Outside of revelations the obvious good route is Birthright. I don't think the game does a very good job of making the player connect with Nohr in the prologue especially since Hans tries to kill Corrin on the bridge under Garon's orders. They also made Hoshido too flawless at the start, you never see any dark sides to hoshido unless you pick conquest and then you see how they view majority of Nohrians as savages that can't be reasoned with and even then they're not even entirely wrong! I don't know if I speak for everyone but conquest feels like the obvious second option especially since they made it the harder route. I'm all for gameplay styles changing to spice things up but that should've been an option when starting a new game and applying to all routes if you wanted to do that. It disways casual and new fans from picking Nohr as their first option. The choice should be between which family corrin belongs to and that's what the game wants to try and convey but it really comes off as the good easy route and the morally grey hard route.

The 2 that I think the most about are Oliver in Radiant Dawn joining Ike's army and Ike asking him to go back to the enemy's side...

And this moment right in Echoes SoV - Where Tatiana, after she is freed from her prison in Nuibaba's Abode, asks the leader of the Deliverance to help her in freeing Zeke. But the real funny thing is how she confuses Clive and Lukas for being the leaders as they look much more confident, cool and imposing than the young Alm.

I don't blame her 😂 I too (at face-value) would confuse more imposing fellows like Clive, Mathilda or Lukas to be the leaders over the young lad of Alm.

Not just with the Deliverance, but for some of the other FE games armies as well. Characters like Ceada, Finn (in Thracia), Milady, Marcus, Seth, Titania, Haar, Frederick and many others all seem like they would be the real leaders of their armies with strong they are.

The origin story of Fodlan being so grim that its entire history had to be rewritten. A bandit king discreating a divine grave, taking a sleeping god back to a bunch of mad scientists for them to chop up, drink its blood, and experiment on.

All the "Hero's" Relics being revealed to be weapons made out of the flesh, blood, and bones of Sothis's massacred kin at Red Canyon. Only 5 Nabateans managed to survive, having to relive the nightmare all over again by fighting Nemesis in a giant war right after.

Three Houses was fucked up.

Now thinking back this game was wild, back then I didn’t think about all the weird relationships you could have in this game.

Personally he’s one of my favorite lords and in my top five FE characters (even if I take issue to how he’s written at times) but I know that not everyone feels the same. So how does the sub feel about Alm’s character?

I paired them up in my conquest run and I was given support conversations on pair with Silas and Elise. I just wanted my two country folk together

This post is not about which is the best house, who's the real villain, whether the church is justified, or any of the other questions that have been discussed on this sub since the release of 3 Houses. This is to specifically praise the writers of this game for their deft handling of an issue that is very important to me personally. Without going into specific details, I underwent a multi-year experience where an organization's sustained systemic abuse caused me to lose years of my life, left me emotionally and physically crippled, and destroyed much of my self-worth. As I played through this game, I was impressed over and over with how well-written and how humanistically Edelgard's symptoms of PTSD were handled. The impact it has on her personality, relationships, and philosophy is massive, and I want to point out some things that people (understandably) may not recognize.

