A Critique on Fire Emblem Three Houses's Comically Evil Villains

the origins of those who slither in the dark is traced back to sothis's arrival to fodolin in the far distant past when she created the children of the goddess and bestowed her the knowledge to fodland's natives through these actions sothus gave rise to the highly futuristic civilization of agartha composed of humans while her children founded their own society nabataea and distributed themselves through vodalin while claiming leadership positions and even though both groups coexisted for a time the agarthans eventually grew prideful and came to resent their situation and not helping matters was that the so-called progenitor god had replaced their divine pantheon willingly or not all this culminated in them waging war against sothis and her children for this purpose the agarthans crafted pillars of light also known as giant magical missiles and while these did purge many nebutian cities they failed to damage sothis whom in retaliation annihilated most of their populace forcing the survivors to hide underground along with their remaining technology from here onwards they plotted revenge against the beasts they believed had banished them giving shape to the group's known incarnation your eyes hair ears and blood we remember it all we remember how you ruined us how you stole our light and condemned us to eternal darkness now suffer the wrath of the agoraphones their first try at revenge took place years later when the group got in contact with nemesis a human thief and led him to the holy tomb where sothus laid dormant as a consequence of rebuilding the world agartha had destroyed through their aid nemesis harvested sothis's bones to create the sword of the creator and gained her crest of flames from her blood with his new found power nemesis recruited allies and kept killing more children of the goddess to empower his forces with new crests and weapons eventually leading him to massacre xenado their last known settlement but just when it appeared the slitherers revenge had been fulfilled around a century later the combined might of the adressian empire and the church of cerros whose saints were secretly surviving nebateans challenged nemesis's rule in imperial year 32 eventually killing him in year 91. given nemesis's knowledge and weapons the church suspected someone must have been helping him and an investigation quickly took place it had ended up going nowhere as the slitherers had once again gone into hiding taking nemesis's body along with them years later those who slither in the dark attempted to destroy garrick mock monastery with a spare javelin of light but their effort was foiled thanks to the protection sothus had placed in the holy tomb redirecting the weapon into ayle and turning it into a valley of lava besides this leftovers of a document hidden in abyss raises the possibility the group was involved during the fargus rebellion of the year 747 seemingly adopting the role of benefactors by granting luge its leader the means to get soldiers without the empire's notice and even weapons similar to hero's relics it also suggests the tactician pen was linked to all of this but the nature of his involvement is unknown regardless by the time of the year 751 had arrived and the church had granted fargus its independence after defeating the empire the slitherers were nowhere to be seen around 300 years pass without any visible activity from the group which soon came to a halt as their modus operandi adopted a more direct approach in imperial year 1165 the holy kingdom of fargus had just been cured from a deadly plague by cornelia an imperial scholar seeing how beloved she became in the kingdom for her deed the agarthins seized the opportunity and silently replaced her with an impersonator of their own using their resources to replicate the scholar's appearance to a t and while dimitri the kingdom's young prince noticed cornelia had changed her personality and even likes with no foreshadowing it wasn't enough to stop king lambert from hiring her as a court mage with her newfound status the fake cornelia had not only political power in the kingdom but also control of the king's second wife on selma previous consort of emperor ionius of adristia exiled due to political strife shortly after bearing a child edelgard who was now hiding under the name patricia with cornelia's aid although she was the queen consort in truth my father and stepmother were not even allowed the dignity of being alone together and the one who persistently inserted herself between them was their intermediary your captor it was cornelia herself in 1167 house ordealia of the leicester alliance was intervened by the empire for having tried helping adrestia's house rim defect house rim now under duke iyer's control the empire's prime minister sent staff to replace the people from ordalia a witness unknowingly noticed members of the slitherers between their ranks who proceeded to perform lethal crest experiments on the house's scions while under imperial supervision with the empire monitoring our every move my parents could do nothing but watch in horror as all of this unfolded one after another the children died until the only one left was me upon seeing me the mages were delighted they realized that their experiments had finally succeeded sure enough they ran a test and saw that two crests coexisted within me by the time they got one of ordelia's kids to survive and host two crests on her body but not without compromising her lifespan the slitherers called the ordeal a success and left the area by 1171 volcard von arendelle on salma's brother fled to fargus along with his niece edelgard and hid in ferdiad to protect her when the most important imperial houses were stripping away the emperor's power during their stay not only both met lambert and dmitry word eventually reached on salma that edelgard was also in kingdom territory and seeked answers from quote-unquote cornelia who told her friend that lambert was the one keeping edelgard away from her and hiding her whereabouts causing her grief even worse was that arendelle suddenly left with edelgard to the empire one day in 1174 losing not only her chance to see edelgard again but also her brother who unbeknown to her was now