentially leaving everything to us should she fail. She's not holier than thou: it's not about her life vs everyone else. She accepted that we are the inheritor of her mother's will and power, and she places her faith in us and believes we will be victorious. She transforms and wow is that scene incredible. Even though she was shady up until then, I actually felt pride to see her defending the monastery with us, feeling her power, having her on our side of the battle. She wanted us to stay away and protect ourselves and it pained her to see us fall. It was a great scene for her and it definitely helps improve my view of her overall.
Well edelgard was very opposed to working with those who slither, given they hurt her more than anyone else, it's hubert who convinced her and i mean she cant face both the church and those who slither at the same time, and if she delayed the rebelion to deal with them, she might damage the empire so much she could never have the strenght to oppose the church. In fact, even the most powerful of the three factions, the empire , would have lost entirely in their first battle against the might of the church in the battle of the monastery before time skip, if it wasnt for the help of twsitd. But do not forget she absolutely HATES them.
@@popkhorne5372 Still works with them I don't give a shit she knows there all destroy humanity and turning innocent people into demonic beast it does not excuse edelgard at all
@@gameuniverse5973 so close minded. How many loved characters in fiction did exactly what she did and are still loved. I don't understand why people hate on edelgard but not lelouch for example. They are the same character. The whole point of her arc is doing things that disgust you to achieve something because it cannot be any other way. At least she doesnt go psycho like dimitri
@@popkhorne5372 Same char ahahahahaha lelouch never worked with people that wanted to destroy all of humanity and he got betrayed which edelgard does also lelouch not naive like edel to believe the slithers who she actually thinks the genocidal nemesis was a good guy and lelouch smart enough to know the true enemy is edelgard attack the church even tho they Still allowed the other religions to exist and never supported the crest system the nobles did
@@popkhorne5372 Also another way even tho you achieve the same thing in gd and BL and the church route rhea was gonna make you the next leader if edel don't do her war so yes she wasted everone time
I'm surprised you decided to prop up Malevolent Destiny's post when it's very biased and lacks context. First of all, Edelgard uses her civilians as human shields when you storm Enbarr. When backed into a corner, both characters are capable of some despicable shit. Rhea freaking out when you choose Edelgard in the holy tomb makes perfect sense in context. You just sided with the person that wanted to steal the remains of Nabateans aka the crests, worked with the people that kidnapped Flayn, tried to steal her blood, and killed Jeralt your father and a person Rhea cares about. She threatened to kill you and the students in the tomb if you got in her way. Byleth essentially became Nemesis 2.0 in that one choice. Rhea did some seriously questionable shit but an amoral monster? Please.
the thing is that depending on the players choices, the psychological, moral, and personality aspects of the characters change dramatically. If you side with Rhea, she never gives in to the maniacal, violent side of hers, and Edelgard does not use people as shields and such other amoral choices if you side with her (she actually mentions she would have lost herself to loneliness and become cold and heartless if you hadnt been there with her, which happens if you stick with Rhea or anyone else). I think it was brilliantly done, because, like in real life, we are all one event, one choice, one moment away from being and acting like radically different people...i like both characters because of that very real, guttural, visceral grey that is absolutely human :)
@@marko1234567890 I agree completely but a lot of people don't look at Rhea with that kind of nuance and just think she's some creepy evil dragon pope.
@@bladekaz8413 creepy evil dragon pope FTW hahahahah A+ 11/10 would recommend on that description hahahahahha cheers my man x) but yeah...agreed, idk how people can't see how similar they are...one is just fighting the long game for the divine dragon race, while Edel is just fighting the short game for humanity :U
Edelgard is a deeply complex character and her psychology essentially speaks to me as some who's end justify the means. I went with Golden Deer in my run and yeah Edelgard does some despicable shit but it always seems like theres a shade of gray to her character. The more ambitious and militaristic side to her reminds me of Tywin Lannister but she also isnt a sociopath and values the results of her audacity once the smoke clears. I love how this game has all these morally interesting characters. Rhea is another damn good one and shes vying for my personal favorite.
@@marko1234567890 Difference is that rhea has a canon reason to be like that edelgard not like a dragon kin who shown to get crazy over time without emotional connections like tiki and nah
Who's Rhea? A dragon woman who acts like your mom and it's worth to protect after everything she has suffered. Seriously, I still don't see any reason in-character for Byleth to betray her and that's what makes me hate Edelgard's route so much.
Honestly, there isn't any. Unless you've been paying attention to the support conversations, primarily Edelgard's B conversation, which I believe is a prerequisite to siding with Edelgard anyway. You can deduce that the Church is partially responsible for crests and the nobility. It's clear that Rhea did something to the professor, something that caused them to be the Ashen Demon, feel no joy until they started working under Rhea and probably cursed them with the Crest of Flames. But siding against the church as a whole seems strange if you don't have reason to disagree with the Church's worldview on crests. Rhea seems to have been controlling the professor's life and the professor has clear motivations to not kill Edelgard when you receive the option. It's a major turning point in the story, but the professor doesn't get to consider the ramifications. Just whether to blindly obey a tyrant or to hesitate on killing a friend. Then Rhea flips out and gives you all the motivation you need to go Crimson Flower.
You get all the reason you need through Lysithea and Edelgard’s supports specifically combined with the story making Rhea into Daenerys the very second she gets betrayed. Hearing Hanneman’s story alongside the two students I’ve talked about together make the Church out to be the shitty, controlling, manipulative system it is. Without the extremism of Rhea basically breeding humans until the perfect host for her mom’s soul came into existence, the level of evil is really toned down. You only get to see the (most)ugly side of the Church only after the leap of faith to trust Edelgard.
You know aside from your father leaving behind hints that somethings not right with her and then she asks you to kill a student. Let's not forget that her first form of punishment is always execution, and even asks you to go murder a noble that has a difference in opinion.
There is also the slow buildup every chapter early on. Lord Lonato's character for instance, he is a devote and a good loyal man by every acount we get. So the player is left to ask why the rebellion? Then Miklan, the hero relics considered sacred by the church turn people into monsters without a crest and further the church is keeping things to this effect hushed, then if you refuse to return the Lance of Ruin Rhea nearly flips out on you that early on. Take all this into account on top of Jeralt constantly reminding you not to trust the church. Siding with Edelguard is meant to show a leap of faith on Byleths part, a choice to trust in their student who now that they know is the flame emperor can choose to believe several things. Most prominetly that she took your side in avenging Jeralt despite being 'allies with TWSITD.' In contrast Rhea and the church have lied hid the truth and in the first place pressured Jeralt back into service that is what results in him becoming a target. Edelguards route is oddly most in line with Sothis's wish for Byleth. Carve their own path by their own beliefs without letting others rule their fate. On all other routes Byleth ends up falling into Rheas design one way or another.
There is never a point in the story where Rhea as the archbishop ever felt like she was the real ruler of Fodlan. When she let humans do whatever they wanted as long as they didn't try to kill her and sent her knights to help the common people all the time. She didn't do anything Edelgard was led to believe she did either. She didn't create the crest system at all those that slither did. Other then CF she isn't an antagonist at all. Hell Dimitri hallucinations and Edelgard starting a world war come of as far more crazy then her. Minus her burning a city in CF. Trying to bring Sothis back from the dead who was a scientist who could benefit Fodlan greatly wasn't a bad thing either. Hell she probably be the best leader in the game.
When will you people stop LYING ABOUT EDELGARD? Rhea DID do some of the things Edelgard was told! True, Rhea didn't do ALL of them, but she did lie to everyone about Fodlan's history! She also hindered humanity so that they'd have to rely on her to save them. And while Rhea didn't create the crest system, she did promote it. So stop trying to make us Edelgard fans feel bad with your stupid lies! Look, I won't deny that Edelgard does have plenty of flaws. But stop saying that Edelgard is completely wrong about everything, because that's supposed to be our interpretation.
meta527II are you for real? She’s a fictional character and an antagonist. Also everything you just said is a flat out lie. She never wanted to control anything play the game and read the dev Interviews not Reddit headcanon. This is why everyone hates Edelgard fans. If she wanted to control the continent she would have named her self god emperor lmao.
@@manga925 I read an interview. And it says that Rhea did, indeed, change history. So there! Edelgard was right about something! And okay, maybe Rhea halting the advancing of technology was not to force people to rely on Sothis, but she still halted the advancement of technology nonetheless. And I didn't find anything saying Rhea DIDN'T promote the crest system. Maybe some of Edelgard's fans are annoying, but stop saying that Rhea is literally a perfect person because she's far from it! Besides, I also read in the interview that whether Edelgard is bad or not is up to the playerbase. So in your face, jerk! Now stop trying to make us feel bad for our opinions!
@@meta527II Until you Edelgard stans police your more extreme members, why should we have to do the same? Newsflash: Just as there are Rhea fans who say she did nothing wrong and demonize Edie, there are PLENTY of Edelgard fans who say she did nothing wrong and Rhea is the worst in the history of ever. At the end of the day, we can't trust you to argue in good faith cuz you refuse to cut out the rot from your community. The real Rhea fans admit her flaws, but you can't just pretend like your side is blameless in the matter. I guarantee if I ever said "When will you people stop LYING ABOUT RHEA!!!" I'd just be ignored. Because everything Rhea was said to have done in CF is factually correct, right? EVERYTHING.
@@azatheeverchosen7615 well it’s true! People lie about Edelgard. Why should they NOT get called out on that? And I am aware that there are some stupid Edelgard fans out there.
It's very interesting how both Rhea and Edelgard are very similar characters in many ways. Probably why they both are my waifus in their respective paths :p
Smash Boy you do know he uses you just as much as the other two to accomplish his goals, he’s described as his smile doesn’t reach his eyes for a reason, he’s always plotting, he knows how to butter people up , and he won’t let anyone get in the way of his dream, as seen when he fights hopelessly against the empire after the alliance is split and Judith is dead in crimson flower, he’s also overly idealistic thinking he can just end the prejudices almyra and fodlan have with each other just by breaking the borders and declaring himself the lord of both, I see a big cultural war between these two nations if he’s victorious
KrimzonStriker I’ll have to play again, maybe I misunderstood his goals he is a genius, maybe he still plans to keep them as separate nations, just as allies now
After I read the comments and saw how people acted on Fe Twitter, how u view Rhea (or Edelgard) depends really hard on witch route u took first. Even if u played every route I'm sure more than ~60% will not change their viewpoint on both. People just don't like to change their minds. & more people sided with Edelgard so the general opinion of Rhea is by default more negative.
Most likely because a large percentage of those same people went crimson rose first and it really obscures your perspective of Rhea when she's portrayed as practically pure evil and a heartless monster, and it doesn't explore beyond that much.
Edelgard has a vision and the drive to bring about change in Fodlan. She’s prepared to make the necessary sacrifices and bear responsibility for her choices. Rhea is static, she has no vision for Fodlan outside of her church she only wants her mother back. Dimitri unless you hold his hand is a schizophrenic murderer, and Claude unless you hold his hand... he just leaves. Edelgard is literally the only one who has proven themselves worthy of leading Fodlan without having her hand held and that’s why I support her.
NeWorld Fool Edelgard, unless you hold her hand, ends up dead in every single route. She's hardly a worthy leader if she can't handle being one. Your point is invalid.
dragullong blackfang experimentation done without humans, she created homunculi and tried to imprint Sothis onto them, and when that didn't work she didn't dispose of them or treat them horribly; she accepted them as family in the case of Byleth and their mother because they lived.
I view Rhea's "Cruelty" as her delivering strict judgement for the sake of maintaining peace, because to her, the alternative is being complacent and letting her enemies walk all over her and those she cares about (Like what happened at "The Red Canyon"). She is TRYING to maintain order, and was reasonably angered by the events in question: attempted assassination, defiling her mother's and siblings' tomb, et cetera, even if it goes too far. When she goes full Villain in the CF route, its because Edelgard, a descendent of the one she gave her crest to, and Byleth, who she trusted deeply, had her mother's heart, and is her grandchild(?), chose to go down a path similar to Nemesis, who "took everything that (she) loved", so of course she would lose faith in humanity in general, focusing only on revenge. In other routes, she remains able to think clearly enough to reflect on and regret her role in the cause of the war.
Something I always enjoy bringing up is how Edelgard and Rhea mirror each other. First off, both are victims of slaughter. Rhea’s entire race was annihilated by the very creatures they served and guided. They were murdered with a weapon fashioned from the corpse of their mother, then turned into weapons themselves. Edelgard witnessed the experiments conducted upon her siblings and the brutally negative effects it had on them. Second, both are fueled by their grief. Rhea’s grief for her mother inspired her to make the church and eventually attempt to revive her mother. Edelgard’s grief for her siblings fuel her desire to get rid of the system that allowed their suffering to endure. Third, both are unreasonably single-minded. Although normally forgiving, Rhea becomes extremely emotional and aggressive when it comes to betrayal. After Nemesis killed her mother and slaughtered her siblings, she retained bitterness towards anything remotely resembling betrayal. So when it comes to not believing in the Church (like Claude, Byleth, Jeralt, Cyril, and Petra), she respects their decisions. But if anybody attacks anything related to the church, she goes insanely overboard. Edelgard is set on going to war. She doesn’t view war as a last resort, but as the only option. She has no desire to reason with members of the church, only viewing them as enemies and vile manipulative creatures (despite allying with the Agarthans). Fourth, both have a very clear ignorance of the truth. Rhea manipulates history so that humanity won’t view themselves as traitorous hostile beings that betrayed the creatures that helped them. This falsified history allowed her to establish the Church, but also resulted in the Crests system. She continues the facade of her doctrine and fails to understand that many of her historical changes yielded many extreme problems. Edelgard on the other hand falls victim to her own confirmation bias. Any information that TWSitD feed her regarding the church, she automatically believes. As a result, she spreads their lies and uses those lies to fuel her ambition. This can be counted as a misunderstanding on her part, but at the same time, she cares less about the truth and more about her goal. She also manipulates information to maintain her goal, just like Rhea. She publicly blamed the annihilation of Arionrhod (by pillars of light) on the church, despite knowing for a fact that TWSitD were entirely responsible for it. Fifth, both embody the ideal of “the ends justify the means” despite how extreme their means may be. Rhea attempted to create/recreate life, maintained the flawed Crest System, manipulated history, murdered anybody accused of betrayal without further investigation (Christophe, Western Church congregation), etc. Edelgard hires Kostas to assassinate Dimitri and Claude, started the war, enabled TWSitD to continue their experimentation, used their findings (children turned into Demonic Beasts) in her personal army, failed to evacuate the Empire capitol despite knowing a massive battle would take place there, etc. At the end of it all, both were flawed extremists with good intentions. Both gave into their personal shortcomings and made conflicts far more violent than necessary. [They really should’ve just been like Claude and Seteth. Claude had a very similar goal to Edelgard, however, he still was reasonable and sought the truth while pursuing his goal. Seteth was a very tolerant individual, caring more about individual people than the systems they upheld. He was a good counselor to the students, and despite his overprotective nature, still remained reasonable. His biggest problem is taking orders from his older sister, Rhea.]
To be fair, Rhea's actions with setting up the false history of the church are absolutely not the reason that crests are a big deal. Crests are objectively a major source of power for the people who have them (and they were even moreso in the past, because characters make it clear that the crests have been getting weaker and less common over time). If Rhea had become a hermit the minute the Nemesis died, we have every reason to believe that the family lines who had gotten crests from the massacre at the red canyon would have become the major power holders of the continent anyway, because the crests made them objectively far more powerful than the people around them. There's room to debate whether Rhea made things better or worse over the years, but it's silly to treat it as if crests would never have become an issue if not for Rhea.
Finally someone doesn't excuse Edelgard's actions because she's a pretty girl. Thank you for having a brain, it's so uncommon in the Three Houses fandom.
@@genericyoutubeaccount4756 And, as the post you’re responding to says, “There’s room for debate whether Rhea made things better or worse over the years, but it’s silly to treat it as if crests would never have become an issue if not for Rhea.”
Good video, though I can't help but feel you overplayed the negative aspects of Rhea over the positive, especially with that post you showed. That is I think it should have been pointed out that Rhea's worst behavior only happens on one route and only after she goes insane. And that Edelgard was not just some teenage girl but guilty of crimes that would have likely had her executed regardless. As for good attributes that were not mentioned, they would include how she accepts and employs people regardless of crest, nationality, etc. How she took in the victims of Remire village, saved Jeralt's life, Catherine's life, etc. And how she doesn't even require belief in the church in those who work for her. Basically she's incredibly reasonable when sane, but her berserk button is anyone who uses violence against herself or her believers or supports those who do.
The problem in this game (and this shows how masterful the story is) is that, aside from TWSITD, absolutely none of the four parties involved (Dimitri, Claude, Edelgard and Rhea) are wrong. What they may do can be fundamentally wrong, but you can only empathize for their reasons for acting this way. That's how great the story of this game is: whichever route you take, you're not wrong...but that doesn't help you feel better about what you're doing.
This is completely and utterly ridiculous. Edelgard plans on murdering the world into submission and targeting and persecuting people based on religion. That doesn't become "morally grey" just because you think what she would do with supreme power attained through murder would be beneficial.
@@JD-xz1mx I think that classification of Edelgard is a tad extreme. Yes she does plan to turn the continent into an aristocratic militaristic dictatorship, but she seems fairly tolerant of religious belief. She’s very hateful towards Rhea bc she was operating on lies that the Agarthans told her.