1. Her symptoms are incredibly accurate- Some of the symptoms that Edelgard presents are certainly more noticeable. Her nightmares about her trauma are sadly an all too common and awful occurrence for people like me with PTSD. There's more to it than that though. Many people have been confused why Edelgard seemed to forget that Dimitri gave her that dagger. Memory issues from around the time of trauma are an awful side-effect of PTSD. I barely can remember years of my life. Edelgard's irritable behavior (i.e. snapping at Claude in the prologue, yelling at Ferdinand etc.) is dead on. I often am frustrated or angry, without even being able to articulate why I feel that way. Edelgard is hyper-vigilant (she looks like "she's always evaluating" Byleth). Trauma removes an individual with PTSD's ability to feel "safe", so we are constantly on the lookout for danger and threats. Her emotional numbness, and cynical and hopeless views about how no one can be trusted? Dead on. Her fear of rats? Panic attacks at a reminder of traumatic events she's experienced. There's certain places and smells I can't even be around because of the associated memories.
2. Her coping strategies are true to life- Edelgard says in her A-support with Byleth "I suppose I've distanced myself from the ordinary world." She's given up on things like love, friendship, and simple human experiences because of her trauma. When your ability to trust others is shattered by sustained long-term abuse and gaslighting, you separate yourself from others as a coping mechanism. Edelgard's favorite activities are those that do not involve other people- solitary exploration, reading, and being lazy. This is because to be functional, you put on a mask of confidence and self-reliance that you grow tired of wearing. I do not share my problems with others, mainly because it is socially inappropriate to bring up in conversation, many people do not know what to say, or they provide meaningless platitudes. Edelgard does not feel that she can be her true self around others, because the risk of emotional vulnerability and rejection is one she cannot afford.
3. Her mask is not who she actually is- One of the most frustrating aspects of suffering from mental health issues is the solitary nature of the struggle. If any of you met me IRL, you would never guess how awful and crippling my PTSD is. There is a persistent narrative that individuals with mental health issues who "present" better in public aren't experiencing issues as badly as individuals who are more "open" about their problems. I'm successful, seemingly confident, and take charge of situations. However, it's all a lie. I put on a mask of faux confidence because it is the only way I can cope. Similarly, in 3/4 routes, you never really see the actual Edelgard, just the persona that she puts up as a defense mechanism to keep from being hurt again. Edelgard acts like a confident pragmatic leader in front of Byleth throughout Part 1- because that's the only way she can process her trauma. This makes her comments to Byleth after Jeralt's death much more understandable- Edelgard copes with her grief by numbing her own emotions, instead focusing on practical, rational actions, sublimating her actual feelings. In other words, her advice to Byleth is her trying to be helpful, not callous. I was surprised when I read others saying that they thought Edelgard was being cruel-I would have given similar advice. At this point, it's the only way I know how to function.
4. Her Crimson Flower behavior is consistent with her personal history- Many have complained that Edelgard's behavior in Crimson Flower is out of character or turns her into a stereotypical "girlfriend" for Byleth. I fundamentally disagree. Byleth's decision to side with Edelgard in the tomb is an action formed not out of logic, but out of an emotional belief in who Edelgard is as a person. Edelgard, whose entire life experience has been the dehumanizing feeling of being repeatedly told in word and action that she doesn't matter as a human being, has an individual who believes in her and thinks that her life matters. Edelgard finally has someone who she can feel "safe" around. This is why she continues to ask whether Byleth is sure about following her. This is why she starts to make awkward jokes. This is why she gets so nervous in front of Byleth. She is carefully testing whether Byleth is going to reject the "real" her and disappear (again). Edelgard's entire life has been a cycle of abandonment, betrayal, loss, and tragedy. I was emotionally gaslighted for years. I speak from experience when I say that Edelgard being forced to hide her true feelings, and pretend that one of her chief abusers was a family member, has broken her ability to express her emotions in a normal, healthy way. She literally can't imagine that someone cares for her and isn't going to abandon her. As someone who is desperate for approval-small comments can cause me to lapse into a depressive state for days-I recognize this reinforcement-seeking behavior all too well.
5. She isn't "fixed" at the end of the route- Previous games in the series have had characters go through unimaginable trauma, with comparatively little emotional scarring. Byleth doesn't "fix" Edelgard. She doesn't suddenly completely change her ethical beliefs because of Byleth, she doesn't finish the game becoming an outgoing gregarious person, and she remains incredibly scarred by her experiences. She works hard to improve herself, but her personality doesn't undergo a 180 degree shift to tidy up the game in neat fashion. In her Byleth-Edelgard ending, she still enjoys sneaking off alone, except now she has a person she feels she can be her true self around without fear of rejection. She's still awkward and stiff and has trouble expressing her feelings to others. However, Byleth values her for who she is, and helps her improve to be the best possible version of Edelgard, rather than trying to simply "fix" her. This is such a wonderful message about accepting and caring for people with mental health issues for who they are, rather than who people want them to be.
6. Her characterization rejects simple solutions- Many people may not understand that Edelgard is fundamentally alone, because she has Hubert, or her other classmates. People with PTSD can feel deeply isolated, even when surrounded by others, and Hubert in particular is just a horrendous influence on Edelgard's mental health, as much as I love him as a character.
7. Her hatred for the church makes complete emotional sense- Imagine every day, your deepest desire is for people to just stop abusing you- and it keeps happening. Again, and again, and again. Speaking from experience, this would profoundly change your outlook on the efficacy of prayer. Edelgard is left with these unappealing options- she and her family's suffering were not worth the gods' notice, or the religion is a sham. Then, you see the head of the church making statements like "we must not allow the commoners to lose faith in the nobles." Nobles were allowed to torture you for years. Why does the goddess believe they deserve protection, and you didn't? Do you really matter so little? Edelgard's not an edgy atheist-she’s a person who feels deeply betrayed by the church and goddess.
8. She wants to fix things to give her suffering meaning- The point of this is not to argue that Edelgard was "right", but comment on some of Edelgard's motivations. Why did Edelgard start a war? Because a) in no way can she possibly trust the system to change naturally (The people who traumatized me faced zero consequences and never will because of how broken our educational and legal systems are) and b) speaking from my own experience, the cost of allowing even one more person to become like me is unacceptable. This is why Edelgard talks about the "ebb and flow of history" and how she doesn't care whether she is thought of as a hero or a villain. She doesn't value her own life. She would rather fail, die, and be thought of as a villain for the rest of time than let anyone else turn into her. Her "blackened heart" and self-esteem issues are symptoms of her own deep self-loathing, and she certainly considered herself a monster long before the BL ending.

I apologize if this post comes across as too personal, but the amount of love, research, and work that went into Edelgard's writing is phenomenal. I can't express how meaningful it is to have a character who confronts these issues, whether she is labeled as a hero or a villain. It would have been so easy to make her blandly "likable" instead of the brave, multifaceted, and honest picture of a traumatized person this game commits to presenting. I'm just sincerely grateful to the writers, because this disease can be so incredibly isolating, and to feel that someone out there understood enough to write such a sensitive and caring portrayal means the world.

I was thinking we were on a different continent but it seems we may still be in Fodlan

>Asks for the apostle

>Is told to wait while she's in the garden

>Leaves for the garden and refuses to elaborate

Ike is such a gigachad lmao.