Friends, it has been a long time. A long time since my last blog post, and a long time since I talked about Fire Emblem Three Houses. Yet, with the release of its successor: Fire Emblem Fortune's Weave less than two weeks away, I have been thinking about the game. How could I not? It is my most talked about game on this blog, I made 8 (or 9) whole posts dedicated to it. It is possibly the game I have thought and discussed the most about. So why not, in the final hours of this title, before its successor comes out and causes us to rethink it, how about one final post of my thoughts on this game? What do I think of Three Houses, seven years after its release, now that the dust has settled for a long time?
To be honest, this post isn't a sudden heat of the moment thing due to Fortune's Weave. I've wanted to make a final Three Houses posts here for years, but I never got around to it. So let this be that final post, as I share thoughts I've had regarding this game for years. Please enjoy my farewell to Fire Emblem: Three Houses.
To start, it is worth asking why I yearned to make a final Three Houses blog post but never got around to it. The answer is that I wanted to wait until my final, 6th playthrough of the game. I wanted to go through it one last time. It would be on the Black Eagles route, my favorite of the game, and allow me to access the final few supports I have yet to unlock. I tried this multiple times, starting multiple Black Eagles files. However, I never finished it, I couldn't even get to the timeskip. Why is that?
I think Three Houses's best and worst quality, what I will remember most from it, is its dialogue. Three Houses has easily the best dialogue in the series. The more I play other Fire Emblem games like Engage and Heroes, or non-Fire Emblem games, the more impressed I am at just how good the writing in Three Houses is. Going back to the supports, it is amazing how much personality, charm, lore, politics, and worldbuilding is packed into it all. The dialogue is incredibly rewarding and keeps you hooked into its story and world at all times.
Yet, the reason why I also call it the worst quality of Three Houses is that it means there is just so much darn dialogue to read and parse through when playing it. There are an untold amount of cutscenes to watch. This is really great on the first playthrough and even the second and third, as they immerse you in the world and its characters and story. However, by the 5th and 6th playthroughs, the dialogue loses its charm, due to the simple fact that you, the player, already know what the dialogue is about and saying. Once it becomes familiar, the dialogue loses its meaning, and thus you're more likely to either skip it, or grow bored with the game. Yet skipping the dialogue of Three Houses feels wrong, because even if you know what to expect, it's just so good and packed with foreshadowing and character moments that it feels wrong to skip.
The point I'm trying to say is, because Three Houses has so so much dialogue, my frequent attempts to replay the game have failed to get far, due to the unbelievable amount of dialogue. It has me reflecting on the nature of story based games and gameplay based games. When I think of my favorite video games, I frequently think of story focused ones: Undertale, Fire Emblem Awakening, and Fire Emblem Three Houses. Yet, I've not gone back to replay these games, and the few times I do, I never get far. This stands in stark contrast to my favorite gameplay based games, such as Pikmin 1 and 2, Paper Mario 1 and 2, Advance Wars 1 and 2, and Golden Sun 1 and 2. It is interesting to think of the value of a gameplay focused game versus a story focused one. I've come to the conclusion that story focused games offer a more memorable and exciting first playthrough, but gameplay focused games offer long term value in their replayability, something that becomes more apparent the farther you get from a game's first playthrough.
All that said, would I consider Fire Emblem: Three Houses my favorite game of all time? Honestly, I think it might be. No video game got me so absorbed in its world and characters, that I actually went on to read fanfiction about the game, and even write my own. I was not satisfied with the base game and craved more, which I rarely feel with video games. I would still say that Three Houses has my favorite cast of characters and world of any video game I've played. The writing is just phenomenal, and does such a great job at not only making the characters feel real, multidimensional, and relatable, but making the world they inhabit feel equally so. The way the three nations of Fodlan are fleshed out through their different histories, cultures, and have their values personified through their cast of characters, it is my favorite thing ever.
It has been a while, so if you do not mind, let me revisit the three nations of Fodlan, at least from my memory, and how their lord and house characters illustrate their traits, starting with the empire. I would characterize the Adrestian Empire as the land of ambition. Its people are proud, strong, driven, and dynamic. It is no coincidence that of the three regions, Adrestia is the one with the most dynamic recent history. The Insurrection of the Seven showed that those with power are not afraid to launch coups and attempts at seizing power from others. It is also the place where Those Who Slither in the Dark have found their strongest footing, able to manipulate and play the nobles and ambitious elites off of each other to emerge as a central power. Who could blame them? Adrestia is after all the historical centre of power in Fodlan, it once ruled the entire continent, like Rome once ruled the Mediterranean world. Just as Benito Mussolini used the memory of Rome to argue for invading North Africa during the second World War, many in Adrestia still believe they have a right to and should attempt to reunite Fodlan under their banner, and resent the church, who is now the new centre of power in Fodlan.