being impersonated by none other than talus the boss of those who saw her in the dark and just like that cornelius sees the opportunity she had been looking for right you are very well i have an old tale that i would like you to hear if i may about something that happened 10 years ago something patricia said about how she wished to see her real daughter again no matter who or what she had to sacrifice to do so and about how i made her wish come true at the cost of the king's head in 1176 patricia took part in a collaborative assassination plot between kingdom nobles unhappy with the king's latest reforms such as viscount kleinman and agarthins to kill lambert during one of his visits with dusker while framing dusker for the regicide with cornelia even promising she would escape and meet with her daughter thus the tragedy of dusker took place only dimitri survived but not without trauma a desire for revenge and suspicions against his uncle arendelle whose last actions still roamed in his mind yet despite being the only living witness his pleas and dusker's defense were ignored and the corrupt kingdom nobles tricked the populace into genociding dusker as for anselma while evidence points out she did escape dusker the records of her movements essentially stopped there meanwhile in the empire talus under arendelle's guise contacted duke iyer and quickly established a partnership to seize power a move so shocking church officials were convinced arendelle had to have been in cahoots with the duke since the beginning with the assistance of house vestra the emperor's 11 kids were captured and the agarthans were allowed to perform crest experiments on them beneath the imperial palace aiming to give one of them the fabled crest of flames intending to use them later as a soldier slash puppet emperor to conquer all offodolin only edelgard made it through at the expense of her lifespan mental health and goodwill for foldland's crest system and the church that had long since protected it at long last the slitherers had all the pieces needed to bring their dreams to fruition and yet their puppet will soon complicate things it is the same as yours the crest of flames when it manifested for me i swore a silent oath for the sake of my family and for all the poor souls whose lives were traded from my existence for their sake i will build a world for such meaningless sacrifices never again sanctioned as emperor i will change the world i swear it determined to recover her agency and overhaul fodellin's crest system edelgard and her vassal hubert struck a deal behind duke iyer's back with half of the party involved with the imperial insurrection including those who slither in the dark while the exact details are unknown the end result would be that if successful all supporters would be pardoned duke ire and dissenters would be incarcerated purged and addressed his conquest would be led by none other than adelgard herself for this purpose she allied herself with the slitherers and used their resources to improve her odds in an all-out war all while hubert researched the group for the sake of facilitating their destruction as neither of them intended the agarthans to walk away unharmed once all was over through arendelle's aid who by now was the empire's regent edelgard had uriza one of her allies hired in garrick mock monastery in the year 1178 as a sword instructor thanks to arendelle's reputation as a church follower two years later as hubert and edelgard attended garrick mock to study and gather intel the imperial princess and the instructor assumed the identities of the flame emperor and the death knight respectively causing havoc to further their plans while collaborating with the agarthan's shenanigans whom in 1179 had placed solon a senior agent inside the church under the guise as tomas a returning librarian from ordealia territory chapter 4 marks the first instance of agarthan machinations in the main story during the western church's plot to infiltrate garrick mock's holy mausoleum both adelgard and the slitherers send support of their own forces in the form of the death knight and a dark mage hoping to steal saint saros's bones from her supposed coffin and while the plan ends up a failure both parties become aware that cyril serosa's coffin contained in reality the sword of the creator that byleth was compatible with it and was somehow capable of using its power despite the sword lacking a crest stone leaving talis lost in thought also edelgard lends the agarthans the death knight for future use in chapter 5 solon is shown in the golden deer route inducing claude's distrust of the church of seros creator other heroes also lost themselves by continuing to use the relics transforming into black beasts with twisted souls there used to be a great many records regarding the dark history of the relics it used to be they have been destroyed across all of foden stripped from their shelves including those that resided at this very library you make it sound like the church is covering up the truth but now that you mention it rhea was very specific about not wanting anyone to find out what happened at conan tower hey tomas why are you telling us all of this it seemed like you were searching for answers about the relics what is a librarian if not a guide in the search for knowledge in chapter 6 the agarthins send the death knight to kidnap flame and extract some of her blood deeming it important for their experiments bileth and company eventually find the death knight's hideout along with flame and some red-haired girl and fight the guy during the struggle edelgard shows up as the flame emperor and forces the death knight to retreat before following suit and while everyone celebrates the rescue unbeknownst to nearly all monica the girl recovered along with flame that had gone missing from garrick mock last year was in actuality a new slitherer impersonator crania who in the following months would pretend to finish monica's studies while keeping an eye on edelgard and while everyone was looking for clues in that chapter dimitri is found in the library reading about the church's donations and notices how arendell's donations suddenly stopped one day in the year 1174. then in chapter 8 arendelle end quote arrives in garrick mock and