So, I'm going to have to defend Rhea here, since the highlighted comment is incredibly biased. Warning that I'll be spoiling some shit down below, so if you don't like it, don't read. I feel like Rhea is shown in a far better light then Edelgard, and this coming from someone who likes both of them. All of Rhea's actions make sense in context, while even after playing all 4 routes, I dont see any real reason for Edelgard's rebellion against the church. The church doesn't show any sign of being the type of all controlling conspiracy to place power in Rhea's hands that Edelgard seems to inply. And while she did alter the historical records, doing so was both incredibly painful for her (elevating her most hated enemies. Including the man who murdered her mother and slaughter her entire family to national heroes has got to hurt) and merciful for other. If the truth behind the ten elites comes to light, people with crests would be viewed with repugnance and disgust. Who knows how that would turn out... We do, because that's literally Marianne's character, and she's the girl who literally prayed to Sothis to kill her, so... yeah, maybe better not to condemn literally every person who had ever been born with this power for the actions of a few pieces of shit from 100 years ago. Other then that, there was Lord Lonato's rebellion, which by all right should've been handled by Fearghus, but after the Tragdey of Duscur, the kingdom was not in any position to do that, and Catherine's support with Ashe clearly shows that the church will act only when the nations can't. That, combined withn Lonato's goal being to destroy the central church, it's reasonable that the church would be the ones to put them down. Same deal with Miklan, the kingdom couldn't respond, and the time sensitive nature made it esstienal that he be stopped ASAP, and even if house Gautier was going to go themselves (they weren't, their forces with busy defending the border), they didn't have the time to wait, otherwise everyone learns that relics can turn people into monsters, leading to even greater mistrust and hatred of Nobles. The Western church might've been an abuse of power, but if someone broke into my mothers tomb to steal her body, I'd kill them all myself. She handled it far better then I would've. And Edelgard's betrayal... well, I mean again, those crest stones were literally the hearts of her family she'd laid to rest, and Edelgard, next head of the one country she should've been able to trust, basically stabs her in the back and tries to steal every one of them. I see no reason to blame her for that reaction. Rhea only really loses her mind in Crimson Flower, and that's just because after suffering the greatest betrayal since Nemesis, she is betrayed again, and this time, it's someone she trusted enough to carry her mother. No shit she snaps when you become Nemesis 2.0. Not saying she's the perfect woman, but I can at least see how she came to her conclusion and made her choice. Edelgard has no real justification that she's shown. I legitimately feel like Edelgard could've achieved her goal by working with Rhea, with less bloodshed for literally every person. And we know Rhea is cool with that idea, because Hanneman is doing the same thing, under Rhea's eye for years. Her entire rebellion comes off as her concluding her plan is the only one that would work, and disregarding everything else. Nothing matters to her except the creation of her empire even if, as Dimitri said, its built upon the corpse of the people. I'm not saying she's wrong, but she doesn't give me nearly enough for me to accept that she feels that she doesn't have a choice. Playing devil's advocate, she could've felt that she needed to achieve it before she died of the aftereffects of the crest implantation, but even that doesn't mean much since she could've told Rhea, who would happily dismantled the ones who plotted her mother's murder, taken their research, given it to hanneman. His research improves drastically, and boom, Crests dont matter, she impliments her reforms in the empire and that's that. But instead she works with TWSITD, destroys the church, tries to conquer Fodlan, and kills anyone who gets in her way because..? Like I cannot find any kind of reason for why any of this game's plot had to happen. If there some nugget of church evil I missed let me know, but as far as I saw she doesn't mention anything beyond. "Lol church evil" in her entire route. The only thing she's not wrong about is Rhea not being human which... I mean, I guess that's true, but that's a fucking stupid justification to go to war with 2 countries and murder at least thousands, more likely millions.
The thing I can take from all this is that Reah just has too much power and is driven mad because of it. She feels like she needs to take command because of her divinity. She literally becomes a final boss because of that same mad power Also I think people forget Edelgard literally went to ransack a holy tomb where her relatives were buried and was going to have so much power at her disposal very shortly. She is a teenager but I think Reah losing her shit here was something expected
SleepyWolf And Byleth wouldn’t have been alive if it weren’t for Rhea. She eventually sees Byleth for their own person in every route she doesn’t die in, and does express lots of regret over her more questionable actions. Rhea, like most of the characters in this game, just needs a lot of help. Though TWSITD can go die in a hole.
I still prefer rhea over edelgard. Edelgard sides with the ones that slither in the dark, she uses people to make them demonic beats. She starts a war knowing the weak people will die and she things it is for a greater good. But in the end there is no greater good because no matter what people will fight each other in the future, I prefer dimmitri and claud
ANd Rhea doesn't side with them, but uses the same method as them (Byleth is the living proof of this). Is it worse to find for a cause you think is just, even if you may be misleaded and wrong ? Or doing things for your own interests, knowing full well you're wrong ? They both uses their immense political power to do as they please.
@@shytendeakatamanoir9740 this very much...i think Sakutaro is looking at it in a very reductive way... As a ruler (past or present speaking) you can no longer be guided by personal values or the needs of one person or one group of people, she saw chaos and disunion in her entire race of people, versus the machinations and manipulations of a divine race, which to her was no better than TWSITD and their twisted experiments. so while yes, shes a bad person for killing people...she's no better than today's presidents who vye and fight for their countries by sending people to die. Morally, there's always a better way, it's just not possible or realistic in practical life. Edelgard didnt claim to be a morally good saint, but recognized something needed to be done, and took definitive action with her possible means and with the weight of her own traumas behind her. None of this is to say Rhea was any better really...i find them both veeeeeery morally grey in the same way :) and i love them for it!
I just prefer rhea for the simple fact that in the end the protagonist is the one who brings peace in each route and the Protagonist only exists because of Rhea. Call her scumy but in the end she brought back the godass in a way and with this peace for fodland
@Waluijo I don't think Enbarr was burned down. Also a thousand years of torment doesn't justify burning down a city with its people who had no involvement still in it, before the enemy even makes their attack.
I think rhea is a remarkably fascinating character, easily my favorite in the game, possibly in the series. I think she pulls off the "grey villain" role better than even Arvis. Definitely not forgivable, but wholly understandable. She is the sole survivor of a race of powerful dragons, desperately trying to preserve the memory of her fallen kin without ever allowing those who slaughtered them ever know of the true history of the sacred blood they have and of the sacred weapons they wield. Passing these powers off as some sort of godly power, she maintains this power as a higher figure and secretly seeks to restore the world to how it was before the tragedy of the red canyon, despite how impossible that truly is.
This is why I hate Edelgard stans, saying Rhea would resort to violence and murder even on innocent people while believing Edelgard won't. But Edelgard herself clearly stated that she would risk the lives of her citizens for her cause right after Lonato's chapter. And let's not forget that she still wants to kill Dimitri even after he tried to let his guard down in front of her to convince her to stop the war. Rhea and Edelgard is just the same, none is less evil or more than the other, both suffered a traumatic past which leads to their actions in the events of Three Houses.
Frankly, this may be due me playing CF then Golden Deer I kind of view Rhea as Idiot who willfully ignored the negative results of her actions until one of the victims of said actions shows up an army to overthrow you regardless of your backstory your not getting sympathy from me
Keep in mind Crest and Relics are Basically what's left of her siblings that were slaughtered by Neminsis and and His henchman. Now Remember that Edelgard is the descendant of the human that She trusted enough to share her Blood with and that descendant betrays her and The Crest Stones in the Holy Tomb. Now from her point of view she realized and Felt that she created another nemesis by giving the Sword to Byleth as well. I would also like to argue that she was also degenerating because She is a Dragon. We All Know That Mental instabilty Speeds up the process of degeneration of A Dragon. It's interesting to note that Flayn is Dragon of different breed from her Father Seteh.. So I Suppose The Children of Sothis can even produce Dragons that are Completly different. Though it is implied that Flayn is Half Dragon because it is implied that she had a human mother... Perhaps her Bloodline is so Potent that She Still Ages Like a Typical Dragon. I believe Sothis is Immensely Advanced Dragon.. But Not A God.. Only A Weapon blessed by A God Can Harm a Deity as Explained in Tellius Series. Even in a weakened state She Should of not been Killed because the sort of the Creator was forged from her bones after they killed her.. So How Did They kill her? Therefore from my point of view she is not a God.. Another point is that she looks younger than her own granddaughter.. which means she ages more slowly then even her own Children that are Dragons.... so I doubt she is even fully grown and I dread to think how many years it would take for her to fully mature. Could it be that Sothis's species create Dragons.. I believe it was stated that she came from sonewhere?
Sothis is referred to as the Fell Star. The Slithers aren't only talking to Byleth, but they know he houses Sothis within him. Some people have thought that maybe this could translate to Sothis being the equivalent to an "alien" in universe. I mean she descended from the skies above and blessed the land with the children of the goddess and what not. Her species hearts are stones with crests and not a normal human heart. I wouldn't see this as farfetched either considering the Slithers became advanced in their technology and created their dubstep missile nukes.
Rhea is *seriously* wrongly characterized in Edelgard's route; as if she would suddenly forsake humanity and her virtues and become a crazed lunatic over what happened. Of course I understand how she feels after the ultimate betrayal of Byleth abandoning her and becoming her enemy (which is the most ridiculous decision might I add..) but she wouldn't forsake all that she is and murder countless innocents as a result of Byleth's actions. No way. (Not to mention during her terribly phoned-in freak out her vocabulary suddenly drops to the level of a 10 year olds when she insults Byleth, which is also out of character for her even if she was enraged.) Rhea isn't clean obviously, I know full well what the church has done with their homunculus experiments to try and make a vessel for Sothis, but even that wasn't using any actual unwilling humans as test subjects. And some people wouldn't believe Rhea about all she admitted, but what reason would she have to lie to Byleth, the person she cares about the most in the world after her mother? It's a genuine confession of her misdeeds. But everything she did was in the interest of guiding humanity to a better future by bringing back her benevolent mother to rule over Fodlan as she did before the wicked Agarthans betrayed them.
The problem is that if Rhea is not morale reprehensible, Edelgard would be the villian, so they wanted to make her go evil, so the player has not to feel bad to commit Genocide on the Nabateans on top of siding with a grave Robber and terrorist.
Ultimately she is good or evil depending on which house you choose at the beginning. This helps the player feel like no matter where he ends up or what decisions they make to never feel like the villain. Everyone is the hero in their own story, so it's no surprise that the game chooses moral ambiguity dependant on the player.
Just remember, she executes those who are deemed criminals against the goddess and the church, but she still wants to maintain peace in Fodlen. And when it comes down to it, there are 4 routes in the game. One she goes crazy (CF), one we hardly know (AM), and the other two she tries to fix things even if it means risking her life (VW and SS). She is complicated but I se that there is some good in her, she just needs to be lead to the right direction.
I like Rhea. Shes a very interesting character But I dont have an emotional connection with her, it's very odd to say that, because when I killed Edelgard in GD, I felt emotional about it, but as Im approaching the BE route... I dont find myself having that emotional connection to her, it's really strange
The thing is that Rhea is a completely different character in Edelgard's route than in every other route, just like how Edelgard is a monster in every route but hers, with the most extreme case being Blue Lions. People who played Ed's route first will hate her and like Edelgard. People viewing things objectively will be the inverse.
Personally I feel like edelgard has no choice but to go the war path if lysethia's supports with byleth and her are anything to go off of, she probably has little time to live. In a perfect world Edelgard would have sided with Claude. Then dethroned dimitri and got him the help he needed.
Edlegard was my first student, love her but not what she did. I was always suspicious of Rhea, but slowly saw her as a sort of mother figure. Love her, but not what she did. Claude can take care of himself, but Dimitri? We. Must. Protect.
@Fire Emblem Discussion By any chance when you made this video had you only done the BE route? Because most of the evil actions you present (though IMO the punishment of the West Church and her initial reaction to Edelgard isn't evil at all) are caused by driving her insane thanks to defiling the corpses of her almost extinct people, being betrayed by the person she trusted the most and losing her only connection to her mother in that route, basically Byleath smashed her trauma button beyond repair. (also while Edelgard maybe 16, she is not some innocent child) The only questionable things she does in her right mind is keep Foland isolated to help keep the peace (which considering the history of FE is understandable) and try resurrect Sothis using Byleath as a vessel. Otherwise she is normally legitimately benevolent, she just has the same problem the comic version Professor X has from the X-Men, I'm 100% sure of this, not a doubt in my mind.
I think the same can be said about Edelgard. I think they are meant to be 2 sides of the same coin. I mean compare how lovely Edel is in her supports, but then her Emperor persona whether you chose a path to walk with her or against her, just seems drastically different. Sure in Black Eagles route I would say she is mellower because she has the professor to lessen some of the uncomfortability the player may be feeling on her route. Blue Lions route we see her at her most desperate and somewhat losing herself in her pursuit of her ambitions and possibly viewed as a straight up villain. Seriously, I think BL is set up in a way, where it is easy for the player to hate her especially because Dimitri's route is centric to him and not the bigger picture so I can see how the player could get caught up in the emotion without considering more circumstances to what led to BL's journey's end. Church route I'm not sure since I haven't played it, but considering I hear it is similar to Golden Deer, she comes off as a more sympathetic character. Church route I would assume is because of the time we spent with her pre timeskip with the Eagles and for GD, we connect the dots and see her life was similar to that of Lysithea's and we deal with the true enemies themselves. I did get spoiled a bit with her route on accident though... I am playing BE route now and I don't know how I feel about her. On the one hand, even with the knowledge of 2 paths (GD and BL), I do really know the crests are to blame and have a sense of what she went through since my first route was GD. On the other hand, I have not experienced her directly telling me her ambitions so I'm not sure if I have true empathy. Especially once you consider she tried to kill Dimitri and Claude as early as the prologue, she willingly knew TWSID was an organization that only had united goals, but not united methods... By association with them, she is indirectly responsible for Remire's disaster, Jeralt's death, etc.
As someone who’s first play through was on the side of Edelgard I would have no hesitation in saying, Yes. But after playing the other routes and seeing Rhea for the pitiful broken creature that she became, My rage somewhat subsides and turn to pity in this tragic creature who only wanted do what she thought was right believing that if she changed for others it would only come back to hurt her like so many other times when it did. While I will never not hate her for what she has done, I can still fully appreciate and morn her story and her sacrifices she makes in the other paths, my hates off to you Nintendo for making this truly fantastic game.
@@webbywestside4419 Edelgard is the scariest fire emblem villain she willing to work with demonic beast and too even become one that just stupid and insane
game universe I see your point. While I see it as her desperation to achieve a goal that she believes is her duty to achieve in the name of all those who died in here stead to change the world, you see it as a woman removed from the world who thinks her means justify any actions to achieve them. That’s just an interpretation, and I respect your view. :)
@@webbywestside4419 No just shock that anyone would think turning into a demonic beast just to win is a good idea not even rhea does it well atleast not on purpose but I feel edelgard char she just pick the people who though were supporting the crest system even tho it shows several supports that not the case and even high ranking people are crest less,but the ones who support of are the nobles not rhea or sethet even then edel listen to the slither too trustworthy enough that she thinks that nemesis was a hero and does not see how it would affect rhea so I see edel as a person who does not think the lasting effects of things,her trusting the wrong people,someone not ready to be emperor,and her just blaming it on the people that has the highest point of power
game universe I see your point, side not it’s not that her turning into a monster I agree with it’s that I see why she though that was her only option as a person who’s entire short life was built around her being the strongest and wanting to end that cycle that she believes the entire world is effected by. But I’m not trying to change your mind I was just sharing my thoughts to you and seeing what your view might be, that’s what’s great about this game. How you can interpret the characters and there choices in different ways. But now for the true question for you, one far more crucial to this game................................................................... Who Did You Marry
Personally I can't say that either Edelgard or Rhea as the reason here, specially considering the dark past Dragons had in the FE franchise. They inevitably go insane because of this crazy power, that's something that I can positively say was already happening to Rhea. She is a control maniac, I get she had a deep trauma but so does Edelgard and both tried to do what they thought was best for Fodland. Edelgard through a bloody war while Rhea through a very conditional peace. We had seen through history that war is a drastic measure but sometimes required to make a real change, something that Rhea was clearly not interested about, she didn't want power or fortune but she was capable of lying, killing and experimenting on others if that meant she could keep control. I can see how Byleth could side with Rhea to preserve peace, or side with Edelgard to make a real change even if it is through the dead of many people. I guess is a matter of pick your poison and what you believe is best, in the end both sides are not entirely correct or wrong.
I honestly don't get why some hate Edelgard, but not Rhea. If Edelgard's sad backsotry isn't an excuse for her actions, Rhea shouldn't have special treatment. She did something extremely selfish and wrong(actually exactly the same thing as Those who Slither In) in every route after all, and she gets away with this a little too easily, both in story and even IRL. Now, my point isn't to say Rhea is the worst, I'm really curious as to why Edelgard would be worse than Rhea.
Edelgard started a war of conquest that spanned five years, caused issues for the general populace in terms of food, goods, and body-count, and is getting help from the Syltherins. The shadiest things Rhea does are sentence people who raised a rebellion and tried to assassinate her to death on non-BE routes (though she goes full villain at the end with burning the city with civilians), whereas on every route other than BE Edelgard is the one using Demonic Beasts meaning she warped some poor bastards into them.
@@TDSFounder Let's not forget establishing the church and current noble system that is always fighting each other. Oh and closing off all boarders and breeding hate for the outside world because they were not touched by the goddess. She has plenty of other skeletons in the closet.
