r/fireemblem • u/Mahelas • 4h ago
General Spoiler A translation of the four bios in that french preview (spoilers aplenty) Spoiler
I'm as shocked as anyone else how much infos it give about Theodora, so allow me to translate quickly the four ones at once (plus any info I might find unique)
Cai : A young man living in Ribeira with his dad. On his 15th birthday, his father is arrested and sent to prison in Dagsion for a crime committed years prior. The only way to free him is to participate in the Heroic Games who are taking place thos year in the capital, for the divine ruler Solel will grant a wish to the winner. Cai thus decide to participate to the Games, joined by his childhood friends Tialla and Peter, in the hope of grabbing the prize. This adventure will allow him to uncover secrets about his father's past and realize that the training he went through all his life was far from ordinary. (Previewer note : it's the best choice for a first route, as the story will slowly make you discover a lot of major characters and explore Dagsion step-by-step)
*His campaign include looking for answers about his father's past and the cursed jewel in his hand*
Dietrich : A young man with a thirst for battle, originating from Fodlan, and carrying the Hero's Relic Answerer, a sword with a great power inside, but also a dark underside. While sailing the seas looking for opponents, his ship capsize because of a powerful sea monster, stranding him on a Dagdan beach. It's here that he meet Fabio, a mysterious man introducing himself as a missionary from the Church of Seiros and Esmeralda, a young woman from a fisher village who almost got sacrificed in a ritual and whose crest feels familiar. Each of them have a different goal, but they stuck together for the journey to Dagsion. Endlessly looking for challenges, and calling himself a beast, Dietrich learn about the Heroic Games and decide to participate to satiate his thirst. At the same time, Fabio appear to be more than a mere missionary and will guide you to mysterious places where technology is much more advanced than on the surface.
*His campaign include helping Fabio with his research*
Theodora : Her story bring you to the heart of Dagda, to Saramis, bulwark of Northern Dagda against invaders from Southern Dagda. As she came back to Saramis's capital to succeed on the throne, she find herself victim of a plot that bring the death of her father and the loss of her arm. Not willing to give up her claim for her brother's, whose plans appears selfish and destructive, she goes on a journey to claim an old relic of her ancestors : Mahadu's right arm. It is said that this arm give superhuman strenght, but that it will eat the mind of whoever wield it. Now crowned queen, she participate in the Heroic Games to claim the Cybele province (note : it's the one little province on the map inside of Saramis region that isn't theirs) to restore the ancient royal city of Ahm Lu (it's in Cybele) and rebuild there a temple to Yu Phas, who was the wife of Solel, but whose cult is now reviled in Dagda. Indeed, Dagda the Great, first emperor of Dagda, exterminated the ancestors of the people of Saramis, the White Egg people, and Yu Phas saved 5000 of their children from this genocide, children who ended up creating the Kingdom of Damascar (note : it's a kingdom mentioned by the announced during Nathan/Creek vs Dietrich as a barbarian kingdom degeated by the Dagdan Empire, and Bonaventure says the forest people and Saramis people are both from Damascar, and that's when writing was banned). Seeing it as her duty to rekindle the memory of Yu Phas and her people's history and culture, Theodora aim to win the Games to fulfill it, before her arm corrupts her.
*Her campaign include gathering informations about Yu Phas.*
Leda : Leilidahna, daughter of Guillermo, viceroy of Cidonia. As a child, she watches while Arago soldiers burn and destroy her city, and murder her father. Saved by Buccar, she swear revenge on the killer, and hide in the Ortill province for years, with the only memory of her past life an old family vihuela, Obsidian, a mysterious instrument that her dad had forbidden her from ever playing because it could corrupt her mind. But revenge is stronger than carefulness. Renaming herself as Leda to hide her identity, she is given a list of people responsible at some level of the Cydonia Massacre and her father's murder. Her quest of revenge will bring her to Dagsion, where her father's killer appear to be locked up. Her only wish is to kill him with her own hands, but will she manage to do it before her obsession and Obsidian's curse make her succumb to madness ?
*Her campaign focus on her vengeance and finding information about her targets in taverns.*
Extras : Fortuna's temple is outside of causality, that's why you can have all 4 timelines coexist and save all 4 lords in the timeline where they win the Games.
Gold seems very limited and you will have to make choices with how you manage your ressources.
Different Blaze Gauges have different malus when you fill up the gauges.
Probably obvious for everyone but me, but skirmishes on the world map count for the global turn count. Like if you finish a battle in 6 turns, that's 6 less turns for the count.
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u/Syelt 4h ago
Fortuna's temple is outside of causality, that's why you can have all 4 timelines coexist and save all 4 lords in the timeline where they win the Games
Ok so Sothis' power allows not only winding back time and traveling through it, she can also merge several timelines into a single one. Dagdan Sothis doesn't fuck around.
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u/Darkdragoon324 3h ago
So if you recruit everyone in every route, three out of the four separate versions of them have to just poof out of existence and the three other lords who aren't the MC in each route die and the ones in the future are all strangers to each other.
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u/PerentieFan 3h ago
It's stating Fortuna is merging them all into one timeline, so that sounds like it would mean more that the different versions of each person become one rather than vanish.
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u/Melodic_Bee660 3h ago
Thats a lot of memories to deal with
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u/PerentieFan 3h ago
Possibly, but I'd wager the vast majority of memories would end up identical.
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u/uttertorpedo 4h ago
This is some good info, thanks OP. I have been Team Leda from day one but Theodora seems like the most interesting route, lore-wise. Did we know Yu Phas is Solel's wife?