stays in the area for a while seemingly for innocuous reasons meanwhile tomas end quote leaves to remire village to begin his experiments with flames blood with their villagers but not before leaving claude a sketch of the immaculate one by the end of the month most villagers started killing each other forcing the church to act and when the crew notices tomas in the area solon removes his guise in front of everyone gloats about the success of his test and retreats which happens to leave claude conflicted about whether his goal of uncovering the truth would be for the best or not it's also worth noting that by this time most agarthins have figured out bileth is so this reborn and treat them as such in chapter 9 it's implied the slitherers lure a few students into an abandoned chapel before turning some into demonic beasts while endangering the rest a process cronia secretly supervises as bileth's class and gerald come to their aid the latter notices how the monsters have odd objects around their forehead and also turn back into students when slain before geralt reaches any conclusions though crania swoops in and stabs him in the back which bileth tries to prevent with a divine pulse but fails in chapter 10 edelgard and the slitherers have a secret union near garrick mock where talus tells kranja to stay with solon in the sealed forest as he needs her for something edelgard meanwhile threatens tulis in frustration but fails to intimidate him and while all of this happens the blue lion's root shows dimitri eavesdropping the whole thing and due to the choice of words used ends up convinced that edelgard ordered the agarthans to cause the tragedy of dusker later in the chapter the church finds the slitherers in the forest and sends byleth with their class to deal with them crania shows up and reveals her true form threatens to kill them all is instantly outmatched and then flees to ask sullen for help who quickly sacrifices her much to her shock through cronia's sacrifice solon banishes byleth into a void of dark magic tasting bittersweet victory what happened to our professor they were swallowed by the mystical darkness of the forbidden spell an eternity wandering in a void of nothingness never to return to this world to think we almost had the sword of the creator to solon's dismay though fileth soon breaks free from his spell through fusing with sothus becoming stronger than ever before putting him down for good then in chapter 11 edelgard's coup against duke ire goes off without a hitch successfully becomes the emperor and subsequently infiltrates the holy tomb with the imperial army to steal the crest stones so the agarthans can make demonic beasts for her upcoming fight with rhea from this point onwards the game timeline branches out affecting the status the slitherers will find themselves in if bileth supports adelgard she foregoes her original plan and softens the church's forces with a conventional invasion using her own military force thus leaving the agarthins in the sidelines and while this does lead to a victory it also means she isn't equipped with the means to fight rhea in her dragon form leading to her escape in the kingdom rhea and the church are quickly granted asylum by dimitri while reya officially crowns him king and both parties form a unified front against adrestia meanwhile the agarthans continue supporting the empire by providing troops and demonic beasts it isn't enough to break the war's stalemate until bileth returns five years later later in hubert's paralog arendelle talis approaches hubert and asks him to help with saving a few minions that were doing experiments in the sealed forest once that's over hubert notes how his request was likely a means for the slitherers to intimidate the empire yet their success ultimately compromises the agarthing's odds in chapter 16 edelgard coordinates with her black eagle strike force a secret attack against the kingdom in fort aryan road for the sake of killing two birds with one stone as not only the operation would weaken fargus but also the slitherers as cornelia resides on that fort once the strike is done arendelle visits edelgard and demands answers as cornelia had planned to sabotage the kingdom before her demise and after refusing her excuses he leaves all the while having already sent javelins of light to blow up aryan road as revenge edelgard and her inner circle are taken by surprise but quickly play around the dilemma by framing the church for the attack instead in chapter 17 by proxy of the abyssal document it's implied the crest stones the kingdom army uses against the empire originate from way back when the agarthans helped luge archive fargus independence a popular theory states that this essentially alluded that dimitri's thirst for revenge and potentially his survival of the tragedy of dusker was intended and that the slitherers were capitalizing on it but in saying this this is a theory and not proven as we're never actually sure if dmitry was intended to survive the tragedy or not the garthan's last story appearance in crimson flower is in the endgame as arendelle shows up to watch the final battle against rhea from the sidelines he suggests edelgard to pursue the world conquest later down the line but she refuses and in the end both parties make clear they'll keep working together for a bit longer up until their interests no longer align afterward the epilogue and multiple character endings confirm the empire's fight with the agarthins was handled in secret and sometimes after reyes fall eventually bringing them down in shambhala their headquarters and that is just one of the potential outcomes as for the paths where edelgard is left on her own she ends up going with the original plan of deploying demonic beasts for her invasion of garrick mock at a certain point she calls forth reserve troops forcing reya to transform into a dragon to fight them off but is soon ambushed and overwhelmed by those who slither in the darks demonic beasts and while bileth tries to help rhea talis seizes the chance to blast byleth into a canyon and render them missing in action thus securing the win rhea is then captured in secret and jailed below enbar's imperial palace with edelgard planning to use her as insurance against the slitherers in the future