@@TDSFounder And creating Byylet. Sacrificing a kid's entire life for her own motives. Which you will recognize as exactly what the Slytherins do. And then using said kid as a puppet to serve her own interests, or throwing a tantrum that leads to thousands pointless deaths when said puppet start acting against her plan. And Rhea still burned some poor guys to death in her worse incarnation. THe very people that helped her and protecetd her in time of trouble. simply to act her mindless revenge. I'm not sure whether this is worse than transforming them into giant monsters, but that's clearly very wrong. Not saying that Edelgard did any better. And Edelgard doing this for what she perceives is "the greater good" could actually maes her worse in your eyes, comparing to Rhea only doing it for her own benefits (and after thousand years of waiting.. But I still think that makes them somewhat equal at worst. I can see condemning both, or absolving both. But condemning only Edelgard still doesn't seems entirely right. They both have immense power meaning no one can keep them completely on check.
Mr Hildebrand Actually the Church has nothing to with that... The Church welcomed Cyril and Shamir so they definelty aren't anti-outside world. The Church does not attack other religions or opinions on the teaching of Seiros as long as you don't actively try to harm believers and Church staff. Last but not least Seteth and Rhea do NOT support the elitist system of crests as shown by Seteth's supports or Rhea's actions of giving important positions to Alois and Shamir (both crest-less commoners). The Church just made people believe that crests were gifts, so something humanity had no power over... Nobility is the one to blame for creating that system.
@@shytendeakatamanoir9740 To be honest it was Byleth's mother request to put the Crest Stone inside her child, she knew about that and yet she asked Rhea to grant her wish... But yeah, Rhea and Edelgard are pretty similar, if you don't side with them they show the darker parts of their personality.
So I think the writers ultimately wanted her to b like. Shes good on 3 of the 4 paths. Only going ape shit when u essentially join the bad guys. Plus she's the only person who gets a "u must romance her to get the true ending" when referring to the church route. That doesn't excuse the experiments she has done in her quest to get her mother back tho
For me Rhea is just tortured soul who wants to be with her family, but knows she can only talk to her mother if she does some weird sh*t... (spoilers) A.K.A Byleth's weird birth situation and Sothis😂
One of the main things that bugs me about Rhea is how she treats Byleth. If Byleth wasn’t housing Sothis inside of her, she wouldn’t have cared about Byleth at all. The only reason why Rhea was nice to them was because she wanted her mom to take over their body. It was an entirely selfish act that would’ve basically killed Byleth, assuming that her mother taking over would completely wipe Byleth’s personality out. It’s something even Seteth, who is practically Rhea’s hype-man, is concerned about.
So all the well explained comments with actual proof and backstory you forgot, get ignored but a small rant post that blindly emphasizes Edelgard's view gets a like? Biased aside, that statement of Rhea not caring about Byleth if it wasn't for Sothis is incorrect. Implanting Sothis' heart was a request by their mother because otherwise both the mother and Byleth would've died at childbirth. It was the mother's dying wish. The view point that Sothis was supposed to erase Byleth's consciousness and take over is something that gets hammered into CF route players by Edelgard, who let me remind you is NOT EXACTLY A RELIABLE SOURCE. I mean, we're talking about the chick that blamed the pillars of light attack, which Hubert deliberately states and Edelgard agrees those who slither in the dark were responsible for, on the church despite them being the main enemy of Rhea ever since the Red Canyon Tragedy. But the point is that, once Rhea confesses everything in the GD route before supposedly passing away, it becomes painfully clear that she intended for Sothis to co-exist within Byleth and nothing close to what Edelgard boldly claims. It's all explained in the other routes which makes the only possibilities of this comment and like existing, either a blinding ignorance or a lack of will to actually look into the matter and instead just blindly repeating what the white haired fascist says.
@@romy9454 Yes it was Sitri's dying wish for Rhea to save Byleth and she complied. That is good. The problem is the choice she made immediately afterward. Rhea thought about what she had just done and the possibilities it presented for a few seconds and said to herself "Hey wait a minute...If I set this child up as a sacrifice, I might be able to get my mom back. I mean sure it would completely dishonor the death of Sitri, a woman I loved like a daughter...BUT MOM CAN COME BACK!" Seriously the moment she decided on her plan to literally turn Byleth into Sothis, she lost any goodwill points she earned by saving his/her life. I'm not going to give her credit for doing what WOULD have been a good deed when she immediately turns around and tries to render that good deed meaningless. If her plan had succeeded as she intended, then the person known as Byleth would have ceased to exist at all. Byleth would be as good as dead and Sitri would have sacrificed her life, only so that her child could become a puppet body for Sothis to control. That is fucked up. Thankfully Sothis herself is far nicer than her daughter and made the realization of Rhea's plan completely impossible when she gave her powers over to Byleth of her own free will. Also no. This point isn't hammered into players by the Crimson Flower Route. In fact, it never even comes up in that route at all because Edelgard doesn't even realize that Sothis is literally inside of Byleth. She just thinks Byleth is a relative of Sothis in the same way that Rhea is. Rhea tells Setheth of her plan to have Sothis take control of Byleth in literally every OTHER route. And Seteth's response is basically "Well that's incredibly unethical and I don't agree with it at all, but I guess I can't do anything about it now that you've already set this whole thing up." Rhea literally says in her S support that she wanted Byleth to become the progenitor god, but now regrets that plan and just wants Byleth to be themselves. This is coming straight from Rhea's own mouth, not Edelgard.
@@DevilHunter1994 alright, I see your point. The thing is though that whether it was Rhea's plan to have Byleth as a sacrifice or not is different depending on the route. In Edelgard's route it's claimed that that was her evil plan all along, meanwhile in Verdant Wind Rhea personally states that she wished for them to co-exist together. It's really just a lack of a reliable narrator. There are no truly objective narrators in the game, so depending on which route you pick first that's probably the thing you assume is the truth. I went Verdant Wind first and therefore was convinced that Rhea never wanted to use Byleth as a sacrifice. Because of that, I was accusing everyone in Crimson Flower as liars because that was just untrue to me. The perspective really isn't friendly to both Edie and Rhea at the same time.
@@romy9454 But the S support with Rhea remains constant in every route. What I got from her speech in Verdant wind was her essentially saying "Yeah I wanted you to become Sothis, but she chose to just give her power to you instead and then just vanish. I was initially disappointed by this, but have come to realize that this was for the best after 5 years of reflection." Her plan doesn't change between routes. The only thing that changes is whether or not she ever comes to regret the plan. If you side with her, she comes to regret her choices and begins valuing Byleth as an individual rather than as a potential vessel for Sothis. If you don't side with her, then she calls you a failure and goes into full crazy dragon mode.
Nope. You can actually S support Sothis in The BE Eagles route...She congratulates us for restoring peace and says that she will stay with and love us for all time, even after our death.
Looking at both Rhea and Edelgard each of them are products of their own time, one representing the past and the other representing the present. I’m kind of more sympathetic toward Edelgard because you would understand what she had went through if you saw her supports with her classmates and professors. And for Rhea she only has one support and that’s with the player which hurts her character, and If she had more supports I probably more inclined to side with her.
Edelgard: Illogic and Super Crazy Rhea: Selfish and Super Crazy Dimitri: Literally Crazy for part of his history Claude: The only one in his right mind? I like all the arcs in the game but with Edelgard i felt like i was the bad guy lol. I love Rhea even if she is Crazy
I think it is intentional that the developers made her so grey and difficult to determine. So that you can support her in Claude and Church Routes and go against her in Edelgard route (haven't played Dimitri's route yet). Like she gives you reasons to go against her and with her. At the end she is like a crazy caring mother who loves you but will turn completely mad the moment you go against her. The fact that she states how Byleth was "another failure" (as an experiment) in Edelgard route, just shows how delusional and power abused she is. Rhea and Edelgard share some similarties as grey characters. And for that is why I loved this Fire Emblem so much!
I think A LOT of rhea's choices especially in Edelgards route stem from the fact that Byleth is really her last leg of sanity. Rhea at this point is ANCIENT, living in a world where the ability to care for others is hard. Anyone she does ultimately care for will wither and die before she gets to know them well by her standards. Byleth acts as a force for change in her life, as well as a pillar of hope to her. And thus once Byleth betrays her, she snaps completely.
Well, given that 90% of the Academy phase of the game is almost exactly the same across all three houses, I would have though Rhea suspicious at best the whole time. So I don't think it *really* matters much which of the three you went with for your first time. Rhea started smelling rotten to me almost the moment she showed up, but the whole Lonato incident and the one with Miklan is when she *really* started to stink and when I started feeling like, no matter who the true villain(s) might be, Rhea would be almost just as bad. ...though for clarification's sake, I also went with Black Eagles first.
I think this whole discussion about who really ks the bad guy makes this game so unique. Whatever route you choose, you still are unsure who really is in the wrong
Here my theory of whats happening ... The ritual in the holy tomb was a success, only it's not what rhea thought would happen! Right now byleath/byla is writhing in pain on the floor in front of sothis's throne, the students are in a panic, some rush to the entrance to get manuella, the lords and rhea run his/ her side and try and calm the main, but it's a fruitless endeavor minutes pass the main's arms and legs flail, the spine arches up, saliva froths from the mouth like fountain as the screams of someone who is burning alive echo through the chamber, then suddenly silence as his/her eyes fall to the back of they're head and pass out. Dimi and Claude go to lift the main to the infirmary, while El is just left seething about what she just beheld, and Rhea can't hold back her tears, but before the boys reach the stairs as the girls are riled a simple snap of the fingers hits the air and all goes blank. Then after what seemed like seconds to their perception, the three awaken gasping for air as they stand before the throne unable to move and see the main sitting there hunched over and hands clasped near his face. After some simple questions without answers Claude who is to the left tries to break the silence with some wit, but is met with a fast and more fierce "SHUT UP" which stops the joke before it left his breath, then Dimi who is on the right asks where rhea is, thus the main states " behind u frozen in time like the rest of our friends, classmates, and co-workers, but I'll get to her soon enough" with eyes he knew far to well, while El who resides in the center is some what shocked by the unusual malice from whom she admired simply states " are u alright my teacher" which the main retorts woefully as he/she rises from the throne, walks over, and caress's her checks " El I'm sorry I'm going to have to break my promise to u, because the hell i just experienced over and over again it's what none of us here deserve" as her face freezes in fear!?! Though he/she continues as the hands are retracted "... but in exchange I'll tel the three of u alone how I got the nickname of the ashen demon, but right now I have a proposition...Verdant Wind u could manipulate and move your pieces ever so slightly for your desired throne, Azure moon will u stop letting a past that wasn't your fault drive u further into the darkness, or will see past the lies and reliance on nobility so u can see things from the outside, And my beautiful crimson flower u should forsake your uncle and work with us to save your country, because if its just u and me or just u its a matter of time before your plans fail and deliver this continent to monsters who u thought u had beat but they still had they're strings wrapped around neck ready to tug at any moment.
I honestly don't know how I feel about Rhea. On one side I like that cares about Byleth, but on the other I feel that she is using her position and power to fulfill her own selfish goals, such as killing people who oppose her. Not to mention Rhea kind of started a war between the Empire, Kingdom and Alliance, because Edelgard went against the church, which then lead to an all out war, when they should have focused their efforts on defeating Those Who Slither in the Dark. To be fair everyone in Three Houses has some kind of family issue, including Rhea.
When it comes to the Black Eagle Route. Choosing to side with either Edelger or Rhea the player is forced to witness the dark side of each individual woman. Edelger wants to destroy the status quo, believing that Fodlan should not be ruled by the church and by extension Rhea. Rhea wants to defend the status quo because It has maintained order and stability for hundreds of years. In my eyes neither of them started off as evil. They're not innocent, they've done Questionable and selfish things and they both admit it. The reason they become the evil/worst versions of themselves at the end of the story, whichever side you choose is because they're desperate to win the war because if they lose all the compromises/sacrifices they've done would be meaningless.
At first I thought: Mommy? Then I thought: Auntie? (After Rhea mentions her sister.) Then at the end of part one: *Dovahkiin, Dovahkiin naal ok zin los vahriin.* Nah, I am just kidding.
Depending on the route you take, Edelgard and Rhea are both pushed to their limits. Edelgard starts a senseless war in every route and literally becomes a fucking monster if you pick the blue lions and Rhea easily threatened the lives of civilians and her own army if you choose to go with Edelgard. I believe both characters are good hearted and have good intentions, but both of the actions they're willing to take make them morally grey.
Edelgard had done some stupid things. But that is the nature of humanity. Rhea has done even worse things yet she is still treated as if she were a divinity. Edelgard took an aspect of Martin Luther and pointed out the flaws in the church and how to fix them. Rhea took an aspect of Pope Leo X in labeling Edelgard a heritic and wicked. Edelgard was not against the faith (said when she initiated combat against Rhea in the battle for Gareg Macch) though Rhea still believed that she passed judgement for the goddess (as Pope Leo X did) Martin Luther was still Christian but he knew that the Catholic Church was failing and would cause the fall of Europe. Edelgard pushed for the idea of the church to get out of the politics and only pass good morals, not deliver punishment.
Golden Rose Mass execution of members from the western church, was completely fine with wiping out civilian militias, and burned down an entire capital with hundreds of thousands of innocent lives just so she could kill a couple people.
@@SaxyKnight the western church that was against them...and trying to hurt them, how is that difrent form Edelgard attackimg everyone that doesn't agree with her.. or how about the fact that edelgard uses the captial her city to use as human shield, most likely burns Bernadetta, and chances into a demom
Well, Part 1 has certain scenes exclusive to each route. In Black Eagles, you barely know about her, the tragedy of Duscur, the crests and relics etc. In Blue Lions, they restlessly tell you about the tragedy and deepen your knowledge about Edelgard and Dimitri's relationship. In Golden Deer, they deepen more on the relics and you see the Inmaculate One way earlier in the story. Each part 1 gives you certain amount of info that it's only necessary for that route alone.
to tell you the truth i do not like rhea i hate her with burning passion she tried to use byleth as a human sacfrice and when flayn went missing it almost seemed like she did not care at all she felt really fake at the begging her actions were really horrible and i know people are gonna say she missed her mom and all but what she did was still terrible she even destroyed a few houses and burned alot of soldiers it really disgust me that people even ship rhea and byleth together and like her alot and try to excuse her actions nothing you guys tell me will change my hate for her and please do not say the s support proves me wrong because it does not there non canon and also do not excuse her actions by saying she regretting it later because that was only just out of pity and a little change of heart she is a horrible person she may not be a villian but that's the way i see her so yes she is insane and horrible.
She nothing but the oldest surviving daughter of an invading alien species who called themselves gods. She is also the luckiest of her surviving family members as the only one still capable of transforming.
All this happen can be good or evil. If you choose silver snow, blue lions and golden deer she would be the good side. What happens if you choose black eagles, Rhea would became evil. Each of the houses you pick they would give you the final boss. Final boss always the villain.
Rhea had a 1,000 years to deal with her trauma, and still couldn't get past it in some healthy or beneficial way. I see her more as a self righteous zealot than anything else. I've always had bad vibes from her the moment I met her, confirmed it with the Lonato mission, and the rest went downhill from there. She also hints towards Seteth that the goal of you being the progenitor god, is for Sothis to eventually take over the vessel (you) and return to Fodland. She isn't a woman that can be trusted.
dude image you are the only left of your race for the last 1000 years , until you find out there is another one of you kind around and that person end up stabbing you in the back and try to undo all your work in the 1000 years. i think you will be super pissed and feel betrayed and lose all reason.
@@khanhnguyen-tt3ff Except there isn't another kind like her. Rhea did something to Byleth to make them the way they are. She was using you as a vessel to get her mother back and was willing to burn the entire country to do it. You're damn right I'm gonna mess with her plans. Her work was done a long time ago. She established a faith for people to believe in, and should have left it at that. Instead she see's herself above all humans and any who oppose her are met with the sword. Yeah my pity well for her ran dry pretty quickly.
@@MrHildebrand lol it simply bleyth mother is her clone or somethings create using her blood so bleyth is relate to her by blood( not include the Crest stone ) and he count as her grandson that will inherit which is why she give him preferences treatment. she put the Crest in bleyth because that the only way to save him and it at his mother request with knowing if it will work or not .
@@khanhnguyen-tt3ff That's actually incorrect. The whole point of putting Sothis's Crest Stone into anyone, Byleth or not, was in hopes of Sothis taking over the body and returning to life. Whether or not it is true that she put the Crest in baby Byleth to save his life is hard to say, since we only have Rhea's word for it, but I personally believe that even if Rhea herself believes she is telling the truth, she isn't. In the Black Eagles ending, it shows that when Sothis's Crest Stone dissolves, Byleth's heart begins beating normally again. To me this signifies that Rhea's story is not true, and that Byleth's appeared stillbirth was caused by putting Sothis's Crest Stone inside him/her, rather than it being the cause of said procedure. As far as Byleth being given preferential treatment because he is Rhea's grandson, this is probably true, but Rhea definitely wanted Sothis to take over Byleth's body. The entire point of Chapter 11, where Rhea tells Byleth to sit on the Throne of Knowledge, was that Rhea was hoping that Sothis would take over Byleth's body and that she'd have her mother back. That's why she was so taken aback that nothing happened when Byleth sat on the Throne. That on its own is pretty morally unjustifiable, especially considering that up until that point Byleth has been her staunch defender. It's up to you whether or not that invalidates Rhea's other good points (which she definitely does have), but that is definitely what the writers were going for with that part of the story, and it is definitely a big black mark on Rhea's personal record.