These traits can be found within the Black Eagles students. All its students except for two (Bernadetta and Linhardt) come to Garreg Mach academy with ambitious plans to make a name for themselves. Ferdinand embodies this excellently, but so do Dorothea, Petra, and Caspar, who want to set a good future for themselves and make their families proud. There is a legacy these characters live in the shadow of, and dealing with the pressure of such shadows is a core part of these characters. Bernadetta and Linhardt are reflections of the dangers of such pressure and ambition, as it becomes too much for the both of them, leading to both running away from their situations and escaping to their own personal safe spaces, books and research in Linhardt's case, and her room in Bernadetta's.
Yet Edelgard embodies these qualities the most. She is easily the most ambitious of the three lords, looking not only to reshape the empire, but all of Fodlan through her planned war. She is proud of her heritage, but more than anything, projects strength. Because that is the only way to create stability and unite the people of Adrestia together, it is through strength. In a world where opportunistic nobles are ready to jump and betray someone at the slightest sign, a leader must project incredible strength to strike fear into her rivals and allies, ensuring they will not be betrayed and can lead her people together. It is why Edelgard tries so hard to portray herself as confident and on top of things, even when she is not.
But Edelgard's character also shows the dangers of living by such values. The pressure placed on her drives her crazy, giving her nightmares, and actually shortening her lifespan. The emphasis on strength and not backing down leads to her committing unbelievable actions, with consequences for more people than she can imagine, and effects that will lead to much bloodshed and destruction. The only way for Edelgard to work through this culture is to learn when to project strength, and when to be vulnerable and honest with her emotions. Learning to step back, listen to others, and actually trust your allies to not betray you is the most important part of Edelgard's journey, and shows how she can bring the empire and its ways to a better spot.
Next on the list is the Kingdom of Faerghus. Faerghus, I would characterize as the land of tradition. Its people are loyal, militaristic, and faithful. It is where the church of Seiros finds the most followers, and, despite having a shorter history than Adrestia, possesses a more loyal pledge to defend the traditions and heritage of its ancestors. In its cold climate, the people of Faerghus cling to rituals and stories and systems of the past, allowing rule to be easily centralized into an authoritative figure: the king. Unlike Adrestia, with a dynamic political system that allows those like Those Who Slither to enter, Faerghus has a strict hierarchical system that is difficult to enter. Having a crest and noble blood will get you the farthest here, where not having it will get you the least farthest.
These themes are illustrative in the characters of the Blue Lions house. The Blue Lions house is the only one in which all of its students are connected to nobles in some way, either through crest, adoption (Ashe), or special appointment (Dedue). It is simply the only way to make it in Faerghus, however, even once gaining this privilege, the life of nobles is not an easy one. Where the shadows the past haunt the Black Eagles students and encourages them to be ambitious and embark in bold new adventures, the shadows of the past within Faerghus have nearly the opposite effect: encouraging its characters to stay within the confines of what their ancestors did and not leave them. These are key to many of the struggles these characters have: Felix doesn't want to follow the typical warrior ideals of his older brother, Mercedes and Ingrid struggle with being pushed into the typical female role of marriage, wanting to pursue their own paths instead, and Sylvain hates the emphasis placed on crests, running to women to escape from this depressing reality.
Still, the characters wrestle with these confines while also believing in these traditional ideals, and no character epitomizes this better than Dimitri. He, like Ashe and Ingrid, believe in the noble, militaristic leader that benevolently rules over its people, while cruelly destroying any enemies. However, the reality frequently reveals the complications with such a simplistic lifestyle. In such a crushing system of tradition, it is no coincidence that the first half of the game sees the most rebellions against the church and its crest system from the Kingdom. Ashe struggles with his role model Lonato rebelling against the system Ashe idolizes, and Dimitri struggles with his own powerlessness while his corrupt uncle rules the Kingdom and he must wait until he is of age to take over, as following tradition. But where Edelgard would respond to such tradition by breaking it, showing her strength and ability to go in new directions, Dimitri must instead hold it in, sticking to the traditional way of life by hiding his true feelings. This internalizing of dark feelings is why events like the Tragedy of Duscur haunt the Blue Lions students more than those of other houses, and why they can turn them into such monsters, like Dimtiri becomes in the second half of the game.