edelgard also grows colder and harsher stripping house ire of all of its power and privileges including duke iyer's right to manage the hrim territory as a result arendelle talis takes over his role and uses it to impose harsh taxes on its citizens while killing anyone that refused conscription all under duke iyer's name and since the duke's previous management of rim had already been bad for the citizens once he finally escapes from his house arrest and seeks help in hrim well the following occurs meanwhile in fargus cornelia takes advantage of the chaos by killing rufus the kingdom regent and frames dmitry ford claiming his desire for vengeance likely convinced him of the rumors that rufus had taken part in the tragedy of dusker de due's intervention saves his liege at the last second from execution but cornelia keeps the illusion dimitri had died anyway and with fargus royal line seemingly gone cornelia seizes power forms the fargus dukedom and capitulates in favor of the empire while squeezing her territory's resources dry leaving the kingdom weakened against adrestia and with few houses providing resistance azer moon upon regaining his senses and committing himself for his people as atonement dmitry directs his troops and the church's forces to reclaim fargus in chapter 18 and defeat cornelia on her death bed corneli reveals to dimitri just to spite him of his stepmother patricia's involvement with the tragedy of dusker and while dimitri is understandably skeptical of her words at first cornelia unintentionally defuses all of the anger dimitri had attributed to adelgard for the tragedy five years past in chapter 19 dimitri tells bileth he had long since suspected arendelle was involved with the tragedy of dusker due to his sudden change of behavior back in ferdiad and he had used his time in garrick mock to research his actions further later on the kingdom helps claude's force fight off arendelle's imperial troops in deirdre and after he's defeated dimitri demands him the answers he's been seeking from him uncle i need to know the incident nine years ago you were involved weren't you you know something what did cornelia no what did my stepmother do you are not qualified to look into the darkness you an edelgard do your best to kill each other you are family after all finally a few slitherer troops are seen supporting edelgard's last stand against the kingdom and should the squad's leader end up defeated all of his soldiers quickly escape from the battle believing risking their end goal isn't worth it verdant wind and silver snow in what's implied a coordinated effort between adelgard and the slitherers in chapter 17 18 a javelin of light is sent towards fort mercius as biloth and claude infiltrate the fort in an attempt to defeat the empire's opposition in one fell swoop the plan fails because of the fort's commander the death knight lures the enemy out of the area on what essentially is a whim the gangs certainly rattled by the missiles at first but quickly recovered their composure shortly after in the next chapter during the surprise invasion of envar a few agarthan troops can be seen deployed to aid the empire's counter-attack all of which vanish once edelgard is finally killed before the gang declares victory though a soldier gives them a letter from hubert who posthumously tells them there is still unfinished business left with those who slither in the dark gives them the coordinates of their headquarters obtained through the missile they used chapters ago and also reveals where reya is being kept in the palace so they can do something about it and per the monastery dialogue cornelia straight up vanishes upon knowing the empire fell and is never heard from again q chapter 20 21 and bilath and claude invade shambhala catching the slitherers off guard talus deploys every resource available to get rid of them but ends up defeated as a last resort he summons multiple missiles to kill everyone before the debris crushes him and while in silver snow this is the last time the agarthans show up the wounds reya suffers from tulas's missiles play a factor in the dragnet generation that overcomes her at the last minute and turns her into the final boss by comparison in verdant wins endgame nemesis awakens in shambhala's catacombs after its destruction and marches to garrick mock along with the replica hero relics and an undead army all but stated to have been reanimated by the agarthans to get his payback on seros when the alliance intercepts his forces similar to azer moon's final battle a few slitherers are found providing reinforcements that can also be made to flee just by killing their commander on a closing note despite these three routes directly dealing with those who slither in the dark one way or another a few character endings mention the group still survives and does try causing trouble many years later before being defeated yet again given everything we've reviewed there are many aspects from the agarthan's history that stand out in the context of three houses backstory agartha's beef with sothus and her kids began for relatively grounded reasons before their descendants devolved it into a millennial xenophobic revenge quest they are responsible for building fodland's current landscape first by literally blowing up stuff in their battle with sothus later through instigating nemesis's lust for power which genocided nearly all nabataeans and third by helping fargus splitting the empire the gang has tried taking over fodolin at least three times before the main plot there are gaps of history in which we have no clue what they were doing their impersonation shenanigans are from what we know a recent development after their fall from grace their overall plan of action has consisted in acting as someone else's benefactor and or latching onto nearby conflicts to reap the benefits their involvement with the empire and kingdom helped consolidate edelgard and dimitri's motivations in the present finally the group's interest on cerros's alleged bones and later the sword of the creator early in the story is intriguing in hindsight in three houses edelgard is the only lord whose lineage in universe lacks a relic slash regalia synergistic with her crest and not only both the sword of the creator and a relic