@@AvatarOfDiablo lol not just anyone can bare the Crest. If it do why would she go thought all the process of creating a body to host it and she did said she failed 11 time already, in the story it implied this is not the first time the Crest was used like this, the one we know of is the king of genesis which didt turn out great for her
It’s not that I don’t like her but i feel like the Edelgard Route is the better and seems (in my opinion) canon, like first of all she’s been alive for thousand of years along with seteth and flayn I personnaly thought it was better to just end their misery and let them finally die, and I haven’t played the golden deer and church route (I probably never will do this one) but isn’t Edelgard’s the only one where at the end your character become human again and even finally as her heartbeat for the first time bc she doesn’t have the fire emblem anymore wich I guess made her really « feel » alive for the first time ?! I personally think this was beautiful rather than staying a vessel of the goddess forever and I guess end up being immortal yourself as a result and see all your beloved student dying of old age
I strongly suspect views of rhea are influenced by which path you took first. as someone who started with crimson flower, I was never able to unhear rhea screeching about how my character is a worthless sinner who deserves eternal damnation, and some of that hit a little too close to home for me to ever really unsee rhea as more bad than good. that said she's obviously a complex character and far from one note. routes where she's more heroic paint her in a different light and make her more sympathetic, but I think it's hard to shake that first impression. I suspect for people who did a different route than crimson flower first (especially if it was verdant wind or silver snow), the opposite is true.
True true. I did the silver snow. Rhea seemed like a traumatized, but sympathize-able character. I actually expected her to be a stereotypical good-guys-but-turns-out-to-be-evil character. I was actually really surprised that Edelgard turned on everyone. Now I can’t imagine playing through the CF route. Must be disconcerting.
Can someone explain this: My understanding is that Rhea/Seros created the religion where crests, those bloodlines and holy relics are highly valued. In the golden deer route it is revealed that crests were created by those who slither in the dark using blood of her kin and holy relics by the bones of her kin. She was furious for those actions so why the religion where crests and relics are valued? She does not seem like a forgiving type to put it mildly.
She has to hide history otherwise if people knew the truth about crests then the remaining Nabateans would have been persecuted for a reason or the other... same goes for descendants of 10 Elites (I mean just look at what happened to Marianne due to a simple rumor). By saying Crests were "gifts" people wouldn't have thought they may have actual power over crests. Also as much as she may hate relics, they are necessary to protect some areas of Fòdlan from bandits or war-loving outsiders.
I feel like Im the only person who realized right way Rhea wasn't all there in terms of sanity. In the into cinematic I saw a woman on the edge of madness against the guy the put her there and the words she said to nemesis confirmed dis when we see her in in game for the 1st time and do introductions I saw in her eyes ya that scares from the intro are still fresh and im probably treading on a razors edge or would be if this game gave me a chooise in the matter
I will get killed for this again...... Edelgard wants the best for all people.... Rhea for herself and her mother.... Edelgard is the true hero. And now I prepare for the hate D:
No its the truth. No matter what edelgard takes action and sacrifices herself to make the world a better place. And succeds in that goal in evert timeline.
Even though Rhea is benefitting herself, she ultimately is thinking for the future of Fodlan as well. She wants her mother to be reborn and take back her position as leader considering Fodlan was relatively peaceful until the Agarthans started to be straight up evil and then eventually kill Sothis by hiring a renown bandit. Sure she uses questionable methods... like Edelgard especially in routes not her own, but the goals are ultimately still the same.
I feel she hasd allowed her traumas of the past to twister her mind and her judgement. Resulting in questional experiments to revive sothis, who does not want want to be revived and her behavoir can be very erratic verging and crossing into psychotic.
Rhea really reminds me of NOir's main antagonist. THe caring mother figure, yet still really dangerous. Rhea is, indeed, less evil (though still forgiven by the story far too much for my taste), but the similarities definitely are here.
When playing BE route last, I sympathized with Rhea greatly knowing everything... however, in that same run, I couldn't sympathize with Edelgard at all. Her drive never came off personal, only ideological and forced. Long story short, Rhea was written well, Edelgard was not.... IMO
To be partially fair friend her route was screwed the most. As the other routes had 23-24 chapters hers only had 18 meaning the last fight of the game was cut due to some rush. I feel like there could've been a tiny bit more exposition to cover the last bit of info from her route.
At first I thought she was just going to be a token villain posing as a righteous person, but after seeing the big picture, she's a mixed bag that I can't help but feel bad for. There's a lot to unpack here. Rhea is the equivalent of one of the last humans surviving the robot apocalypse, who now has the responsibility of maintaining the robots. She aims to be kind to others and does a reasonably good job at holding society together, albeit with some lying, but reacts HARSHLY to betrayal due to the Nemesis incident leaving her emotionally scarred. She's forgiving of most sins, but even a hint of betrayal and her wrathful side comes out. Her missing her people, above all Sothis, has also led to some shady experiments and an unhealthy mother complex. This is what led up to her preparing Byleth to take her place if they don't side with Edelgard. If they do side with Edelgard... well she lost her mother and daughter at the same time for Byleth to be born and always treated them kindly, only for them to engage in the ultimate act of betrayal. Edelgard is the second coming of Nemesis as far as Rhea and TWSITD are concerned. This is why she compares the invasion of Garreg Mach to the Red Canyon Incident. Her emotions make her completely lose it and, she's frenzied for the entire Empire route.
You also have to consider her relationship with Edelgard's ancestors.
She seemed to genuinely trust Wilhelm Paul Hresvelg, and with his help, she pushed back against Nemesis and the Ten Elites. So, to see the last descendant of her ally act so hostile to her not only insults Rhea, it insults Rhea's memory of Wilhelm.
It doesn't help that Byleth, though her own creation, is basically Nemesis 2.0. Really, Rhea is pitiable even in her evilest moments.
@@JXZX1 A lot could've been avoided and averted if she had any reason left to ask questions, she should've abdocated power along time ago.
JXZX1 How is Byleth nemesis 2.0?
@@rayzas4885
Byleth in that route becomes a person seeking to destroy everything Rhea has ever loved, while using the corpse of her mother as a weapon against her. Honestly if Rhea hadn't gone insane in the BE route and was instead like she is in every other route, even with Byleth's mellowing Edelgard out, Edelgard would stay as a anti-villain instead of anti-hero she becomes in the BE route.
TheSwordsman100 Not really. Byleth literally just chooses edelgard every the sociopath. He doesn’t seek to destroy everything that rhea has loved. Infact Rhea had it coming for everything she has done to humanity and to Byleth.
Personally she is my favourite character in 3Houses.
Argueably she has the most tragic backstory... She basically lost her family just like Dimitri or Edelgard but more in a more intense way, heck her entire race got almost extinct and her kin's corpses got turned to weapons to kill the remaining siblings... She was the only survival of Zanado, she probably saw everything that happened there.
On top of that Nabateans seems to not "age" so she probably has to bring that dark memory for almost all eternity... no wonder she went a little bit insane and extremely punitive with those who seek to harm her or her allies.
Depending on the route she may go full insane or undestand her mistakes and try to fix them.
I'd argue that her character in Crimson Flower is undestandbly crazy... She litterally saw the vessel of her mother joining the killers of her species (from her point of view Flame Emperor is an ally of TWSITD) after so many centuries of trying to bring her mother back.
She has indeed two sides... a caring and adorable one (she has problem to develop normal relationship due to her status as archbishop as shown in some rare random help requests in-game), she is very tollerant and forgiving to those who share a different idea as long as they don't directly harm her or believers or generally what she cares about.
Despite what people may think the game did not suggest that her experiments were like the blood ones of TWSITD... actually, Byleth's mother despite being a de facto failure lived a happy life and was in a good relationship with Rhea despite her knowing the truth about the Crest Stone; so those experiments don't seem to be such a big deal.
Hiding history while totally questionable make sense and you can kinda agree with her, if people knew the truth about crests then Nabateans and descendants of the 10 Elites would have probably been persecuted (just look at what happened with Marianne...).
Also a little note to add to clarify some inaccuracies I've seen around: The Church and Rhea do NOT support the elitist system of crests as shown by Seteth's supports or Rhea's action of giving important positioning to Alois and Shamir (both crest-less commoners).
The Church just want to make people believe that humanity has no power over crests.
But she also has the "mastermind" and merciless side that whoever played Edelgard's path probably knows...
So personally 10/10... a hidden gem of the game.
The best character to come from this game. Edelgard is polarising while Rhea puts everyone across the spectrum.
Thus post here explains why i like rhea so much
@Chris take the L
That was Sothis though, Agarthans' ancestors challenged and attacked the goddess and the goddess fought back.
So...?
The goddess is Sothis, not Seiros.
the best Rhea point of view I've ever read, haven't finish Empire route and church route, so I can say anything, but base on what I saw on BL and GD, I can relate with your Rhea's explanation.
I am Ferdinand Von Aegir
Best comment
hello ferinand
Yes, but who is Rhea?
@Arthur Pendragon leave the sacred place at once
@Arthur Pendragon no are you pendragon
I hate Rhea equally as much as I hate Edelgard.
I love Rhea equally as much as I love Edelgard.
Srsly though, my boys Dimitri and Claude did not deserve to be tangled up in their BS
Y R U gey...
joke by the way
To be fair tho edel also dragged to this bs as she was molded to be what she was. the experimet that cost her sibling and the whole crest shenanigan. Rhea in other hand is the mastermind of the system. Instead being molded by the system like the 3 faction leader, she is the one creating the mold which lead to discord in the foldlan.
More like all three of them are dragged into her stuff and one became just like her one is lost and one is unsure what will happen but roll with it
@@RePhantomz Mastermind is a very strong word for how hands off the church is when it comes to matters that don't involve them. She made what seemed like reasonable choices when first forming the religion and overall her results were pretty dang good. A 700 year span of peace is unheard of in the real world.
@@Avengedtenfold actually no. From the beginning of the church by manufacturing false history and to the current affair such as the split of kingdom and empire are actually their doing. Not to mention child experimentation via blood transfusions. Byleth is not seiros 1st attempt to create goddess vessel and prior to byleth, all attempt ended in failure. Lastly church did use their position to meddle to the point of overuling the kingdom hierarchy to sentence lonato son a traitor without proper investigation despite dimitri attempt to fix the incident, which also make dedude tribe to be discriminated as additional mess. The list goes on.
I'll do you one better. Why is Rhea?
Honestly though: why is Rhea the way she is? I swore the writers just wanted to do anti-church commentary and lampoon blind righteousness.
@@BMVfilms it's a spoiler. I'd rather not say
@@TayNez63 Fair enough, but even her backstory doesn't really justify her actions in my opinion. I understand the first cutscene we see and stuff with Those who slither but...
@@BMVfilms It's actually quite interesting. THe Godess is never painted in a negative light, but all the power structure (including the church, but the empire is on the same boat) are faillible. And a simple human having full power isn't really a good thing (That's also a point in Dimitri's route, causing many death in his desire of revenge. Actually Mirroring Rhea in Edegrad's route somewhat.)
@@BMVfilms ok I wasnt sure if you knew her story or not. Definitely not justifiable. I like to think that she's just had such tremendous stress, that she's basically a loon
For me, I played El's route first and my vision of Rhea was "Crazy Psycho Dragon Lady". But when I played the Golden Deer route, her craziness and insanity made sense, she is someone in deep pain over the Red Canyon and the near extinction of her brethren. If you look at it like that, the fact that the Flame Emperor defiled the tomb of her mother and her brothers and sisters to steal the crest stones, the bodies of her siblings, kind of makes her fury at that event more understandable. To me, if you look at Rhea as a damaged soul with the pain of the past haunting her even to today, many of her actions make sense.
Anita Rossi Im even surprised that she didnt kill humanity and still seeked for peace. I would be so mad if someone would kill my whole family and use their dead bodies
Yes but Edelgard also lost everything including all of her siblings by the people who Rhea was suppose to stop. So I understand why Edelgard believes that Rhea is not capable in leading Fodlan.
@@jeffreyliu3043 here's the difference.
When Rhea's family gets wiped out, she deceives everyone to create peace.
When Edelgard's family gets wiped out she deceives everyone to create war.
@@Cayden.1 edelgard never decivies anyone tho.
@@genericyoutubeaccount4756 Edelgard literally created a fake persona (Flame Emperor) to do sneaky things that she knew her fellow students wouldn't approve of to trigger a war allying with the very people who caused all of her pain. She deceived everyone around her.
I believe they tried their best to not make each side seem like the obvious good guy or the obvious bad guys. During my first playthrough I decided to side with Edelgard, and after everything I said "okay so this was the right choice to go with.... Even though I had to kill certain people in battle"
Now that I'm with Rhea....it somehow feels...a little different.
The game does a good job by showing you a certain point of view and making it feel believable.
"So what I told you was true...from a certain point of view"
- Obi-Wan Kenobi
Almost unanimously, the community still regards Edelgard as the villain though. And you really ONLY get to know her character if you play through crimson flower and go through all her unique combat dialogue and supports... which MOST people do not.
Playing Crimson Flower first, and siding with Edelgard (with no information going into the story), only assured me I had made the right decision.
I was legitimately an emotional wreck when Edelgard executed Dimitri, just like she was. That was peak writing.
I pity Rhea, but I do not sympathize with her. She had every opportunity to prevent war and didn't.
If you have to boil a character down to their motivations, ask yourself, what were Rhea's? Yes, you find a beaten, battered, and traumatized woman. One of the last of her kind. But you also find a narcissistic nabataean supremacist that believed her kind were above humanity and humanity owed themselves to her. She was a dictator and her mandate was "don't question me and we'll get along fine." No she didn't require people to follow the teachings of the church, but how gracious of her to do that when society at large is dictated by a nobility system the church regulates.
My main problem of this video is that it doesn't dive into the golden deer/church route spoilers where you get to understand Rhea's full story. Nor does it highlight that Rhea saved the life of Catherine, Jeralt, Shamir or that she took Cyril in from the Goneril's. It's not a requirement that you participate in the faith to be a member of the knights or an academy attendant. Shamir and Cyril are non believers, and Rhea told Cyril that he doesn't have to participate unless he feels like it. She also allowed the survivors of the Remire Village incident to stay at the monastery very likely because she understood the same pain as they did in regards to losing family to tragedy. There's also a sidequest where she asks you to give calming herbs to help 2 students of your class because they're having trouble adjusting. So for me I don't feel that Rhea is as intolerant as some people would have you believe.
And the fact that Rhea is willing to sacrifice herself to protect the students of the academy while saying 'No, I will not allow another Red Canyon tragedy to happen here' convinced me that Edelgard's claims in the Crimson Flower route that Rhea's only interest is ruling the world in secret and she doesn't care for anyone but herself are not true.
Her actions regarding Edelgard attempting to steal crest stones is valid since just a few chapters before that Edelgard ordered the Death Knight to kidnap Flayn for her blood, and she intended to steal them for the empire to make more crest beasts that are seen in chapter 9. And on top of that those crest stones are made from the corpses of her brethren and seeing someone trying to steal the bones of your family for their personal use would anger anyone.
I don't condone her experiments to try and bring her mother back, she herself says that they're questionable and feels shame for what she did. She's got 1,000 years of trauma that she never got over and one of her advice box questions suggests that she must always feign dauntlessness in front of everyone despite how taxing she feels it is shows that she needs therapy and emotional support ASAP
MikulOnIce85 I completely agree with your post. I think Edelgard, Rhea, and Dimitri all need therapy.
Rhea is broken. I don't agree with her actions, but I get it
Similar with Edelgard to a degree. I get why she does what she does, but I don't agree with it.
Arcanium the Adventurer I’ve played through all four routes and honestly, I think Claude makes the most sense IMO
Joe Green Claude’s ideals would end with a culture war with fodlan and almyra you can’t just announce to warring countries as one without conciquence
Firenze 64 actually, he does more than just announce. He studies the difference, and got the two hero’s of both to meet and befriend each other. They also fought side by side in a war. Will it be immediately? No, but it’s not as brush off as you said ether
Joe Green it’s the way he just says he gonna tear open fodlans throat, the cultures of almyra and fodlan are drastically different, conflicting even, and fodlan also just came out of war, Will almyra be expected to help pay for the recovery of a country they were previously hostile towards, what if one of them decides to show off their strength and kills the wrong member of the wrong family?
Forget Edelgard, forget Rhea. In this house we protect Dimitri.
Facts. Claude can take care of himself, but we got to make sure our cinnamon roll is safe.
I agree with you man
Dimitri can protect himself even if i like him. I prefer to protect Rhea and Edelgard but that's just my opinion
Yes that why I chose his house
no
I consider Rhea and Edelgard as Anti-villains rather than pure Villains
Finally! I Was Hopping For Anti Villain Love.
They are called anti-heroes time example of a anti-hero Deadpool The Sinister Six
Edlegard is a lot like Alvis from FE 4. Good intentions, questionable methods. But those questionable methods are used for the good of the people against their oppressors.
@@zarephal4998 an anti-hero is a hero with questionable morals, and methods.
An anti-villain is a villain with Noble intentions.
Michi Chi CHi Rhea became more of a pure villain when she sacrificed innocent lives to try to resurrect Sothis, burnt an entire village to try and kill Byleth, and sacrificed her own soldiers during the burning of that village
Short answer, yes. She however has lost the most out of anyone in this game. Nearly the entirety of her race was wiped out for no fault other than powering the holy relics. Despite how her spirit should be aching for revenge, she chose instead to guide humanity like her mother, because her love for her was greater than whatever hatred for humanity she may have. Yes she has blood lust, but I find her role as leader of the church necessary for maintaining order. Those who slither in the dark are the only true villains, Rhea only does evil out of necessity. My answer to anyone who thinks Rhea is evil, just don't betray her, then she won't be.