The Blue Lions route and Dimitri's character arc show the best and worst of this system. For when such hierarchical systems that place all the power within the king are in place, it means that the prosperity of the Kingdom relies largely on the character of this sole figure. Should he fall to the weight of the pressure and cruelty that a leader must do, when seeing the contradictions and issues of the tradition, then the Kingdom will fall to chaos and lack stability. But should he rise and become an exceptional, mary sue like character, than the Kingdom will prosper, so long as he can ensure the hierarchy he depends on remains in place, by whatever means necessary.
Finally, we have the Leicester Alliance. For Leicester, I would describe it as the land of diplomacy. Its people are flexible, adaptive, varied, and open minded. This is partly because the Alliance has the least centralized political system of the three nations. Instead of relying on a sole king or emporer, backed by nobles, Leicester is run by a roundtable of the great lords. While there is a leader of the table, the power between the lords is evenly split, allowing for a dynamic and changing land. This could lead to a situation similar to Adrestia, where nobles backstab each other and order begins breaking down. However, this does not happen, and while its never outright stated why, I've long held theories for why this is. For one thing, the Alliance is situated next to Almyra, a continent very different from Fodlan, and very strong at that. What's more, the Alliance is likely the weakest of the three nations from a military perspective. Diplomacy is what allows the Alliance to exist at all and not fall to the many hungry nations around it. From my own understanding of European history, it reminds me of the Dutch republic, which had a similar system of no king or leader, but a roundtable of leaders, whos diplomacy and bonds allowed them to weather the military giants of England, France, Spain, and the Holy Roman Empire.
Still, how is the Alliance able to forge alliances and deals with Adrestia and Faerghus if it lacks the military might of both? Money, because the Alliance is also where merchants find the most power. It is no coincidence that, when looking at the students, the Golden Deer students contain the least noble students, and the most that were able to enter thanks to money. The riches of Ignatz's merchant family and Leonie's wealthy village illustrate how money is a greater form of power in the Alliance, and allows for more varied individuals to come together in alliances.
This is seen in the Golden Deer class, who easily have the most varied characters of the three houses in terms of their socioeconomic status, backstories, and homelands. While this variety has an obvious benefit of bringing more perspectives and experiences to discussions, it also means that few of the characters know each other when meeting at Gareg Mach, or have shared histories and legends they can bond over. Where the other two houses struggle with the shadows hanging over them, pushing them in a specific direction, the Leicester students have less pressure, but instead must deal with getting along with one another, despite their many differences. Lorenz and Leonie could not be more different as characters, Hilda and Raphael's optimism contrasts sharply with Marianne's pessimism, and Lysithea's strong, ambitious nature causes immediate problems against Ignatz's shy and weak personality. While the other houses also feature internal conflict, the potential is far greater here. More then the other houses, they are a group of misfits, which is why learning to be flexible and adaptive is so important to life in Leicester.
In enters Claude, who embodies these qualities better than anyone. Claude relies on diplomacy through charisma, banter, and games to achieve his dreams, very different from Edelgard and Dimitri's more direct methods. He is coy about his heritage and reasons for being at Garreg Mach, because he wins not through his lineage, but through his clever mouth and quick reflexes. He is the perfect person for keeping the Alliance together, and ensuring that these different types of characters can put their differences aside and find common ground to present a united front.
Yet Claude's route and arc also show the troubles with such a lifestyle. For not everyone will choose diplomacy and some, when faced with the ultimate choice, will choose violence, just as Edelgard does. Equally, the decentralized nature of the Alliance also leads to it struggling to properly pursue any one individual goal, and without a strong centre to hold it together, it can very quickly fall into infighting. But just as their are struggles, so too is their value, for Claude's masterful diplomatic skills allows him to gain the help of Almyra of all places, which becomes decisive in defeating his opponents and allowing his hope to continue having validity.
I don't think I've ever played a game that so skillfully illustrates three different nations that abide by three different ideologies and provides an equally distinct yet environmentally influenced cast of characters. Its remarkable, and why I still think of Three Houses many years later.