forged from saros's remains would have been perfect for her in different circumstances her part two weapon the emir is low key stated in its description and by the ore needed to repair it to be an agarthin creation built for her and her alone things get interesting if we talk about the agarthance's purpose in the main narrative though mostly because they serve as secondary antagonists as a whole getting three chapters of focus pre-time skip two in azer moon and one inverted wind silver snow their actions in part 1 lead to gerald's death and byleth fusing with sothus meanwhile crimson flower uses them to explore the nature of their alliance with the empire in azermoon they help explore the tragedy of dusker subplot and inverted win silver snow they set up each route's final boss without bileth's support the group provides edelgard the means to take rheya out of the war and massively weaken the kingdom three house's lore and background information is honestly freaking incredible for better or worse it is hidden behind text random exchanges of dialogue biased library entries dlc library entries and so on there are no neutral unbiased narrators here and the truth to everything that happens in this world lies in the middle between every one of these narrators it's difficult to really form a strong opinion on the slitherers because information on them is so fragmented throughout the game but the last like 5 000 words served as a history of the agarthins who are pushed underground from their battle against sothis the original agarthans and those who slither in the dark are different the agarthans were simply the humans before sothus and her children arrived the slitherers are agarthans yes but more accurately the agarthans who had to go into hiding after their failed attempt at destroying sothus her children and the nebatean cities with the first javelins of light ever launched on record these first agarthans did in fact destroy cities did in fact kill nebateans but failed to anything more recalling back to this the land of thinness where the old gods are said to live the false god has awakened its looming heteromorphic vessel was resurrected to sink the world to the depths of the ocean it will bring extinction to all children of men and salvation to all beasts of the land sky and sea for the children of men who spilled too much of the blood of life it promises only cruel retribution while the author is unknown it is clear this comes from a living agarthin from before the slitherer era the author prophesized a cruel retribution in other words they are anticipating sothus's retaliation against her children and cities from the agarthans trying to figure out why the agarthans even wanted to kill sothis is a bit of a headache as this is a significant missing piece to the history of the continent all we know is that sothis arrived with her children unannounced and for a time shared her knowledge with the original humans until they grew frustrated and resentful towards her what would that actually look like would be nice to know because reya will tell you that humans misused this knowledge given to them and started to go to war with each other grew too prideful and turned their backs on sothis but the agarthans will tell you that sothus the false god the fell star the omen of disaster will ruin the land whatever symbiosis that was there had been lost and they saw her as their enemy were the old agarthan beliefs driven out was sothus's rule oppressive was there some ancient colonialization going on it could very well have been but while incredibly mighty were not enough they were absolutely screwed at this point with their nukes their best chance to read sothis of their world was gone hopeless defeated and wanted the remaining surviving agarthans retreated underground never to be heard from again until nemesis i'll be super honest everything these slitherers do is really cool all of their important historic moves after this point recruiting nemesis to sneak into sothis resting place to kill her steal her remains drink her blood to inherit the crest of flames craft her bones and heart into the sword of the creator then get nemesis to destroy nebatean cities kill more nabataeans get more weapons then to nemesis recruiting who would become the 10 elites and all of this culminating into the war of heroes where nemesis would lose is honestly genius even if their goal failed the slitherers took a huge w here when considering that revenge against sothis was their initial goal after going underground all of the moves that followed almost had them win against nabataea and the surface world for a second time were it not for the formation of the adressian empire to ally with the church of cyros to fight nemesis's army including the elites and their super weapons the consonant would have been completely different these slitherers just lost that war essentially fair and square but the formation of fargus and the splitting of the empire could only have been possible after they intervened and helped luke's rebellion fargus is one of if not my favorite region in fire emblem ever to think about for this reason pan the mysterious tactician is a huge question mark in all of this but i like to think that pan is really something like talus's predecessor pan was instrumental in providing weapons and soldiers to luke to make him capable enough to split from the empire the formation of fargus and by consequence the weakening of the empire and the church of cyros was a huge win in the slytherin's history it also continues the pattern of how the slitherers operate they latch onto a greater power and push towards their goals they recruit nemesis to spearhead an army against seros now they embolden luge by giving him a fighting chance against the empire and eventually talus would follow suit with edelgard creating a weapon to contest the church essentially nemesis 2.0 the slitherers honestly kick ass as a competent anti-church group they're smart calculated and successful all the while continuing to elude their beast overlords from figuring out where they are and even better who they are the modern slitherers talis solon cronia and cornelia they all have their positive and negatives the best place to start with assessing and giving an opinion on the