That's her greatest weakness. She's reactionary. Because of this, The Tragedy of Zanado, the Red Canyon, took place. She only did something AFTERWARDS, and because no one is alive to recall those events, she and the survivors had rewritten history to inscribe they bury events as a bad thing. If anything, she's just a changling version of Dimitri with his incident in Duscar. They both handle they're problems the exact same way.
@@MisteRRYouTuby ok but rhea was in no position to stop the red canyon tragedy before it began. You think any of her race woild have seen the murder of sothis coming? Or that they could fight someone wielding sothis' power?
I hate that people think simple betrayal is enough to set Rhea off. Keep in mind those we see her retaliate against all ACTIVELY SEEK HER DEATH. The Western Church, although being manipulated, did commit a laundry list of crimes against the church. Two separate ploys to assassinate Rhea (Christophe and Lanato), inciting an open rebellion in the latter case, trespassing upon holy ground with intention to steal what they thought would be *the remains of the goddess* and attacking Church students and faculty with the intention to kill.
@@Avengedtenfold Oh yeah and she sends literal teenagers to fight against Lanato for the sole purpose of showing them what happens if they go against the Church. If that isn't ruthless I don't know what is
@@sarahluise3153 Within the context of the story, those teenagers are old enough to be involved in combat as a normal thing. Keep in mind that 2 years prior to the beginning of the story, Dimitri and his friends were already involved in putting down a small uprising (that was when Felix saw the side of Dimitri that left him referring to the prince as 'the boar'). Byleth is only slightly older than most of the students and has clearly been following his/her father on mercenary combat jobs for years.It's not reasonable to condemn a single individual character for doing something that everyone else in the story is also doing.
It's open to debate whether Rhea can be blamed for the fact that it *is* normal for teenagers to be fighting. We don't have enough background information to infer much about whether Rhea has done anything to promote or discourage it over the years, or if she's just going along with what the humans have settled on. There's enough fighting going on in the background of the story that it seems like it's potentially just a pragmatic necessity.
Overall, I like Rhea. She's complicated her delivery when angry is really good. She'd probably be the only reason I would go for the Church route
Rhea is a strange character, but not a bad one per se. She survives in all routes except Crimson Flower, but resigns in every route in which she lives. Meanwhile, Edelgard dies in every route exceot Crimson Flower.
As someone who played Crimson Flower last, it was very hard for me to see Rhea as a villain. I saw what Edelgard did to her in the other routes, I learned of her past in Verdant Wind, and it made me feel during Crimson Flower like I was the bad guy. Ending the route made me feel terrible.
The Crest System was problematic in every route, but in most routes, it was seen more as the fault of the noble houses themselves, rather than Rhea. Something that could be solved once people like Sylvain or Mercedes would become the leaders of their own houses.
"But she burns down Fhirdiad with all the people in it!"
Yup, she does. After her mother and the majority of her race get butchered and turned into weapons, after she is forced to see the people responsible turn into noble lords, after the Death Knight tries to drain Flayn's blood, after the Remire massacre, after the death of Jeralt, after Edelgard betraying her and stealing more remains of her people, after the reincarnation of her mother betrayed her and took the bones of her mother with them, after her monastery got turned first into a den of thieves and later a base of operations for her enemies, after Seteth and Flayn were either killed or forced to go into hiding, after the death of her final ally Dimitri...
I'm surprised she didn't go murderhobo crazy long before.
Her sense of violence is somewhat explained in claude's route. Nemesis did kill all of her people and he then turned them all into weapons of mass destruction. I think she has a deep resentment for humanity that hasn't truly manifested until the climax of edelgards route.
I’m with you on that, it’s what I believe too, also intentional or not she’s responsible for the horrible crest system that has plagued fodlan for over 300 years
Firenze 64 No, the nobility created that, not her.
@@firenze6478 It was TWSITD and the humans who did the genocidal attack on the red canyon and got crests for themselves. That wasn't Rhea.
@Waluijo Ehhh, she is responsible for the system that places value in crests and the nobility being crest based. While she, nor Sothis gave out crests to humans, she did make it so that those who have crests have responsibilities as nobility. Which could either be a way to honor her fallen brethren, or could just be because the of Heroes Relics being as powerful as they are and “with great power comes great responsibility” or something. The game never makes it clear why she decided to form nobility around crests, but the game does explain that the Church of Seiros is what upholds the nobility system and has to oversee the crowning of new monarchs.
@@wrestlerboy500I’m pretty sure the game explains the Crest-Based Nobility thing, actually. The 10 Elites and Nemesis had already been accepted by α large portion of Fodlan’s population at the time, and so fully denouncing them wouldn’t have been possible without angering those people and potentially continuing the war. Rhea made up the “Fallen Hero” angle to justify her war to the citizens without breaking their images of the Elites.
Plus, she really didn’t want the descendants of the Elites to suffer for their ancestors’ crimes. We see with Marianne how likely that is, even hundreds of years later.
All that, plus she had to figure out how to reconstruct α government out of the ashes of what was essentially α World War.
Honestly I didn't expect to like Rhea, nor did I expect Edelgard to become an antagonist. I was surprised on both accounts and I'm happy that they game was able to successfully surprise me this way.
I think Rhea works as an excellent morally grey character. She has every reason to hate and fear humanity (especially those who slither) and is rightfully cautious around them. Unfortunately it gets to the point of controlling humanity which is where aspects become shady and immoral at times. Trying to revive her mother through a human host is obviously shady, but our mother directly asked Rhea to save her child at the cost of her own life, so that wasn't exactly Rhea fault even if Jeralt didn't trust her ever since. Hiding the true history behind the crests and the legendary heroes is also questionable but slightly understandable. And of course, her strict view where the church executes traitors who opposed them is obviously dubious and it's what makes the player suspect her from the start.
However, I hate when people (mainly Edelgard fans) paint the church as just as evil as those who slither. Obviously they needed to give Edelgard an antagonist on crimson flower route because she was siding with those who slither and thus needed the church to become her big bad to justify her war against the continent. Except that I don't understand why or how Edelgard can claim that the church is the greater threat when clearly those who slither are the more pressing concern. It's really only Rhea who shows any kind of corruption, and it's corruption in the face of Rhea own suffering in a way. She is wrong to attempt to revive her mother with these experiments but she even seems to regret her actions and accepts Byleth as the true savior of Fodlan. She was wrong to hide the secrets behind the crests, but Edelgard is mistaken in most of her information because those who slither are influencing her drastically. The majority of the church are fine (Seteth, Flayn, Catherine, Alois) and clearly show no history of corruption. If anything, once Rhea steps down and acknowledged Byleth as the true successor to her mother's power, then the church likely wouldn't even be corrupt anymore and can easily be reformed with the influence of Rhea. I have no idea why Edelgard believes an entire war is necessary for this, nor why she can't accept reform of the existing system vs outright abolishment of the system. The crest system is wrong but to declare war on the continent is far too extreme and her anger is misplaced as well. Rhea seems worse on crimson flower because losing Byleth was her final straw and understandably, the story needed her to be worse for Edelgard to have any sort of justification in her actions. But Rhea doesn't lose her sanity on the other routes and peacefully steps down in favor of Byleth.
I've finished Blue Lions and am halfway through Golden Deer right now. During the empire invasion of the monastery, I was shocked at how much Rhea resonated with me in that cut scene. She claims that all of Fodlan is in our hands, and she's essentially leaving everything to us should she fail. She's not holier than thou: it's not about her life vs everyone else. She accepted that we are the inheritor of her mother's will and power, and she places her faith in us and believes we will be victorious. She transforms and wow is that scene incredible. Even though she was shady up until then, I actually felt pride to see her defending the monastery with us, feeling her power, having her on our side of the battle. She wanted us to stay away and protect ourselves and it pained her to see us fall. It was a great scene for her and it definitely helps improve my view of her overall.
Well edelgard was very opposed to working with those who slither, given they hurt her more than anyone else, it's hubert who convinced her and i mean she cant face both the church and those who slither at the same time, and if she delayed the rebelion to deal with them, she might damage the empire so much she could never have the strenght to oppose the church. In fact, even the most powerful of the three factions, the empire , would have lost entirely in their first battle against the might of the church in the battle of the monastery before time skip, if it wasnt for the help of twsitd. But do not forget she absolutely HATES them.
@@popkhorne5372 Still works with them I don't give a shit she knows there all destroy humanity and turning innocent people into demonic beast it does not excuse edelgard at all
@@gameuniverse5973 so close minded. How many loved characters in fiction did exactly what she did and are still loved. I don't understand why people hate on edelgard but not lelouch for example. They are the same character. The whole point of her arc is doing things that disgust you to achieve something because it cannot be any other way. At least she doesnt go psycho like dimitri
@@popkhorne5372 Same char ahahahahaha lelouch never worked with people that wanted to destroy all of humanity and he got betrayed which edelgard does also lelouch not naive like edel to believe the slithers who she actually thinks the genocidal nemesis was a good guy and lelouch smart enough to know the true enemy is edelgard attack the church even tho they Still allowed the other religions to exist and never supported the crest system the nobles did
@@popkhorne5372 Also another way even tho you achieve the same thing in gd and BL and the church route rhea was gonna make you the next leader if edel don't do her war so yes she wasted everone time
I'm surprised you decided to prop up Malevolent Destiny's post when it's very biased and lacks context. First of all, Edelgard uses her civilians as human shields when you storm Enbarr. When backed into a corner, both characters are capable of some despicable shit.
Rhea freaking out when you choose Edelgard in the holy tomb makes perfect sense in context. You just sided with the person that wanted to steal the remains of Nabateans aka the crests, worked with the people that kidnapped Flayn, tried to steal her blood, and killed Jeralt your father and a person Rhea cares about. She threatened to kill you and the students in the tomb if you got in her way. Byleth essentially became Nemesis 2.0 in that one choice.
Rhea did some seriously questionable shit but an amoral monster? Please.
the thing is that depending on the players choices, the psychological, moral, and personality aspects of the characters change dramatically. If you side with Rhea, she never gives in to the maniacal, violent side of hers, and Edelgard does not use people as shields and such other amoral choices if you side with her (she actually mentions she would have lost herself to loneliness and become cold and heartless if you hadnt been there with her, which happens if you stick with Rhea or anyone else). I think it was brilliantly done, because, like in real life, we are all one event, one choice, one moment away from being and acting like radically different people...i like both characters because of that very real, guttural, visceral grey that is absolutely human :)
@@marko1234567890 I agree completely but a lot of people don't look at Rhea with that kind of nuance and just think she's some creepy evil dragon pope.
@@bladekaz8413 creepy evil dragon pope FTW hahahahah A+ 11/10 would recommend on that description hahahahahha cheers my man x)
but yeah...agreed, idk how people can't see how similar they are...one is just fighting the long game for the divine dragon race, while Edel is just fighting the short game for humanity :U
Edelgard is a deeply complex character and her psychology essentially speaks to me as some who's end justify the means. I went with Golden Deer in my run and yeah Edelgard does some despicable shit but it always seems like theres a shade of gray to her character. The more ambitious and militaristic side to her reminds me of Tywin Lannister but she also isnt a sociopath and values the results of her audacity once the smoke clears.
I love how this game has all these morally interesting characters. Rhea is another damn good one and shes vying for my personal favorite.
@@marko1234567890 Difference is that rhea has a canon reason to be like that edelgard not like a dragon kin who shown to get crazy over time without emotional connections like tiki and nah
Who's Rhea? A dragon woman who acts like your mom and it's worth to protect after everything she has suffered. Seriously, I still don't see any reason in-character for Byleth to betray her and that's what makes me hate Edelgard's route so much.
Same
Honestly, there isn't any. Unless you've been paying attention to the support conversations, primarily Edelgard's B conversation, which I believe is a prerequisite to siding with Edelgard anyway.
You can deduce that the Church is partially responsible for crests and the nobility. It's clear that Rhea did something to the professor, something that caused them to be the Ashen Demon, feel no joy until they started working under Rhea and probably cursed them with the Crest of Flames. But siding against the church as a whole seems strange if you don't have reason to disagree with the Church's worldview on crests.
Rhea seems to have been controlling the professor's life and the professor has clear motivations to not kill Edelgard when you receive the option. It's a major turning point in the story, but the professor doesn't get to consider the ramifications. Just whether to blindly obey a tyrant or to hesitate on killing a friend.
Then Rhea flips out and gives you all the motivation you need to go Crimson Flower.
You get all the reason you need through Lysithea and Edelgard’s supports specifically combined with the story making Rhea into Daenerys the very second she gets betrayed. Hearing Hanneman’s story alongside the two students I’ve talked about together make the Church out to be the shitty, controlling, manipulative system it is. Without the extremism of Rhea basically breeding humans until the perfect host for her mom’s soul came into existence, the level of evil is really toned down. You only get to see the (most)ugly side of the Church only after the leap of faith to trust Edelgard.
You know aside from your father leaving behind hints that somethings not right with her and then she asks you to kill a student. Let's not forget that her first form of punishment is always execution, and even asks you to go murder a noble that has a difference in opinion.
There is also the slow buildup every chapter early on. Lord Lonato's character for instance, he is a devote and a good loyal man by every acount we get. So the player is left to ask why the rebellion? Then Miklan, the hero relics considered sacred by the church turn people into monsters without a crest and further the church is keeping things to this effect hushed, then if you refuse to return the Lance of Ruin Rhea nearly flips out on you that early on.
Take all this into account on top of Jeralt constantly reminding you not to trust the church. Siding with Edelguard is meant to show a leap of faith on Byleths part, a choice to trust in their student who now that they know is the flame emperor can choose to believe several things. Most prominetly that she took your side in avenging Jeralt despite being 'allies with TWSITD.' In contrast Rhea and the church have lied hid the truth and in the first place pressured Jeralt back into service that is what results in him becoming a target.
Edelguards route is oddly most in line with Sothis's wish for Byleth. Carve their own path by their own beliefs without letting others rule their fate. On all other routes Byleth ends up falling into Rheas design one way or another.
There is never a point in the story where Rhea as the archbishop ever felt like she was the real ruler of Fodlan. When she let humans do whatever they wanted as long as they didn't try to kill her and sent her knights to help the common people all the time. She didn't do anything Edelgard was led to believe she did either. She didn't create the crest system at all those that slither did. Other then CF she isn't an antagonist at all. Hell Dimitri hallucinations and Edelgard starting a world war come of as far more crazy then her. Minus her burning a city in CF. Trying to bring Sothis back from the dead who was a scientist who could benefit Fodlan greatly wasn't a bad thing either. Hell she probably be the best leader in the game.
When will you people stop LYING ABOUT EDELGARD? Rhea DID do some of the things Edelgard was told! True, Rhea didn't do ALL of them, but she did lie to everyone about Fodlan's history! She also hindered humanity so that they'd have to rely on her to save them. And while Rhea didn't create the crest system, she did promote it. So stop trying to make us Edelgard fans feel bad with your stupid lies! Look, I won't deny that Edelgard does have plenty of flaws. But stop saying that Edelgard is completely wrong about everything, because that's supposed to be our interpretation.
meta527II are you for real? She’s a fictional character and an antagonist. Also everything you just said is a flat out lie. She never wanted to control anything play the game and read the dev Interviews not Reddit headcanon. This is why everyone hates Edelgard fans. If she wanted to control the continent she would have named her self god emperor lmao.
@@manga925 I read an interview. And it says that Rhea did, indeed, change history. So there! Edelgard was right about something! And okay, maybe Rhea halting the advancing of technology was not to force people to rely on Sothis, but she still halted the advancement of technology nonetheless. And I didn't find anything saying Rhea DIDN'T promote the crest system. Maybe some of Edelgard's fans are annoying, but stop saying that Rhea is literally a perfect person because she's far from it! Besides, I also read in the interview that whether Edelgard is bad or not is up to the playerbase. So in your face, jerk! Now stop trying to make us feel bad for our opinions!
@@meta527II Until you Edelgard stans police your more extreme members, why should we have to do the same? Newsflash: Just as there are Rhea fans who say she did nothing wrong and demonize Edie, there are PLENTY of Edelgard fans who say she did nothing wrong and Rhea is the worst in the history of ever. At the end of the day, we can't trust you to argue in good faith cuz you refuse to cut out the rot from your community. The real Rhea fans admit her flaws, but you can't just pretend like your side is blameless in the matter. I guarantee if I ever said "When will you people stop LYING ABOUT RHEA!!!" I'd just be ignored. Because everything Rhea was said to have done in CF is factually correct, right? EVERYTHING.
@@azatheeverchosen7615 well it’s true! People lie about Edelgard. Why should they NOT get called out on that? And I am aware that there are some stupid Edelgard fans out there.
It's very interesting how both Rhea and Edelgard are very similar characters in many ways. Probably why they both are my waifus in their respective paths :p
Smash Boy you do know he uses you just as much as the other two to accomplish his goals, he’s described as his smile doesn’t reach his eyes for a reason, he’s always plotting, he knows how to butter people up , and he won’t let anyone get in the way of his dream, as seen when he fights hopelessly against the empire after the alliance is split and Judith is dead in crimson flower, he’s also overly idealistic thinking he can just end the prejudices almyra and fodlan have with each other just by breaking the borders and declaring himself the lord of both, I see a big cultural war between these two nations if he’s victorious
@@firenze6478 He gives up Fodlan to Byleth to be fair if he wins.
