This write up is an addition to my other Fire Emblem write ups, as its conclusion is an important part of arguments I make regarding the game’s narrative. For this, I would like to look at the game’s backstory, at its farthest point in time, and pick apart and argue that the supposed “truth” the player is told at the end of the Golden Deer route, is actually not the truth. With that in mind, let’s begin:
A quick note: At the bottom of this write up I’ve posted links to all the important lore revealing dialogue Rhea tells Claude and Byleth during the end of the game. I will be posting specific lines only when I reference them, but for a complete look at everything Rhea says, see the bottom of this post.
Let’s start with the beginning of Rhea’s spiel. Already in these first sentences there are some red flags raised. First, the fact that Rhea’s begins her history of Fodlan with the arrival of Sothis and her dragon children is telling. Why does she not speak at all of what life was like on Fodlan before Sothis? Was she not at all interested in the supposedly original inhabitants of Fodlan? Is it possible that she did not care and saw no value in their history?
As an aspiring historian, this is a big red flag of an invader who seeks to conquer the locals. In all of the Americans for example, much of pre colonial history was lost or destroyed during the European conquests. Steps have been taken to recover much of it, but the fact that many teach history as beginning when the invaders arrive is a common tactic used to undermine the local peoples and speak as if they do not matter and do not have any claim to the land that was stolen from them. So the fact that Rhea starts her story with the arrival of Sothis and gives no information on what life was like before their arrival is not a good sign.
The next line is interesting because I cannot help but ask:
why did Sothis turn into a human? Was it to blend in and get along with the
local humans living in Fodlan? Was it to try and get along with them and not
provoke conflict? Or was it because she was weakening? We know from the Church
route that Seteth and Flayn cannot transform into a dragon anymore. Their
powers have weakened over time, so that is another possibility.
The line about Sothis giving blood to birth her children is also interesting, but I’ll touch on that more below.
This next one is worthy of questioning. What does it mean for Sothis and her children to share knowledge and skills? Did this mean sharing her blood? It would make sense, since it was her blood that was used to give birth to her children, and this would have large ramifications if true. The best current example I can think of is Jeralt. We know from the Church route that Rhea found Jeralt injured and dying, and used her blood to spare him, while also giving him immortality and other such super powers. This show’s how Sothis’ blood might be the gifts they shared with humans.
Of course, did Sothis and co want to share their technology? Did the humans pressure them into it? Did they trade for it? If we look at real history for a better understanding, a good example is once again the Americas. When Europeans arrived, they had guns and horses and other such technological weapons that the locals did not. They were willing to share these with the native Americans, but only by trade. They had to get something in return. So I think that by sharing, Sothis and her children used their superior technology and monopoly over their blood to trade with the humans in such a way that benefitted them and put them in power.
Rhea concludes by saying that together they built a prosperous civilization, but I am skeptical of this. Why was it prosperous? How was it prosperous? Who was prospering, and who wasn’t? If we look at the current state of Fodlan, it seems to be prospering, but many of the commoners and poor suffer, working diligently for the privileged nobles. There are rebellions, injustices, and truths are hidden away. One thing I have learned in history is that no civilization is ever prospering for everyone, and if anyone says that it is, it is only for a specific group of people that the storyteller is referring to, or is a part of.
So in this case, I think Rhea would see it as prospering, because it was prospering for her and her people. But for the original inhabitants of Fodlan? I question whether they were living a good life or not. I theorize they were being exploited by the dragons. After all, if it was a prosperous society, why did wars still take place?
The next line is another case of Rhea being too biased to be
trusted. She says the wars that followed the creation of this new civilization
were senseless. Were they? If they were, why were they fought? Wars are never
fought for no reason, there is always a reason. That is like saying the war
that takes place in the current time of Three Houses is a senseless war, which
I would argue it definitely is not. I think the fact that Rhea is a dragon, one
who we know is distrustful of humans, means she cannot be a good judge of
humans and why they start wars. I believe this is a part of the story that is
simply lost to time, as are many wars in actual history, in which the winners
write the losers as senseless barbarians.