current era of slitherers is starting with the tragedy of dusker and focusing on tolus's major moves i overall think the tragedy of dusker was a smart move to disrupt the country they had historically helped form in the past cornelia had already infiltrated the kingdom and had a lot of power to make decisions this would become even more prominent now that lambert was gone and with dusker taking the blame for the regicide the slitherers once again got off scot-free the one thing that annoys me about the tragedy was dimitri's survival in my edelgard video i ran with the theory that dimitri's survival was intentional on tolus's part as it would give him an heir to the throne whose vendetta could possibly be used in the long term in case the slitherers could stand to benefit from another war between the empire and the kingdom in hindsight i really should have either been more clear that it was strictly a theory or should not have mentioned this at all it was a minor point in the grand scheme of the dimitri section of that video and it was only like two minutes out of a over two hour video but i feel like i must mention this here as some took it to discredit the rest of the section and at worst would be understandably distracted or confused it's the one thing of that whole video that i regret but hey what can you do you live and you learn because really dimitri surviving is just a thing that happened the story justifies his survival by saying that gilbert made it just in time to mend his otherwise lethal wounds this would make it just an unfortunate accident in the tragedy that instead of rectifying by talus killing dimitri later talus would just deal with it later or use it to his advantage don't get me wrong dimitri's accidental survival is something i find very silly if it was unintentional i don't know how a young defenseless boy ends up being the last kid standing sees his father beheaded in front of him then gets attacked afterwards but the slitherers neglect to make sure the prince one of the most important pieces in this scheme to actually kill is foreshore dead i've heard theories that his crest procked and that made him survive but even then keeping dimitri around has no known strategic benefit to talus unless he adapts and make it beneficial but we never know either way nothing about dimitri's survival intentional or not is satisfactory nor is it fully backed by in-game evidence if you go with the theory that demetrius survival was intentional the evidence rests on certain interpretations of adelgard's words after dimitri dies in crimson flower and arendelle's exchange to dimitri after he defeats him in azer moon but also relies on the possibility that arendelle could have predicted dmitry would aim to discover that he was a suspect in the tragedy years later into his adolescent years so as to spark an international conflict between himself addressed he is regent and his nephew the king of fargus and have the slitherers be the benefactor of that conflict like they historically often do and while that reality would have been insanely cool and make tulas look even more of a supremely evil genius there's just not enough confirmation to back it and this could have honestly very well have been a short-sighted writing decision that would frustrate me and a small handful of 3h loreheads years later another theory brought up around tholas is his supposed time wizard powers versus bileth when she attempts to save geralt many people interpret this interruption upon bilat's strike at monica as him being able to stop her time manipulation but that is simply not the case in reality talus didn't reverse the time travel he was just always there overseeing monica's mission in the church and when he saw that bileth wanted to kill monica he simply interrupted he didn't appear the first time because he didn't need to as bilath didn't attack monica this for better or worse just makes talus into an otherwise normal villain without anything terribly remarkable about him besides that he's an evil genius but it does make me wonder if this time wizard theory about talus could actually have some truth to it in three hopes maybe that purple-haired dude is a time wizard with the help from whoever is this white-haired maybe god person dragon kid to contest sothis who knows it's fun to think about though tullis is otherwise fine as a villain in most routes he does typical slitherer leader things in silver snow and vernon wind gets killed in azermoon but in my opinion is worse in crimson flower the slitherers and their ancestors the surface agarthins all have one major flaw that often screws them over and tullis is no different hubris crimson flower features the first explicit inexcusable by the church betrayal of trust by edelgard in which she decides to divert herself and the black eagle strike force to aryan road to not only seize the silver maiden for strategic purposes but also to kill cornelia one of the highest ranking members of the slitherers this act directly tells talis that edelgard the weapon he created for the purpose to serve his ambitions against seros and the church is not completely under his control and is willing to act on her own interests and against that of the agarthans and also that edelgard is willing to kill the slitherers that get in her way despite their apparent alliance and in a very rash and short-sighted response arendelle launches javelins of light onto aryan road as a show of force attempting to intimidate adelgard so as to warn her to never betray him like this again narratively this and also tolus's condescending behavior and treatment of hubert and edelgard in hubert's paralog are both failures in his attempt to intimidate and keep them in line and exposes tulsa's weaknesses pride the agarthans's downfall just like before will be their conceit they think they're the greatest beings on earth the notable slitherers all show complete contempt for service humans going as far as to call them beasts but the constant underestimation of every single one of them not named bileth screws them over talus launching the javelins easily the greatest resource to even the playing field against seros the other nabataeans and virtually every army ever is wasted on essentially a flex and like in the paralog it backfires