KrimzonStriker when does he do that? As I understood it byleth just helps Claude rule, where does it say that byleth becomes king of fodlan
@@firenze6478 I read it on the end/epilogue cards after you complete the Golden Deer route.
KrimzonStriker I’ll have to play again, maybe I misunderstood his goals he is a genius, maybe he still plans to keep them as separate nations, just as allies now
After I read the comments and saw how people acted on Fe Twitter, how u view Rhea (or Edelgard) depends really hard on witch route u took first. Even if u played every route I'm sure more than ~60% will not change their viewpoint on both. People just don't like to change their minds.
& more people sided with Edelgard so the general opinion of Rhea is by default more negative.
Most likely because a large percentage of those same people went crimson rose first and it really obscures your perspective of Rhea when she's portrayed as practically pure evil and a heartless monster, and it doesn't explore beyond that much.
Edelgard has a vision and the drive to bring about change in Fodlan. She’s prepared to make the necessary sacrifices and bear responsibility for her choices.
Rhea is static, she has no vision for Fodlan outside of her church she only wants her mother back. Dimitri unless you hold his hand is a schizophrenic murderer, and Claude unless you hold his hand... he just leaves.
Edelgard is literally the only one who has proven themselves worthy of leading Fodlan without having her hand held and that’s why I support her.
@@sneakretster em more like the point she says to byleth as failed experiment so hm you know what i mean
NeWorld Fool Edelgard, unless you hold her hand, ends up dead in every single route. She's hardly a worthy leader if she can't handle being one. Your point is invalid.
dragullong blackfang experimentation done without humans, she created homunculi and tried to imprint Sothis onto them, and when that didn't work she didn't dispose of them or treat them horribly; she accepted them as family in the case of Byleth and their mother because they lived.
Don't judge my wife/mom/grandma!
I view Rhea's "Cruelty" as her delivering strict judgement for the sake of maintaining peace, because to her, the alternative is being complacent and letting her enemies walk all over her and those she cares about (Like what happened at "The Red Canyon"). She is TRYING to maintain order, and was reasonably angered by the events in question: attempted assassination, defiling her mother's and siblings' tomb, et cetera, even if it goes too far. When she goes full Villain in the CF route, its because Edelgard, a descendent of the one she gave her crest to, and Byleth, who she trusted deeply, had her mother's heart, and is her grandchild(?), chose to go down a path similar to Nemesis, who "took everything that (she) loved", so of course she would lose faith in humanity in general, focusing only on revenge. In other routes, she remains able to think clearly enough to reflect on and regret her role in the cause of the war.
All parts of rhea, good and bad, remind me of my mom. lol
Your mom teaches you about brawling? That's pretty badass
lol ur mum bishreksual lmfao
Yo, you have one scary mom
* Watches the cutscene if Seteth and Flayn are killed *
..Your mother sounds nice 🙃
@SleepyWolf to be fair that heart didn't originally belong to byleth
Something I always enjoy bringing up is how Edelgard and Rhea mirror each other.
First off, both are victims of slaughter. Rhea’s entire race was annihilated by the very creatures they served and guided. They were murdered with a weapon fashioned from the corpse of their mother, then turned into weapons themselves. Edelgard witnessed the experiments conducted upon her siblings and the brutally negative effects it had on them.
Second, both are fueled by their grief. Rhea’s grief for her mother inspired her to make the church and eventually attempt to revive her mother. Edelgard’s grief for her siblings fuel her desire to get rid of the system that allowed their suffering to endure.
Third, both are unreasonably single-minded. Although normally forgiving, Rhea becomes extremely emotional and aggressive when it comes to betrayal. After Nemesis killed her mother and slaughtered her siblings, she retained bitterness towards anything remotely resembling betrayal. So when it comes to not believing in the Church (like Claude, Byleth, Jeralt, Cyril, and Petra), she respects their decisions. But if anybody attacks anything related to the church, she goes insanely overboard. Edelgard is set on going to war. She doesn’t view war as a last resort, but as the only option. She has no desire to reason with members of the church, only viewing them as enemies and vile manipulative creatures (despite allying with the Agarthans).
Fourth, both have a very clear ignorance of the truth. Rhea manipulates history so that humanity won’t view themselves as traitorous hostile beings that betrayed the creatures that helped them. This falsified history allowed her to establish the Church, but also resulted in the Crests system. She continues the facade of her doctrine and fails to understand that many of her historical changes yielded many extreme problems. Edelgard on the other hand falls victim to her own confirmation bias. Any information that TWSitD feed her regarding the church, she automatically believes. As a result, she spreads their lies and uses those lies to fuel her ambition. This can be counted as a misunderstanding on her part, but at the same time, she cares less about the truth and more about her goal. She also manipulates information to maintain her goal, just like Rhea. She publicly blamed the annihilation of Arionrhod (by pillars of light) on the church, despite knowing for a fact that TWSitD were entirely responsible for it.
Fifth, both embody the ideal of “the ends justify the means” despite how extreme their means may be. Rhea attempted to create/recreate life, maintained the flawed Crest System, manipulated history, murdered anybody accused of betrayal without further investigation (Christophe, Western Church congregation), etc. Edelgard hires Kostas to assassinate Dimitri and Claude, started the war, enabled TWSitD to continue their experimentation, used their findings (children turned into Demonic Beasts) in her personal army, failed to evacuate the Empire capitol despite knowing a massive battle would take place there, etc.
At the end of it all, both were flawed extremists with good intentions. Both gave into their personal shortcomings and made conflicts far more violent than necessary.
[They really should’ve just been like Claude and Seteth. Claude had a very similar goal to Edelgard, however, he still was reasonable and sought the truth while pursuing his goal. Seteth was a very tolerant individual, caring more about individual people than the systems they upheld. He was a good counselor to the students, and despite his overprotective nature, still remained reasonable. His biggest problem is taking orders from his older sister, Rhea.]
To be fair, Rhea's actions with setting up the false history of the church are absolutely not the reason that crests are a big deal. Crests are objectively a major source of power for the people who have them (and they were even moreso in the past, because characters make it clear that the crests have been getting weaker and less common over time). If Rhea had become a hermit the minute the Nemesis died, we have every reason to believe that the family lines who had gotten crests from the massacre at the red canyon would have become the major power holders of the continent anyway, because the crests made them objectively far more powerful than the people around them.
There's room to debate whether Rhea made things better or worse over the years, but it's silly to treat it as if crests would never have become an issue if not for Rhea.
Finally someone doesn't excuse Edelgard's actions because she's a pretty girl. Thank you for having a brain, it's so uncommon in the Three Houses fandom.
@@sophitiaofhyrule she is still the best lord.
@@Eladelia rhea upheld that system tho.
@@genericyoutubeaccount4756 And, as the post you’re responding to says, “There’s room for debate whether Rhea made things better or worse over the years, but it’s silly to treat it as if crests would never have become an issue if not for Rhea.”
Good video, though I can't help but feel you overplayed the negative aspects of Rhea over the positive, especially with that post you showed. That is I think it should have been pointed out that Rhea's worst behavior only happens on one route and only after she goes insane. And that Edelgard was not just some teenage girl but guilty of crimes that would have likely had her executed regardless.
As for good attributes that were not mentioned, they would include how she accepts and employs people regardless of crest, nationality, etc. How she took in the victims of Remire village, saved Jeralt's life, Catherine's life, etc. And how she doesn't even require belief in the church in those who work for her. Basically she's incredibly reasonable when sane, but her berserk button is anyone who uses violence against herself or her believers or supports those who do.
The problem in this game (and this shows how masterful the story is) is that, aside from TWSITD, absolutely none of the four parties involved (Dimitri, Claude, Edelgard and Rhea) are wrong. What they may do can be fundamentally wrong, but you can only empathize for their reasons for acting this way.
That's how great the story of this game is: whichever route you take, you're not wrong...but that doesn't help you feel better about what you're doing.
This is completely and utterly ridiculous. Edelgard plans on murdering the world into submission and targeting and persecuting people based on religion. That doesn't become "morally grey" just because you think what she would do with supreme power attained through murder would be beneficial.
@@JD-xz1mx I think that classification of Edelgard is a tad extreme.
Yes she does plan to turn the continent into an aristocratic militaristic dictatorship, but she seems fairly tolerant of religious belief. She’s very hateful towards Rhea bc she was operating on lies that the Agarthans told her.
@@pickcollins9910 she does not want to turn it into a dictatorship where did you even get that idea from.
@@JD-xz1mx same can be said for rhea also you are wrong about her.
When fire emperor Identity was revealed I wasn’t surprised by her reaction
So, I'm going to have to defend Rhea here, since the highlighted comment is incredibly biased. Warning that I'll be spoiling some shit down below, so if you don't like it, don't read.
I feel like Rhea is shown in a far better light then Edelgard, and this coming from someone who likes both of them. All of Rhea's actions make sense in context, while even after playing all 4 routes, I dont see any real reason for Edelgard's rebellion against the church.
The church doesn't show any sign of being the type of all controlling conspiracy to place power in Rhea's hands that Edelgard seems to inply. And while she did alter the historical records, doing so was both incredibly painful for her (elevating her most hated enemies. Including the man who murdered her mother and slaughter her entire family to national heroes has got to hurt) and merciful for other. If the truth behind the ten elites comes to light, people with crests would be viewed with repugnance and disgust. Who knows how that would turn out...
We do, because that's literally Marianne's character, and she's the girl who literally prayed to Sothis to kill her, so... yeah, maybe better not to condemn literally every person who had ever been born with this power for the actions of a few pieces of shit from 100 years ago.
Other then that, there was Lord Lonato's rebellion, which by all right should've been handled by Fearghus, but after the Tragdey of Duscur, the kingdom was not in any position to do that, and Catherine's support with Ashe clearly shows that the church will act only when the nations can't. That, combined withn Lonato's goal being to destroy the central church, it's reasonable that the church would be the ones to put them down.
Same deal with Miklan, the kingdom couldn't respond, and the time sensitive nature made it esstienal that he be stopped ASAP, and even if house Gautier was going to go themselves (they weren't, their forces with busy defending the border), they didn't have the time to wait, otherwise everyone learns that relics can turn people into monsters, leading to even greater mistrust and hatred of Nobles.
The Western church might've been an abuse of power, but if someone broke into my mothers tomb to steal her body, I'd kill them all myself. She handled it far better then I would've.
And Edelgard's betrayal... well, I mean again, those crest stones were literally the hearts of her family she'd laid to rest, and Edelgard, next head of the one country she should've been able to trust, basically stabs her in the back and tries to steal every one of them. I see no reason to blame her for that reaction.
Rhea only really loses her mind in Crimson Flower, and that's just because after suffering the greatest betrayal since Nemesis, she is betrayed again, and this time, it's someone she trusted enough to carry her mother. No shit she snaps when you become Nemesis 2.0.
Not saying she's the perfect woman, but I can at least see how she came to her conclusion and made her choice. Edelgard has no real justification that she's shown. I legitimately feel like Edelgard could've achieved her goal by working with Rhea, with less bloodshed for literally every person. And we know Rhea is cool with that idea, because Hanneman is doing the same thing, under Rhea's eye for years.
Her entire rebellion comes off as her concluding her plan is the only one that would work, and disregarding everything else. Nothing matters to her except the creation of her empire even if, as Dimitri said, its built upon the corpse of the people.
I'm not saying she's wrong, but she doesn't give me nearly enough for me to accept that she feels that she doesn't have a choice. Playing devil's advocate, she could've felt that she needed to achieve it before she died of the aftereffects of the crest implantation, but even that doesn't mean much since she could've told Rhea, who would happily dismantled the ones who plotted her mother's murder, taken their research, given it to hanneman. His research improves drastically, and boom, Crests dont matter, she impliments her reforms in the empire and that's that. But instead she works with TWSITD, destroys the church, tries to conquer Fodlan, and kills anyone who gets in her way because..? Like I cannot find any kind of reason for why any of this game's plot had to happen.
If there some nugget of church evil I missed let me know, but as far as I saw she doesn't mention anything beyond. "Lol church evil" in her entire route. The only thing she's not wrong about is Rhea not being human which... I mean, I guess that's true, but that's a fucking stupid justification to go to war with 2 countries and murder at least thousands, more likely millions.
After finishing golden deer route and seeying intro movie ->
The thing I can take from all this is that Reah just has too much power and is driven mad because of it. She feels like she needs to take command because of her divinity. She literally becomes a final boss because of that same mad power
Also I think people forget Edelgard literally went to ransack a holy tomb where her relatives were buried and was going to have so much power at her disposal very shortly. She is a teenager but I think Reah losing her shit here was something expected
Rhea is someone you should protect heavily.
That is all.
SleepyWolf And Byleth wouldn’t have been alive if it weren’t for Rhea. She eventually sees Byleth for their own person in every route she doesn’t die in, and does express lots of regret over her more questionable actions. Rhea, like most of the characters in this game, just needs a lot of help. Though TWSITD can go die in a hole.
Well, Daddy said to watch out for her so, I'm going to keep my distance.
I still prefer rhea over edelgard. Edelgard sides with the ones that slither in the dark, she uses people to make them demonic beats. She starts a war knowing the weak people will die and she things it is for a greater good. But in the end there is no greater good because no matter what people will fight each other in the future, I prefer dimmitri and claud
She uses TWSITD to further her goals. She doesnt side with them. She is in the end, against them
ANd Rhea doesn't side with them, but uses the same method as them (Byleth is the living proof of this).
Is it worse to find for a cause you think is just, even if you may be misleaded and wrong ? Or doing things for your own interests, knowing full well you're wrong ?
They both uses their immense political power to do as they please.
@@shytendeakatamanoir9740 this very much...i think Sakutaro is looking at it in a very reductive way...
As a ruler (past or present speaking) you can no longer be guided by personal values or the needs of one person or one group of people, she saw chaos and disunion in her entire race of people, versus the machinations and manipulations of a divine race, which to her was no better than TWSITD and their twisted experiments.
so while yes, shes a bad person for killing people...she's no better than today's presidents who vye and fight for their countries by sending people to die. Morally, there's always a better way, it's just not possible or realistic in practical life. Edelgard didnt claim to be a morally good saint, but recognized something needed to be done, and took definitive action with her possible means and with the weight of her own traumas behind her.
None of this is to say Rhea was any better really...i find them both veeeeeery morally grey in the same way :) and i love them for it!
I just prefer rhea for the simple fact that in the end the protagonist is the one who brings peace in each route and the Protagonist only exists because of Rhea. Call her scumy but in the end she brought back the godass in a way and with this peace for fodland
@@sakutaro3musik486 That's a fair point.
I feel bad knowing in Crimson Flower, I’m attacking her with her mother’s bones.
But don't worry you can marry her mom after you kill her
Me and the boys going to the red canyon, I bet it's such a nice place to visit! Oh! Hi sir! That's quite a big swor-
Edelgard needs to fix her own trust issues.
Also that person who defend Edelgard should really take a good look at her.
@Waluijo I don't think Enbarr was burned down. Also a thousand years of torment doesn't justify burning down a city with its people who had no involvement still in it, before the enemy even makes their attack.
@Waluijo Incorrect. In all of those routes, Hubert, Dorothea and Petra were sent to DEFEND Enbarr, not destroy it.
I think rhea is a remarkably fascinating character, easily my favorite in the game, possibly in the series. I think she pulls off the "grey villain" role better than even Arvis. Definitely not forgivable, but wholly understandable. She is the sole survivor of a race of powerful dragons, desperately trying to preserve the memory of her fallen kin without ever allowing those who slaughtered them ever know of the true history of the sacred blood they have and of the sacred weapons they wield. Passing these powers off as some sort of godly power, she maintains this power as a higher figure and secretly seeks to restore the world to how it was before the tragedy of the red canyon, despite how impossible that truly is.
This is why I hate Edelgard stans, saying Rhea would resort to violence and murder even on innocent people while believing Edelgard won't. But Edelgard herself clearly stated that she would risk the lives of her citizens for her cause right after Lonato's chapter. And let's not forget that she still wants to kill Dimitri even after he tried to let his guard down in front of her to convince her to stop the war. Rhea and Edelgard is just the same, none is less evil or more than the other, both suffered a traumatic past which leads to their actions in the events of Three Houses.
em jeah about that how i have seen edelgard litterly wait so that civilizan can escape rhea basically burn a tow for no goddamn reason
Frankly, this may be due me playing CF then Golden Deer I kind of view Rhea as Idiot who willfully ignored the negative results of her actions until one of the victims of said actions shows up an army to overthrow you regardless of your backstory your not getting sympathy from me
Aren’t Edelgard’s exact words on her own route, “There is *nothing* I would not sacrifice for the future of Fodlan”?
Keep in mind Crest and Relics are Basically what's left of her siblings that were slaughtered by Neminsis and and His henchman.
Now Remember that Edelgard is the descendant of the human that She trusted enough to share her Blood with and that descendant betrays her and The Crest Stones in the Holy Tomb. Now from her point of view she realized and Felt that she created another nemesis by giving the Sword to Byleth as well.
I would also like to argue that she was also degenerating because She is a Dragon. We All Know That Mental instabilty Speeds up the process of degeneration of A Dragon.
It's interesting to note that Flayn is Dragon of different breed from her Father Seteh.. So I Suppose The Children of Sothis can even produce Dragons that are Completly different.