Still, Three Houses isn't perfect, and in this final write up, where I've just shared my favorite aspect of the game, I would like to now voice my main complaints with the game and its writing:
1. A Tale of Two Stories
One of the most striking things I've noticed in Three Houses discourse online, is that when people discuss the story, world, and characters of Three Houses, they often characterize it in one of two ways. The first is similar to the way I just described Fodlan. It characterizes the characters and nations of Three Houses as complex, nuanced, and morally grey, with there being no clear good or bad guys. It frames the war not as the result of one evil aggressor but as a consequence of the culture, lifestyles, and changes in the geopolitics of Fodlan. To put it another way, it frames the start of the first World War not as a result of German aggression, but as the result of more complex systems and changes that were taking place in Europe and the wider world.
The other interpretation of Fodlan is an opposing, more simplistic view of the story. It argues that the war was started because the evil emperor of the evil empire and its evil allies launched a war of aggression against the generally good natured and benevolent church of Seiros and nations of Faerghus and Leicester. It is, to put it simple, a far less interesting interpretation of the events of Three Houses, one that removes much nuance and moral complexity from the characters and world.
I would love to say that this second interpretation, one I obviously disagree with, is simply the result of people with low intellect playing and shouting about the game, but the fact of the matter is, there is some truth to this interpretation within the game itself. While Three Houses is a brand new Fire Emblem game, it is still a Fire Emblem game, and it seems that, because of that, the developers sought to create a specific kind of picture of Fodlan. Most previous Fire Emblem games featured an evil empire that starts a war of aggression, and portrays those who oppose it as wholly good and doing the right thing in stopping the empire. Often these Fire Emblem games will feature a dark cult, full of mysterious and evil looking magicians cloaked in black. Additionally, these games frequently feature a dragon-human creature, which takes the form of a little girl, and becomes an important and helpful ally, a good person from a race of good dragons in this fight of good against evil. Three Houses contains all of these tropes.
It is not uncommon for video game series to feature story tropes and lean into them multiple times. Final Fantasy for example does this with its 'crystals' plot point and its own equally evil empire. The problem with this however, is that these traditions are references to a simpler time, and simpler stories, which clashes sharply with the more complex story that Three Houses is often trying to tell. This means that the narrative of Three Houses often feels like it is at odds with itself. It is no secret that Three Houses discussion could often get very toxic and hostile, and I'd argue a main source of it is this tension. Some people walk away with a more complex interpretation of the game than others, and because the game doesn't fully commit to one, it makes arguments inevitable.
2. Bad Endings
Still, I think the biggest offender to creating this toxic discourse, and spreading the idea that the world of Fodlan is a simple world of black and white, is the terrible endings this game has. Another Fire Emblem tradition kept is having the end of the game feature a short blurb about the state of the world and its inhabitants many years later. Most Fire Emblems use these to present simple endings of everyone and the world living happily ever after, and rather than go against this tradition, Three Houses does the same thing. This means that, no matter who's house the player chooses to side with, they will be given the feeling that they made the right choice, and that this character and their nation is the best answer for Fodlan. It would have been so easy to give each route a more morally grey ending, with strengths and weaknesses in each, to leave it up to the interpretation of players for what the best ending for Fodlan is, but instead, simplicity won.
3. Route Structure
Another point that strongly points to a simplistic view of Fodlan and its story comes in the fact that of the four routes in the game, only one of them actually humanizes and shows some sympathy to the empire and its war. It would have been so easy, and gone such a long way in portraying Fodlan and its conflict as more morally grey, if another of the routes was sympathetic to the empire, making it two routes with it, and two against it. This could have easily been done with the Golden Deer route, as that's exactly what happens in its route in Fire Emblem: Three Hopes. Another way of tackling this issue would have been giving players the choice of siding with the empire's war in every route, rather than only in the Black Eagles route.
However, the best way to have solved this, and my ideal version of this game, would be to have every lord be the one to start the war in their respective route, rather than it always being Edelgard. This could be done with a little bit of writing changes; have Byleth's crest lead each lord to feel more ambitious and erratic. Granted, it would mean the routes would likely be drastically different and require more development time, so I understand why it wasn't done. But it would have made the game and it's discourse generally more enjoyable.