arendelle ends up showing his hand to edelgard exposes his trump card and now in some unexplainable way hubert can track their location to their base it was the stupidest thing arendelle could do and it makes me not like hollis as a villain anymore the tragedy of dusker besides the weird dimitri fate thing was cunning and for the most part worked replacing lord arendelle at the perfect time was a power move to gain control of the empire's elite and allow him to go through with the slithery experiments on edelgard and her siblings spending his time in the church to oversee solon and crania's tasks in garrick mock paid off by rescuing monica from bileth coming up with the plan to seal byleth away the sword of the creator or not showed situational awareness and indicated that talus was operating under a sense of urgency in crimson flowers war phase as edelgard was growing rebellious and uncontrollable he maintained his distance and didn't get involved in her actions the tallest we come to know is like this era's pen constantly making rational well-thought-out moves and even though hubris is a recurring motif for the agarthins hubert's paralog which in fairness is optional captures arendelle's hubris while also continuing to make him out to be a frustratingly clever and elusive enemy to edelgard that she must cooperate with the main story the unavoidable and unmissable act of launching the missiles serves the same narrative motif but at what cost it contradicts everything tulas has done in the story i know it's easy to critique characters actions because we look at the acts of a character from the outside looking in but tulas is like a cold unfeeling sociopath my dude impulsiveness and irrational behavior doesn't ever follow his mo was it just a cheap and easy means to set up an epilogical ending where shambhala falls in the shadow war probably i guess it's the only way hubert can locate their lair for that invasion to even happen in crimson flower to me it strikes me as a foolish and uncharacteristic move that attempts to serve motifs of the slitherers but is executed in an at-best questionable way so then what would be the alternative here well i'm not a professional writer but i do have some thoughts i have two takes on this number one and most importantly why react at all the agarthans usually play the long game biting their time for revenge i don't see how tallest couldn't just remember what edelgard did and use it against her later dropping the javelins on them in their potential war after edelgard wins against the church and unifies the continent or to attempt to assassinate her or hubert in the future would all be actions in line more with tulsa's schemes but if you wanted to run with the failed attempt at an intimidation at the expense of valuable resources i would honestly just repurpose hubert's paralog altogether hubert's paralog serves to expose tulus's overconfidence and underestimation of edelgard by getting her to help the slitherers control demonic beasts but what about repurposing the beast thing and just have tallest sick demonic beasts on aryan road what about opening up hubert's paralog only after this chapter this also exposes tulus's retribution against adelgard who with the context of never actually having to fight the slitherers beast in crimson flower would be some show of force by tulus with the intent to flex on how powerful the slitherers are remember that intimidation was the exact flex talus tried to pull on edelgard anyway in that paralog sure it's not as scary as nuclear missiles but at least you keep your trump card a secret but in any case like i just mentioned i think the smartest thing dallas could do would just be to wait sure he could react negatively and condemn edelgard when they talk in aryan road but he could also just threaten some form of talus will remember this if you catch my drift but of course this would also require a resolution to talus which we also don't get in crimson flower anyway except for the epilogue whatever moving on talus is a letdown in my opinion and it's especially disappointing because i genuinely think he could have been one of the more memorable villains in the series as a whole but different routes showcased variously unfortunately disappointing end notes for the guy in silver snow and verdant wind he's not really a presence at all and appearing at the very end not having much of any relevant connection to anyone not even bilath in azermoon he's dead before most players even know what the is happening or who he even is and in crimson flower where i think he's his best he's forced to act in a weirdly unslithery way that i personally don't like for the sake to serve a narrative which would be more forgiving but he's a victim of this game's treatment of their shadow war being epilogue content so yeah similar but different criticisms can be laid to the slitherer's other relevant characters cronia solon and cornelia cronia is universally thought of as a giant missed opportunity and gone too soon but i'll be honest i never really thought this she served her purpose as a flunky to tallis and was integral to push the plot towards bilas ascension she is otherwise an irredeemable comically evil slitherer but she serves her purpose as a villain everything she does is executed well she successfully frames dimitri for the murder of rufus she controls fergus for as long as she can until she's caught by surprise by dimitri's return and in silver snow and verdant twin just escapes with her life intact never to be seen again she doesn't really ever make mistakes on her own accord solon in my opinion is the best villain here and in some ways he's better than talus solon is very smart and one of my favorite villains in this game or perhaps my favorite actually i'd argue he was the best at actually concealing his identity in fairness he was a simple librarian but considering that he is a slitherer who one in disguise did not raise any eyebrows whatsoever to the church staff namely seth he fully embraced tomas's kind and benevolent behavior when you look in contrast monica was noticeably suspect and seemed unknowingly hard to keep in line by edelgard and hubert arundel and cornelia had noticeable personality changes the latter even having been acknowledged by random