Though it is implied that Flayn is Half Dragon because it is implied that she had a human mother... Perhaps her Bloodline is so Potent that She Still Ages Like a Typical Dragon.
I believe Sothis is Immensely Advanced Dragon.. But Not A God.. Only A Weapon blessed by A God Can Harm a Deity as Explained in Tellius Series.
Even in a weakened state She Should of not been Killed because the sort of the Creator was forged from her bones after they killed her.. So How Did They kill her?
Therefore from my point of view she is not a God..
Another point is that she looks younger than her own granddaughter.. which means she ages more slowly then even her own Children that are Dragons.... so I doubt she is even fully grown and I dread to think how many years it would take for her to fully mature.
Could it be that Sothis's species create Dragons.. I believe it was stated that she came from sonewhere?
Sothis is referred to as the Fell Star. The Slithers aren't only talking to Byleth, but they know he houses Sothis within him. Some people have thought that maybe this could translate to Sothis being the equivalent to an "alien" in universe. I mean she descended from the skies above and blessed the land with the children of the goddess and what not. Her species hearts are stones with crests and not a normal human heart. I wouldn't see this as farfetched either considering the Slithers became advanced in their technology and created their dubstep missile nukes.
@@michaelolegario6399 Hmm An Alien? Could be Possible.
Rhea is *seriously* wrongly characterized in Edelgard's route; as if she would suddenly forsake humanity and her virtues and become a crazed lunatic over what happened. Of course I understand how she feels after the ultimate betrayal of Byleth abandoning her and becoming her enemy (which is the most ridiculous decision might I add..) but she wouldn't forsake all that she is and murder countless innocents as a result of Byleth's actions. No way.
(Not to mention during her terribly phoned-in freak out her vocabulary suddenly drops to the level of a 10 year olds when she insults Byleth, which is also out of character for her even if she was enraged.)
Rhea isn't clean obviously, I know full well what the church has done with their homunculus experiments to try and make a vessel for Sothis, but even that wasn't using any actual unwilling humans as test subjects. And some people wouldn't believe Rhea about all she admitted, but what reason would she have to lie to Byleth, the person she cares about the most in the world after her mother? It's a genuine confession of her misdeeds. But everything she did was in the interest of guiding humanity to a better future by bringing back her benevolent mother to rule over Fodlan as she did before the wicked Agarthans betrayed them.
The problem is that if Rhea is not morale reprehensible, Edelgard would be the villian, so they wanted to make her go evil, so the player has not to feel bad to commit Genocide on the Nabateans on top of siding with a grave Robber and terrorist.
@@basilofgoodwishes4138 edelgard does not commit genocide against anyone.
Ultimately she is good or evil depending on which house you choose at the beginning. This helps the player feel like no matter where he ends up or what decisions they make to never feel like the villain. Everyone is the hero in their own story, so it's no surprise that the game chooses moral ambiguity dependant on the player.
Just remember, she executes those who are deemed criminals against the goddess and the church, but she still wants to maintain peace in Fodlen. And when it comes down to it, there are 4 routes in the game. One she goes crazy (CF), one we hardly know (AM), and the other two she tries to fix things even if it means risking her life (VW and SS). She is complicated but I se that there is some good in her, she just needs to be lead to the right direction.
I like Rhea. Shes a very interesting character
But I dont have an emotional connection with her, it's very odd to say that, because when I killed Edelgard in GD, I felt emotional about it, but as Im approaching the BE route... I dont find myself having that emotional connection to her, it's really strange
The thing is that Rhea is a completely different character in Edelgard's route than in every other route, just like how Edelgard is a monster in every route but hers, with the most extreme case being Blue Lions.
People who played Ed's route first will hate her and like Edelgard. People viewing things objectively will be the inverse.
Personally I feel like edelgard has no choice but to go the war path if lysethia's supports with byleth and her are anything to go off of, she probably has little time to live. In a perfect world Edelgard would have sided with Claude. Then dethroned dimitri and got him the help he needed.
Rhea? Insane?
Never!
Edlegard was my first student, love her but not what she did. I was always suspicious of Rhea, but slowly saw her as a sort of mother figure. Love her, but not what she did. Claude can take care of himself, but Dimitri? We. Must. Protect.
Just give three houses best mom a hug protags, problem solved
😁✌🏽
@Fire Emblem Discussion
By any chance when you made this video had you only done the BE route? Because most of the evil actions you present (though IMO the punishment of the West Church and her initial reaction to Edelgard isn't evil at all) are caused by driving her insane thanks to defiling the corpses of her almost extinct people, being betrayed by the person she trusted the most and losing her only connection to her mother in that route, basically Byleath smashed her trauma button beyond repair. (also while Edelgard maybe 16, she is not some innocent child) The only questionable things she does in her right mind is keep Foland isolated to help keep the peace (which considering the history of FE is understandable) and try resurrect Sothis using Byleath as a vessel. Otherwise she is normally legitimately benevolent, she just has the same problem the comic version Professor X has from the X-Men, I'm 100% sure of this, not a doubt in my mind.
I think the same can be said about Edelgard. I think they are meant to be 2 sides of the same coin. I mean compare how lovely Edel is in her supports, but then her Emperor persona whether you chose a path to walk with her or against her, just seems drastically different. Sure in Black Eagles route I would say she is mellower because she has the professor to lessen some of the uncomfortability the player may be feeling on her route. Blue Lions route we see her at her most desperate and somewhat losing herself in her pursuit of her ambitions and possibly viewed as a straight up villain. Seriously, I think BL is set up in a way, where it is easy for the player to hate her especially because Dimitri's route is centric to him and not the bigger picture so I can see how the player could get caught up in the emotion without considering more circumstances to what led to BL's journey's end. Church route I'm not sure since I haven't played it, but considering I hear it is similar to Golden Deer, she comes off as a more sympathetic character. Church route I would assume is because of the time we spent with her pre timeskip with the Eagles and for GD, we connect the dots and see her life was similar to that of Lysithea's and we deal with the true enemies themselves. I did get spoiled a bit with her route on accident though... I am playing BE route now and I don't know how I feel about her. On the one hand, even with the knowledge of 2 paths (GD and BL), I do really know the crests are to blame and have a sense of what she went through since my first route was GD. On the other hand, I have not experienced her directly telling me her ambitions so I'm not sure if I have true empathy. Especially once you consider she tried to kill Dimitri and Claude as early as the prologue, she willingly knew TWSID was an organization that only had united goals, but not united methods... By association with them, she is indirectly responsible for Remire's disaster, Jeralt's death, etc.
she is not responsible for what twistd did they do not tell her what there plans are and she does not agree with their ideals either.
As someone who’s first play through was on the side of Edelgard I would have no hesitation in saying, Yes. But after playing the other routes and seeing Rhea for the pitiful broken creature that she became, My rage somewhat subsides and turn to pity in this tragic creature who only wanted do what she thought was right believing that if she changed for others it would only come back to hurt her like so many other times when it did. While I will never not hate her for what she has done, I can still fully appreciate and morn her story and her sacrifices she makes in the other paths, my hates off to you Nintendo for making this truly fantastic game.
Also forgot to mention how she’s probably the scariest Fire emblem villain for how much her actions and behavior can be traced back to real life
@@webbywestside4419 Edelgard is the scariest fire emblem villain she willing to work with demonic beast and too even become one that just stupid and insane
game universe I see your point. While I see it as her desperation to achieve a goal that she believes is her duty to achieve in the name of all those who died in here stead to change the world, you see it as a woman removed from the world who thinks her means justify any actions to achieve them. That’s just an interpretation, and I respect your view. :)
@@webbywestside4419 No just shock that anyone would think turning into a demonic beast just to win is a good idea not even rhea does it well atleast not on purpose but I feel edelgard char she just pick the people who though were supporting the crest system even tho it shows several supports that not the case and even high ranking people are crest less,but the ones who support of are the nobles not rhea or sethet even then edel listen to the slither too trustworthy enough that she thinks that nemesis was a hero and does not see how it would affect rhea so I see edel as a person who does not think the lasting effects of things,her trusting the wrong people,someone not ready to be emperor,and her just blaming it on the people that has the highest point of power
game universe I see your point, side not it’s not that her turning into a monster I agree with it’s that I see why she though that was her only option as a person who’s entire short life was built around her being the strongest and wanting to end that cycle that she believes the entire world is effected by. But I’m not trying to change your mind I was just sharing my thoughts to you and seeing what your view might be, that’s what’s great about this game. How you can interpret the characters and there choices in different ways. But now for the true question for you, one far more crucial to this game...................................................................
Who
Did
You
Marry
Reading some of these comments I think it is clear that a lot of people couldn't follow the story all that well.
what do you mean
Personally I can't say that either Edelgard or Rhea as the reason here, specially considering the dark past Dragons had in the FE franchise. They inevitably go insane because of this crazy power, that's something that I can positively say was already happening to Rhea. She is a control maniac, I get she had a deep trauma but so does Edelgard and both tried to do what they thought was best for Fodland. Edelgard through a bloody war while Rhea through a very conditional peace. We had seen through history that war is a drastic measure but sometimes required to make a real change, something that Rhea was clearly not interested about, she didn't want power or fortune but she was capable of lying, killing and experimenting on others if that meant she could keep control.
I can see how Byleth could side with Rhea to preserve peace, or side with Edelgard to make a real change even if it is through the dead of many people.
I guess is a matter of pick your poison and what you believe is best, in the end both sides are not entirely correct or wrong.
Who is Rhea? She is waifu. That is all anyone needs to know.
Ps. Great video! Lol
She's your grandma who is also your daughter! Seriously weird, lol
You have a poor taste in waifus.
I honestly don't get why some hate Edelgard, but not Rhea. If Edelgard's sad backsotry isn't an excuse for her actions, Rhea shouldn't have special treatment. She did something extremely selfish and wrong(actually exactly the same thing as Those who Slither In) in every route after all, and she gets away with this a little too easily, both in story and even IRL.
Now, my point isn't to say Rhea is the worst, I'm really curious as to why Edelgard would be worse than Rhea.
Edelgard started a war of conquest that spanned five years, caused issues for the general populace in terms of food, goods, and body-count, and is getting help from the Syltherins. The shadiest things Rhea does are sentence people who raised a rebellion and tried to assassinate her to death on non-BE routes (though she goes full villain at the end with burning the city with civilians), whereas on every route other than BE Edelgard is the one using Demonic Beasts meaning she warped some poor bastards into them.
@@TDSFounder Let's not forget establishing the church and current noble system that is always fighting each other. Oh and closing off all boarders and breeding hate for the outside world because they were not touched by the goddess. She has plenty of other skeletons in the closet.
@@TDSFounder And creating Byylet. Sacrificing a kid's entire life for her own motives. Which you will recognize as exactly what the Slytherins do. And then using said kid as a puppet to serve her own interests, or throwing a tantrum that leads to thousands pointless deaths when said puppet start acting against her plan.
And Rhea still burned some poor guys to death in her worse incarnation. THe very people that helped her and protecetd her in time of trouble. simply to act her mindless revenge. I'm not sure whether this is worse than transforming them into giant monsters, but that's clearly very wrong.
Not saying that Edelgard did any better. And Edelgard doing this for what she perceives is "the greater good" could actually maes her worse in your eyes, comparing to Rhea only doing it for her own benefits (and after thousand years of waiting..
But I still think that makes them somewhat equal at worst. I can see condemning both, or absolving both. But condemning only Edelgard still doesn't seems entirely right. They both have immense power meaning no one can keep them completely on check.
Mr Hildebrand
Actually the Church has nothing to with that...
The Church welcomed Cyril and Shamir so they definelty aren't anti-outside world.
The Church does not attack other religions or opinions on the teaching of Seiros as long as you don't actively try to harm believers and Church staff.
Last but not least Seteth and Rhea do NOT support the elitist system of crests as shown by Seteth's supports or Rhea's actions of giving important positions to Alois and Shamir (both crest-less commoners).
The Church just made people believe that crests were gifts, so something humanity had no power over... Nobility is the one to blame for creating that system.
@@shytendeakatamanoir9740
To be honest it was Byleth's mother request to put the Crest Stone inside her child, she knew about that and yet she asked Rhea to grant her wish...
But yeah, Rhea and Edelgard are pretty similar, if you don't side with them they show the darker parts of their personality.
two word " dragon rage" explain all of rhea behavior
So she deals 40 damage every time she uses the move?
Damn no wonder shes angry!
Michael Cabangbang that’s diety like for fire emblem
So I think the writers ultimately wanted her to b like. Shes good on 3 of the 4 paths. Only going ape shit when u essentially join the bad guys. Plus she's the only person who gets a "u must romance her to get the true ending" when referring to the church route.
That doesn't excuse the experiments she has done in her quest to get her mother back tho
-Even- *especially* in her kinder moments (towards Byleth), she does come off as insane.
For me Rhea is just tortured soul who wants to be with her family, but knows she can only talk to her mother if she does some weird sh*t... (spoilers)
A.K.A Byleth's weird birth situation and Sothis😂
Shes so gonna be so crushed to find out Sothis didn't like her
One of the main things that bugs me about Rhea is how she treats Byleth.
If Byleth wasn’t housing Sothis inside of her, she wouldn’t have cared about Byleth at all. The only reason why Rhea was nice to them was because she wanted her mom to take over their body. It was an entirely selfish act that would’ve basically killed Byleth, assuming that her mother taking over would completely wipe Byleth’s personality out. It’s something even Seteth, who is practically Rhea’s hype-man, is concerned about.
So all the well explained comments with actual proof and backstory you forgot, get ignored but a small rant post that blindly emphasizes Edelgard's view gets a like? Biased aside, that statement of Rhea not caring about Byleth if it wasn't for Sothis is incorrect. Implanting Sothis' heart was a request by their mother because otherwise both the mother and Byleth would've died at childbirth. It was the mother's dying wish.
The view point that Sothis was supposed to erase Byleth's consciousness and take over is something that gets hammered into CF route players by Edelgard, who let me remind you is NOT EXACTLY A RELIABLE SOURCE. I mean, we're talking about the chick that blamed the pillars of light attack, which Hubert deliberately states and Edelgard agrees those who slither in the dark were responsible for, on the church despite them being the main enemy of Rhea ever since the Red Canyon Tragedy. But the point is that, once Rhea confesses everything in the GD route before supposedly passing away, it becomes painfully clear that she intended for Sothis to co-exist within Byleth and nothing close to what Edelgard boldly claims.
It's all explained in the other routes which makes the only possibilities of this comment and like existing, either a blinding ignorance or a lack of will to actually look into the matter and instead just blindly repeating what the white haired fascist says.
@@romy9454 Yes it was Sitri's dying wish for Rhea to save Byleth and she complied. That is good. The problem is the choice she made immediately afterward. Rhea thought about what she had just done and the possibilities it presented for a few seconds and said to herself "Hey wait a minute...If I set this child up as a sacrifice, I might be able to get my mom back. I mean sure it would completely dishonor the death of Sitri, a woman I loved like a daughter...BUT MOM CAN COME BACK!" Seriously the moment she decided on her plan to literally turn Byleth into Sothis, she lost any goodwill points she earned by saving his/her life. I'm not going to give her credit for doing what WOULD have been a good deed when she immediately turns around and tries to render that good deed meaningless. If her plan had succeeded as she intended, then the person known as Byleth would have ceased to exist at all. Byleth would be as good as dead and Sitri would have sacrificed her life, only so that her child could become a puppet body for Sothis to control. That is fucked up. Thankfully Sothis herself is far nicer than her daughter and made the realization of Rhea's plan completely impossible when she gave her powers over to Byleth of her own free will. Also no. This point isn't hammered into players by the Crimson Flower Route. In fact, it never even comes up in that route at all because Edelgard doesn't even realize that Sothis is literally inside of Byleth. She just thinks Byleth is a relative of Sothis in the same way that Rhea is. Rhea tells Setheth of her plan to have Sothis take control of Byleth in literally every OTHER route. And Seteth's response is basically "Well that's incredibly unethical and I don't agree with it at all, but I guess I can't do anything about it now that you've already set this whole thing up." Rhea literally says in her S support that she wanted Byleth to become the progenitor god, but now regrets that plan and just wants Byleth to be themselves. This is coming straight from Rhea's own mouth, not Edelgard.
@@DevilHunter1994 alright, I see your point. The thing is though that whether it was Rhea's plan to have Byleth as a sacrifice or not is different depending on the route. In Edelgard's route it's claimed that that was her evil plan all along, meanwhile in Verdant Wind Rhea personally states that she wished for them to co-exist together. It's really just a lack of a reliable narrator. There are no truly objective narrators in the game, so depending on which route you pick first that's probably the thing you assume is the truth. I went Verdant Wind first and therefore was convinced that Rhea never wanted to use Byleth as a sacrifice. Because of that, I was accusing everyone in Crimson Flower as liars because that was just untrue to me. The perspective really isn't friendly to both Edie and Rhea at the same time.
@@romy9454 But the S support with Rhea remains constant in every route. What I got from her speech in Verdant wind was her essentially saying "Yeah I wanted you to become Sothis, but she chose to just give her power to you instead and then just vanish. I was initially disappointed by this, but have come to realize that this was for the best after 5 years of reflection." Her plan doesn't change between routes. The only thing that changes is whether or not she ever comes to regret the plan. If you side with her, she comes to regret her choices and begins valuing Byleth as an individual rather than as a potential vessel for Sothis. If you don't side with her, then she calls you a failure and goes into full crazy dragon mode.