This next line is very telling. Rhea says that people
beginning to see themselves as gods, as equal to the dragons, is a bad thing.
Challenging the authority and monopoly Sothis has on her blood and this
superior technology, was a bad thing. But was it? Again, this is very much
speculation, but if what I’ve theorized to this point is true, that Sothis arrived,
gave humans her blood, and allowed them to have superior powers and technology,
such as what Jeralt has, then is it really that far fetched for humans to start
seeing themselves as equal? If they have the blood of Sothis inside them, are
they not so different from Sothis? If they are able to wield her technology,
should they not be treated as equal to her? I see this war against Sothis and
her children as the breaking point. It is when the humans are fed up of being
exploited and treated as lesser citizens who must serve the superior dragons.
It is when they begin to realize that through the sharing of technology, they
are not so different from the dragons, so wish to live in a more equitable
society that sees everyone profiting, rather then just the dragons.
Hidden within the DLC Library is the closest thing we get to the perspective of Those Who Slither in the Dark. Let’s look at it.
While the wording and general lack of information on this era makes it difficult to really derive any hard truths from this, there are a couple interesting lines to note. First, in general Sothis is portrayed as a sort of terrifying monster that will utterly destroy all who challenge her. Rhea portrays her as a wonderful and loving mother, but given that she is her daughter, I again would accuse her of being biased and an untrustworthy source. This account reads as if Sothis was just as uninterested and unsympathetic to humans as Rhea seems to be. For those who fought in wars, who had causes they felt were just and worth fighting for, she only responds with complete destruction. It reads as if she never tried to understand why humans fought, and only sought to crush any who caused bloodshed and challenged the status quo, the so-called prosperous civilization.
The passage also reads as if Sothis destroyed the entire world in the war against her, making all (non dragon) life on earth suffer for the humans that challenged her rule. As Rhea confirms, the majority of humans were annihilated.
Now again, I am not an all knowledgeable person, but as someone who has studied much of history, and many wars, I can tell you that it is never the case that everyone is on one side of the war. Even during World War II, we know that within Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan there were those that challenged the war effort and if it was the right course of action. This was with modern propaganda campaigns and the like, in medieval societies in which that wasn’t a thing, you never had everyone in one place working together on one side of a war, heck it was often a small minority if anything. There is no way that every human was siding with the humans that challenged Sothis. Yet she annihilated so many of them, as if they were all one and all working together, despite this not being the case. This was cruel, uncalled for, and says a lot about how Sothis viewed humans. To her they were one giant entity, not a nuanced group with their own factions, ideas, and desires, but one large group of an inferior race to keep down. Rhea portrays this as justice in her telling of the story, while Those Who Slither portrays it as a terrifying monster destroying all of Fodlan, seeking no reason to understand its peoples.
I hope my point has been made. Rhea is not an unbiased source of information, and her telling of the original arrival and clash between Sothis and the dragons, and the original humans of Fodlan, should not be taken as truth. There is more to the story that is being hidden, and it was written by the winners in such a way to portray them as just and their opposition as evil. Heck, the lead creators of Three Houses in an interview said a big theme of the game was that the winners write history:
This was the bulk of my argument, but I have one more point to make, just to really drill in how skeptical we should be of Rhea:
It is interesting that Rhea here, having lost everything to these evil people, goes on a quest for revenge, and it is portrayed as a tragic yet justified war of extermination. However, as I’ve just argued above, this is exactly what happened with Those Who Slither in the Dark. They lost everything, having their homes, their families, and all their land be completely destroyed in Sothis’s destruction. They then go on a quest for revenge in response. Ironic then that we have two forces with equal pain and desires for blood, yet one is portrayed as justified, while the other is not.
I realize I am very much overthinking a video game and its lore here, feel free to point that out, but I like it when stories have histories and lore that feel as deep, grey, and multidimensional as our own. It is a part of why I love history and enjoy learning about it and questioning its many writers. It is fun, and I hope you found this fun as well. My goal was to portray the original conflict between the dragons and humans as less black and white then the game would have you believe. Of course, this leads to other points I’d like to make, but for those, see my other write ups.
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