4. The Second Half
This is a sentiment that I swear was quite common in the early release of the game, but many years later, I've seen some push back on this sentiment, which surprises me. I think that the story of Three Houses is very strong in its first half, and that the academy phase does an excellent job at setting up the world, its players and systems, and possible threats and plot threads to hold onto. However, in all four routes, the second half of the game's story is a step down in quality. Now a war is taking the continent of Fodlan by storm, and this needs to take place on top of the evolving mysteries from the first half of the game coming to fruition, in addition to many factions battling with each other, on top of possible character arcs or big reveals. To top it all off, the second half of every route is not longer than the first half, but just as long, in fact, it's even shorter than the first half in the Crimson Flower route. Couple this with the awfully simple endings, and you get a story that declines and falls apart in nearly all four routes, in my opinion at least. I really hope the next game is able to handle the second half better and prevent this rushed storytelling from taking place.
Still, I actually think the story of one of the routes works quite well, and this is part of why it's easily my favorite route in the game. I want to quickly explain why the Crimson Flower route, despite being the shortest, is actually the best paced and least rushed. My argument only works if we can agree on two assumptions. The first is, as I just said, that the second half of Three Houses is rushed, and thus the story is generally worse off as a result. This is true in each route: Claude's Almyra plotline gets dropped and goes hardly anywhere, Dimitri never confronts Those Who Slither in the Dark because of his hyperfixation on Edelgard, and Silver Snow's finale comes out of left field and feels forced.
The second assumption for my argument is that the lord of each house, their character arc, is central to the route's overall story. I don't think there's much to argue here. Your enjoyment of each route's story will be affected a lot by how much you like the lord and their character arc. They are the most prominent character in each route, thus how invested you get in them will correlate with how much you enjoy the overall story of the route.
If you agree with these two points, then here's my argument: The Black Eagles route has the best story, because Edelgard's character arc uses the first half of the story the most, and the second half the least. Think about it. Edelgard's character arc, which involves her learning to be more vulnerable and open with her emotions, and learning to trust Byleth and her fellow classmates more, plays out mostly through the first half of the game, the slower paced and character focused half. By the second half, Byleth has chosen to side with Edelgard, and Edelgard in return has chose to open up and be more trusting of others and honest with her emotions. Her character arc is basically done, so throughout the second half, the story can focus less on her own character issues, and more on the story, aka the war that is sweeping across Fodlan. This focus lets the war shine, as we see the way it shapes each part of Fodlan and question its value.
In the other routes however, a significant part of the lord's character arc takes place in the second half. In Claude's case, while he shares a similar arc to Edelgard in the first half in learning to trust and be open with Byleth and his classmates, he then has to reveal his backstory in the second half, and execute his plan to bring Almyra into the picture, while also stopping the war and finding out the secrets of Fodlan and the church's long history. It's a lot to juggle, and is why much of it feels half baked.
If Claude's route suffers from his character needs in the second half, than Dimitri is even worse. His character arc hardly progresses in the first half of the game, and he really doesn't take centre stage until the second half, when war breaks out and the kingdom starts falling apart. Dimtri's incredibly ambitious character arc must then share the spotlight with the evolving war situation, reclaiming the Kingdom back and learning of its secrets, and then stopping the war while also confronting Edelgard on a personal level. It is a lot, and is part of why Dimitri's character arc just did not work for me. It felt far too rushed and like too many parts of it worked out conveniently, with the stars aligning just so.
But for the Black Eagles route, because Edelgard's character arc primarily takes place in the first half, when its most focused on character drama in school, it works really well, and allows the second half to fully focus on the war, fleshing it out in a way that I would argue the other routes aren't able to. It explores the horrors of war, desperation it drives people to, and tragedy of having to fight former classmates better than the other routes, and this is partly because of how much more time its given to do so, since Edelgard's character arc is done.
Anyways, this is all me trying to say, I've been wondering why I have the least issues with the Crimson Flower story and like Edelgard's character arc the most, even though it's the shortest route, and this is the conclusion I've reached.
In conclusion, I want Fortune's Weave to not have a rushed story, have morally complex endings, provide players with choice, and try to address the tension between trying to adhere to Fire Emblem traditions of a simple world of black and white, and the desire to create a complex world full of multidimensional and morally grey characters. I am very curious to see how it approaches these issues, and I am certain I will reference them in my eventual review of that game, which hopefully comes out before the end of this year.
Anyways, thank you so much for reading my final thoughts to possibly my favorite video game. These characters and the world they inhabit will continue to occupy my mind for years. I hope I've been able to illustrate why I love this game, the frustrations I've run into over the years within the game, and what my hopes are going into Fortune's Weave. Until then, here's my final, personal ranking of the Three Houses characters.
Thank you, and have a wonderful day.
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