@@DevilHunter1994 True, You got a point there. Well, fair enough. Suppose I was wrong. Thanks for clearing that up.
Edelgard brings change through violence and Rhea brings death through disobedience. Hm.....
Does anyone think Sothis killed herself, when we killed Rhea in BE route?
Nope. You can actually S support Sothis in The BE Eagles route...She congratulates us for restoring peace and says that she will stay with and love us for all time, even after our death.
Looking at both Rhea and Edelgard each of them are products of their own time, one representing the past and the other representing the present.
I’m kind of more sympathetic toward Edelgard because you would understand what she had went through if you saw her supports with her classmates and professors.
And for Rhea she only has one support and that’s with the player which hurts her character, and If she had more supports I probably more inclined to side with her.
Edelgard: Illogic and Super Crazy
Rhea: Selfish and Super Crazy
Dimitri: Literally Crazy for part of his history
Claude: The only one in his right mind?
I like all the arcs in the game but with Edelgard i felt like i was the bad guy lol. I love Rhea even if she is Crazy
claude is a schemer and master manipulater.
I think it is intentional that the developers made her so grey and difficult to determine. So that you can support her in Claude and Church Routes and go against her in Edelgard route (haven't played Dimitri's route yet). Like she gives you reasons to go against her and with her.
At the end she is like a crazy caring mother who loves you but will turn completely mad the moment you go against her. The fact that she states how Byleth was "another failure" (as an experiment) in Edelgard route, just shows how delusional and power abused she is.
Rhea and Edelgard share some similarties as grey characters. And for that is why I loved this Fire Emblem so much!
I think A LOT of rhea's choices especially in Edelgards route stem from the fact that Byleth is really her last leg of sanity. Rhea at this point is ANCIENT, living in a world where the ability to care for others is hard. Anyone she does ultimately care for will wither and die before she gets to know them well by her standards. Byleth acts as a force for change in her life, as well as a pillar of hope to her. And thus once Byleth betrays her, she snaps completely.
I went Black Eagles house on my first playthrough so I thought Rhea was nuts all along.
Well, given that 90% of the Academy phase of the game is almost exactly the same across all three houses, I would have though Rhea suspicious at best the whole time. So I don't think it *really* matters much which of the three you went with for your first time. Rhea started smelling rotten to me almost the moment she showed up, but the whole Lonato incident and the one with Miklan is when she *really* started to stink and when I started feeling like, no matter who the true villain(s) might be, Rhea would be almost just as bad.
...though for clarification's sake, I also went with Black Eagles first.
I think this whole discussion about who really ks the bad guy makes this game so unique.
Whatever route you choose, you still are unsure who really is in the wrong
Here my theory of whats happening ... The ritual in the holy tomb was a success, only it's not what rhea thought would happen! Right now byleath/byla is writhing in pain on the floor in front of sothis's throne, the students are in a panic, some rush to the entrance to get manuella, the lords and rhea run his/ her side and try and calm the main, but it's a fruitless endeavor minutes pass the main's arms and legs flail, the spine arches up, saliva froths from the mouth like fountain as the screams of someone who is burning alive echo through the chamber, then suddenly silence as his/her eyes fall to the back of they're head and pass out. Dimi and Claude go to lift the main to the infirmary, while El is just left seething about what she just beheld, and Rhea can't hold back her tears, but before the boys reach the stairs as the girls are riled a simple snap of the fingers hits the air and all goes blank. Then after what seemed like seconds to their perception, the three awaken gasping for air as they stand before the throne unable to move and see the main sitting there hunched over and hands clasped near his face. After some simple questions without answers Claude who is to the left tries to break the silence with some wit, but is met with a fast and more fierce "SHUT UP" which stops the joke before it left his breath, then Dimi who is on the right asks where rhea is, thus the main states " behind u frozen in time like the rest of our friends, classmates, and co-workers, but I'll get to her soon enough" with eyes he knew far to well, while El who resides in the center is some what shocked by the unusual malice from whom she admired simply states " are u alright my teacher" which the main retorts woefully as he/she rises from the throne, walks over, and caress's her checks " El I'm sorry I'm going to have to break my promise to u, because the hell i just experienced over and over again it's what none of us here deserve" as her face freezes in fear!?! Though he/she continues as the hands are retracted "... but in exchange I'll tel the three of u alone how I got the nickname of the ashen demon, but right now I have a proposition...Verdant Wind u could manipulate and move your pieces ever so slightly for your desired throne, Azure moon will u stop letting a past that wasn't your fault drive u further into the darkness, or will see past the lies and reliance on nobility so u can see things from the outside, And my beautiful crimson flower u should forsake your uncle and work with us to save your country, because if its just u and me or just u its a matter of time before your plans fail and deliver this continent to monsters who u thought u had beat but they still had they're strings wrapped around neck ready to tug at any moment.
I honestly don't know how I feel about Rhea. On one side I like that cares about Byleth, but on the other I feel that she is using her position and power to fulfill her own selfish goals, such as killing people who oppose her. Not to mention Rhea kind of started a war between the Empire, Kingdom and Alliance, because Edelgard went against the church, which then lead to an all out war, when they should have focused their efforts on defeating Those Who Slither in the Dark. To be fair everyone in Three Houses has some kind of family issue, including Rhea.
LeRandomRayquaza2011 Edelgard was just a pond to those who slither in the dark.
@@diegov2point0 that is what she wanted them to think but she was able to wipe them all out.
When it comes to the Black Eagle Route. Choosing to side with either Edelger or Rhea the player is forced to witness the dark side of each individual woman. Edelger wants to destroy the status quo, believing that Fodlan should not be ruled by the church and by extension Rhea. Rhea wants to defend the status quo because It has maintained order and stability for hundreds of years. In my eyes neither of them started off as evil. They're not innocent, they've done Questionable and selfish things and they both admit it. The reason they become the evil/worst versions of themselves at the end of the story, whichever side you choose is because they're desperate to win the war because if they lose all the compromises/sacrifices they've done would be meaningless.
At first I thought: Mommy?
Then I thought: Auntie? (After Rhea mentions her sister.)
Then at the end of part one: *Dovahkiin, Dovahkiin naal ok zin los vahriin.*
Nah, I am just kidding.
Depending on the route you take, Edelgard and Rhea are both pushed to their limits. Edelgard starts a senseless war in every route and literally becomes a fucking monster if you pick the blue lions and Rhea easily threatened the lives of civilians and her own army if you choose to go with Edelgard. I believe both characters are good hearted and have good intentions, but both of the actions they're willing to take make them morally grey.
the war was needed sadly
Isn't Edelgard a distant relative of Rhea based on the fact that Edelgard has a minor Crest of Seiros?
@CatholicGamer Squad
Yeah, I figured that out last week, thanks anyway hehe
Edelgard had done some stupid things. But that is the nature of humanity. Rhea has done even worse things yet she is still treated as if she were a divinity. Edelgard took an aspect of Martin Luther and pointed out the flaws in the church and how to fix them. Rhea took an aspect of Pope Leo X in labeling Edelgard a heritic and wicked. Edelgard was not against the faith (said when she initiated combat against Rhea in the battle for Gareg Macch) though Rhea still believed that she passed judgement for the goddess (as Pope Leo X did) Martin Luther was still Christian but he knew that the Catholic Church was failing and would cause the fall of Europe. Edelgard pushed for the idea of the church to get out of the politics and only pass good morals, not deliver punishment.
What did Rhea do that was worse then starting a war a becoming allies with twsitd?
Golden Rose Mass execution of members from the western church, was completely fine with wiping out civilian militias, and burned down an entire capital with hundreds of thousands of innocent lives just so she could kill a couple people.
@@SaxyKnight the western church that was against them...and trying to hurt them, how is that difrent form Edelgard attackimg everyone that doesn't agree with her.. or how about the fact that edelgard uses the captial her city to use as human shield, most likely burns Bernadetta, and chances into a demom
@@GoldenRose116 rhea also started a war to unite foldlan as well.
@@genericyoutubeaccount4756 she started a war because her race was being whiped out...
I wonder if all the people who defend Rhea are just multiple accounts run by Catherine and Cyril
😆😆
she is ambiguous because the first part of the story is shared between 4 routes, so they have to put a bit of everything into it
Well, Part 1 has certain scenes exclusive to each route. In Black Eagles, you barely know about her, the tragedy of Duscur, the crests and relics etc. In Blue Lions, they restlessly tell you about the tragedy and deepen your knowledge about Edelgard and Dimitri's relationship. In Golden Deer, they deepen more on the relics and you see the Inmaculate One way earlier in the story. Each part 1 gives you certain amount of info that it's only necessary for that route alone.
"She had some major skeletons in her closet" Haha yea
to tell you the truth i do not like rhea i hate her with burning passion she tried to use byleth as a human sacfrice and when flayn went missing it almost seemed like she did not care at all she felt really fake at the begging her actions were really horrible and i know people are gonna say she missed her mom and all but what she did was still terrible she even destroyed a few houses and burned alot of soldiers it really disgust me that people even ship rhea and byleth together and like her alot and try to excuse her actions nothing you guys tell me will change my hate for her and please do not say the s support proves me wrong because it does not there non canon and also do not excuse her actions by saying she regretting it later because that was only just out of pity and a little change of heart she is a horrible person she may not be a villian but that's the way i see her so yes she is insane and horrible.
She nothing but the oldest surviving daughter of an invading alien species who called themselves gods. She is also the luckiest of her surviving family members as the only one still capable of transforming.
All this happen can be good or evil. If you choose silver snow, blue lions and golden deer she would be the good side. What happens if you choose black eagles, Rhea would became evil. Each of the houses you pick they would give you the final boss. Final boss always the villain.
rhea went crazy in silver snow as well.
@@genericyoutubeaccount4756 I know, that’s why I have thought?
Rhea had a 1,000 years to deal with her trauma, and still couldn't get past it in some healthy or beneficial way. I see her more as a self righteous zealot than anything else. I've always had bad vibes from her the moment I met her, confirmed it with the Lonato mission, and the rest went downhill from there. She also hints towards Seteth that the goal of you being the progenitor god, is for Sothis to eventually take over the vessel (you) and return to Fodland. She isn't a woman that can be trusted.
dude image you are the only left of your race for the last 1000 years , until you find out there is another one of you kind around and that person end up stabbing you in the back and try to undo all your work in the 1000 years. i think you will be super pissed and feel betrayed and lose all reason.
@@khanhnguyen-tt3ff Except there isn't another kind like her. Rhea did something to Byleth to make them the way they are. She was using you as a vessel to get her mother back and was willing to burn the entire country to do it. You're damn right I'm gonna mess with her plans. Her work was done a long time ago. She established a faith for people to believe in, and should have left it at that. Instead she see's herself above all humans and any who oppose her are met with the sword. Yeah my pity well for her ran dry pretty quickly.
@@MrHildebrand lol it simply bleyth mother is her clone or somethings create using her blood so bleyth is relate to her by blood( not include the Crest stone ) and he count as her grandson that will inherit which is why she give him preferences treatment. she put the Crest in bleyth because that the only way to save him and it at his mother request with knowing if it will work or not .
@@khanhnguyen-tt3ff That's actually incorrect. The whole point of putting Sothis's Crest Stone into anyone, Byleth or not, was in hopes of Sothis taking over the body and returning to life. Whether or not it is true that she put the Crest in baby Byleth to save his life is hard to say, since we only have Rhea's word for it, but I personally believe that even if Rhea herself believes she is telling the truth, she isn't. In the Black Eagles ending, it shows that when Sothis's Crest Stone dissolves, Byleth's heart begins beating normally again. To me this signifies that Rhea's story is not true, and that Byleth's appeared stillbirth was caused by putting Sothis's Crest Stone inside him/her, rather than it being the cause of said procedure.
As far as Byleth being given preferential treatment because he is Rhea's grandson, this is probably true, but Rhea definitely wanted Sothis to take over Byleth's body. The entire point of Chapter 11, where Rhea tells Byleth to sit on the Throne of Knowledge, was that Rhea was hoping that Sothis would take over Byleth's body and that she'd have her mother back. That's why she was so taken aback that nothing happened when Byleth sat on the Throne. That on its own is pretty morally unjustifiable, especially considering that up until that point Byleth has been her staunch defender. It's up to you whether or not that invalidates Rhea's other good points (which she definitely does have), but that is definitely what the writers were going for with that part of the story, and it is definitely a big black mark on Rhea's personal record.
@@AvatarOfDiablo lol not just anyone can bare the Crest. If it do why would she go thought all the process of creating a body to host it and she did said she failed 11 time already, in the story it implied this is not the first time the Crest was used like this, the one we know of is the king of genesis which didt turn out great for her
It’s not that I don’t like her but i feel like the Edelgard Route is the better and seems (in my opinion) canon, like first of all she’s been alive for thousand of years along with seteth and flayn I personnaly thought it was better to just end their misery and let them finally die, and I haven’t played the golden deer and church route (I probably never will do this one) but isn’t Edelgard’s the only one where at the end your character become human again and even finally as her heartbeat for the first time bc she doesn’t have the fire emblem anymore wich I guess made her really « feel » alive for the first time ?! I personally think this was beautiful rather than staying a vessel of the goddess forever and I guess end up being immortal yourself as a result and see all your beloved student dying of old age
I personally think it’s up to the player, oh and about not playing silver snow if you’ve played golden deer you really aren’t missing anything
I strongly suspect views of rhea are influenced by which path you took first. as someone who started with crimson flower, I was never able to unhear rhea screeching about how my character is a worthless sinner who deserves eternal damnation, and some of that hit a little too close to home for me to ever really unsee rhea as more bad than good. that said she's obviously a complex character and far from one note. routes where she's more heroic paint her in a different light and make her more sympathetic, but I think it's hard to shake that first impression. I suspect for people who did a different route than crimson flower first (especially if it was verdant wind or silver snow), the opposite is true.
True true. I did the silver snow. Rhea seemed like a traumatized, but sympathize-able character. I actually expected her to be a stereotypical good-guys-but-turns-out-to-be-evil character. I was actually really surprised that Edelgard turned on everyone. Now I can’t imagine playing through the CF route. Must be disconcerting.
It's funny how I hate both Edelgard and Rhea. I just wanna end racism with Claude :/
I understand her rage at Edelgard.
Can someone explain this: My understanding is that Rhea/Seros created the religion where crests, those bloodlines and holy relics are highly valued. In the golden deer route it is revealed that crests were created by those who slither in the dark using blood of her kin and holy relics by the bones of her kin. She was furious for those actions so why the religion where crests and relics are valued? She does not seem like a forgiving type to put it mildly.
She has to hide history otherwise if people knew the truth about crests then the remaining Nabateans would have been persecuted for a reason or the other... same goes for descendants of 10 Elites (I mean just look at what happened to Marianne due to a simple rumor).
By saying Crests were "gifts" people wouldn't have thought they may have actual power over crests.
Also as much as she may hate relics, they are necessary to protect some areas of Fòdlan from bandits or war-loving outsiders.
Rhea is right humanity can't be trusted
Every final emblem except like one had a dragon final boss. Humanity will always be more trust worthy than those dragons lol
I feel like Im the only person who realized right way Rhea wasn't all there in terms of sanity.
In the into cinematic I saw a woman on the edge of madness against the guy the put her there and the words she said to nemesis confirmed dis
when we see her in in game for the 1st time and do introductions I saw in her eyes ya that scares from the intro are still fresh and im probably treading on a razors edge
or would be if this game gave me a chooise in the matter
I will get killed for this again...... Edelgard wants the best for all people.... Rhea for herself and her mother.... Edelgard is the true hero.
And now I prepare for the hate D:
No its the truth. No matter what edelgard takes action and sacrifices herself to make the world a better place. And succeds in that goal in evert timeline.
Even though Rhea is benefitting herself, she ultimately is thinking for the future of Fodlan as well. She wants her mother to be reborn and take back her position as leader considering Fodlan was relatively peaceful until the Agarthans started to be straight up evil and then eventually kill Sothis by hiring a renown bandit. Sure she uses questionable methods... like Edelgard especially in routes not her own, but the goals are ultimately still the same.
I don’t think edelgards a flawless hero but yeah pretty much
2:53 Oh god she sounds just like Irelia there too since they share the same VA.
I like all of these characters, but I agree with basically none of them.
Rhea did burn down parts of the kingdom in order to kill Byleth and his/her companions
I feel she hasd allowed her traumas of the past to twister her mind and her judgement. Resulting in questional experiments to revive sothis, who does not want want to be revived and her behavoir can be very erratic verging and crossing into psychotic.
I think I would like Rhea more if she was as Seiros playable and had supports with other characters :/
Rhea really reminds me of NOir's main antagonist. THe caring mother figure, yet still really dangerous. Rhea is, indeed, less evil (though still forgiven by the story far too much for my taste), but the similarities definitely are here.
Rhea is one of the crazier persons in fire emblem history.
3:38 so does that mean Edelgard didn’t mean to set Bernadetta on fire?
She knew Bernadetta was on the platform and still ignited it.
@@pickcollins9910 she does that weather or not she is on the platform.
When playing BE route last, I sympathized with Rhea greatly knowing everything... however, in that same run, I couldn't sympathize with Edelgard at all. Her drive never came off personal, only ideological and forced. Long story short, Rhea was written well, Edelgard was not.... IMO
To be partially fair friend her route was screwed the most. As the other routes had 23-24 chapters hers only had 18 meaning the last fight of the game was cut due to some rush. I feel like there could've been a tiny bit more exposition to cover the last bit of info from her route.
such bs edelgard was very well written.