soldiers to add on to this his actions towards claude by giving him clues to his investigation into the church to fuel suspicion and distrust within him also succeeded it's a moment that i don't think is talked about enough because unbeknownst to claude a slitherer was helping him this entire time i especially like the whole spell of zahara's thing he executes the ritual for the spell flawlessly i appreciate him acknowledging that they lost the sword of the creator in the process and you can really tell this was a bittersweet moment for him but in this moment solon actually won it wasn't until the sothis bileth merger and their ascension that foiled his plans but weren't not for that solon just changed the course of history in fodolin really being the savior of all it's pretty crazy to think about i've seen criticism online that the slitherers left a lot to be desired and that they were wasted potential and they weren't characters so much as simply plot devices and to an extent i can see where these complaints come from there's only four noteworthy slitherers in this game and two of them cornelia and talis have different fates depending on the root as for wasted potential in my opinion i would levy this at talus for the reasons i already mentioned cornelia's purpose was pretty cut and dry and i honestly don't mind that she up and vanishes in silverstone inverted wind cronia and solon yes are plot devices and they're both very short-lived and are meant to push the story along but like they're early game villains so i think their role and fates are defensible enough as a general criticism with these slitherers with a face and a name none of them are at all redeemable they're like all evil spiteful and as condescending as can be the only person who like semi-breaks this is crania at the very end when she reaches out to biloth begging for them to save her but outside of that they're all pieces of with the exception of lycithia and crimson flower there is not a single enemy recruitable character in this game and even she's a weird case along with ash and lauren's since they're like recruitable already in the academy phase so i'll actually rephrase this there is not a single recruitable character that came from the enemy faction nor a recruitable that has an affiliation with the slitherers this severely compromises any further understanding of agarthin culture motives history or anything consider other characters that were closely affiliated with enemy groups and how their characterization served to provide a greater understanding of the enemy because of it or at the very least showed that not all enemies you are fighting are irredeemable whether it's someone like renault in blazing sword a late-game bishop character with a personal history with nurgle himself and helps to provide more information behind morphs nino is a recruitable enemy in fe7 who narratively assists in humanizing nearly all the four fangs salem a former lopdo priest who abandoned the church and went on the run showcased that not all lopter enemies are simply child hunting zealots and they don't even need to be recruitable mustafa is a throwaway enemy character or an awakening lasting one chapter but is incredibly popular for being redeemable and showing the player that not all plagians are of the same mind without a nevar or a camus even the slitherers are just generic evil bad guys without any room for nuance or reasons to be cared or remembered imagine being as bad as the douma faithful but actually worse on the count of not having a halcyon equivalent character can you imagine how sick it would be if you recruited a slitherer who started not to buy the misinformation being fed to them from talus a slitherer who escaped shambhala and wanted to explore the outside world and we got supports from that character we could have learned more about the notable slitherers the culture of agartha past what we are told how they were able to advance their technology so past beyond fodlands what if crania was like relatively grounded instead of a psycho clown murderer could she have offered a more sympathetic angle to look at the slitherers what if there was simply an npc like halcyon that could have indicated the slitherers weren't all bad sadly no such character exists and it makes this entire group generically evil which is legitimately not normal for this series at all i've gone on long enough i do think there are a lot of good cool things about this organization but the tallest era slitherers especially tallas himself could have had more to them as this game's group of antagonists i do have hopes for three hopes i don't know what direction the antagonists will be taking in that game but i do wish the enemy faction to have more substance to them than in the original timeline well everybody that will do it for today's video it was a huge essay on the slithery boys and girls of fodlin and if you enjoyed and are still watching please comment down below your take on these mole people your engagement with this video will help boost it in youtube searches and that means more people can potentially see this sick content and if you haven't subscribed yet but this video has shown up in your recommended feed please subscribe this channel is dedicated to fire emblem content and we'll be covering more three houses and general fire emblem stuff in the future just like it always has been the channel also just hit 92 000 subscribers and now it's only 8 000 away from that elusive plaque every subscriber counts with that all being said folks thank you so much for watching and i hope you have a good rest of your week deuces [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Faerghast

Views: 135,138

Keywords: fire emblem, fire emblem three houses, fire emblem 3h, fe3h, fe3h analysis, fire emblem three houses ost, fe3h ost, fe3h cutscenes, fire emblem edelgard, dimitri, claude, byleth, fire emblem heroes

Id: 7qk0rD4D1QE

Length: 48min 54sec (2934 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 02 2022

Reddit Comments

[u/XNumbers666]

Made me realize how absolutely amazing the slithers did in lore before the main game events. Where were these guys!? Also it would have been cool story-gameplay synergy if the slithers could disable times pulse in their chapters.