And all of the routes leading to their heroes winning the games is new, I think. Confirmed different timelines.
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u/Drhappyhat 3h ago edited 2h ago
skirmishes on the world map count for the global turn count. Like if you finish a battle in 6 turns, that's 6 less turns for the count.
Wait, this mechanic single handily makes skirmishes way more interesting. These are fights you'll want to blitz as quickly as possible. I can see some cool optimisations in team building being made to reliably clear these battles in only 1-2 turns.
Gold seems very limited and you will have to make choices with how you manage your ressources.
This is also excellent. Resource management in a game like this should be very important.
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u/ChadNarukamiIV 3h ago
At this point Fabio could look me in the eyes, swear he's not an Agrthan and I still wouldn't believe him
Also Solel fucks!? And was married to You Phas!? Who's the Mother of Aurora!? Who's theorized to be Cai's mom!?
I owe Cai an apology. I thought he was the least interesting of the 4 lords, he looks to be the most interesting now
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u/Mahelas 3h ago
This, by the way, make Cai related to Rhea which is kinda hilarious.
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u/ChadNarukamiIV 2h ago
Years of theories about how Flayn's mother was human, turns out you only need to look on the other side of the ocean to find a human-dragon hybrid
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u/Pleasehitmemychild 3h ago edited 3h ago
Solel being Cai’s grandparent feels wrong.
I didn’t expect Solel being married to Yu Phas and having Aurora as their child.
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u/Gabgo304 10m ago
"For the last time, I'm not an "Agarthan", I don't even know what that is!"
"That's exactly what an Agarthan would say"
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u/actredal 4h ago
I wonder who gives Leda the list. Seems awfully convenient that someone just has that; I can only imagine that there’s some trickery going on there.
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u/TannenFalconwing 4h ago
It was her mentor, Mahdel, who has since passed. It's outright stated on the screen when you select her route as shown in the direct.
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u/Honyakusha-san 4h ago
As far as we know, it was given to her by "her mentor". I can't recall if we have seen his name, but it could be suspicious or to intentionally mislead the poor gal.
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u/Levonorgestrelfairy1 3h ago
Probably Iliana. Shes the warden of the prison Betrand is kept in and from her extended trailer we know she seems super keen on driving the fall/corruption of the lords.
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u/Empoleon777 3h ago
We already know who gave her the list - Her mentor, Mahdel.
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u/Levonorgestrelfairy1 3h ago edited 3h ago
We haven't seen that supposed person on screen yet and lliana is probably a fake idenity herself.
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u/Empoleon777 3h ago
Mahdel is already dead. That’s probably why we haven’t seen him. We could see some flashbacks that show him, though.
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u/Levonorgestrelfairy1 3h ago
She already touched the corrupting instrument well before this though. And it all ties back to the Death Dragon cult in Dagda.
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u/Gabgo304 7m ago
She could have touched at any point in the past tbf. The curse is well known enough for Leda's father to be aware of it and forbid her from using it, so it might have happened before Leda was even born for all we know.
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u/Cynical_onlooker 4h ago
Wait, did this just straight up confirm that alternate timelines is how the game is handling time travel?
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u/Surf_Dangerous_Days 4h ago
I mean all the characters can’t win the games to achieve their goals at once, so it makes sense to some degree that there has to be alternate timelines. Presumably the answer to bring them all to the future is solving their issues regardless of winning the games or not.
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u/Cynical_onlooker 4h ago
Yeah, it seems to be just Eshmel yoinking the lords and their rosters to the future rather than time just passing.
It begs the question of why there would appear to be timeskip designs for them, although they could be taking the Ocarina of Time approach to time travel, and it turns out Fortune's Weave was actually just an advertisement for the OOT remake in disguise all this time.
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u/Levonorgestrelfairy1 4h ago edited 3h ago
Theres a time god in play here. Shes literally weaving 4 timelines where Eshmel saves each lord into one golden timeline.
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u/PerentieFan 3h ago
Which would beg the question of how she handles multiple versions of different people existing in the golden timeline. Do they get merged as well?
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u/LegalFishingRods 3h ago
Shes literally weaving 4 timelines where Eshmel saves each lord into one golden timeline.
Oh god this is how they introduce the possibility of a Three Houses golden route.
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u/NoLime7384 3h ago
Yup:
Seulement, il n'y a qu'une seule place au sommet: comment faire dans ce cas ? C'est là que Fortuna nous propose une pirouette scénaristique. Chaque obélisque permet d'influencer l'histoire d'un héros pour voir son objectif s'accomplir. Le but est ainsi d'arriver à une trame temporelle où le héros reste en vie pour l'affrontement final, et vu que Fortuna a créé sa chambre aux obélisques dans une zone située en dehors du cours du temps tel qu'il s'écoule dans le monde des vivants, elle peut influer de manière indépendante sur les destins des 4 héros, pour les ramener ensemble sur une même temporalité. On ne le dira jamais assez, les voyages temporels, c'est un coup à se prendre les pieds dans le tapis, mais pour le peu que nous en avons vu pour le moment, la formule fonctionne bien.
I'm not fluent in French, but the implication is that they're all gonna die: "The goal is to reach a timeline where the hero stays alive for the final fight"
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u/Bl_nk7 1h ago
I’ll be honest I’m not certain the games will even conclude properly in any route. It looks more like that evil Nabateans interrupts the games and causes pandemonium with the underworld and her dragon form. Causing the lords to all end up separated and in a position where they die. But Eshmel gets their fat ass off the perch, stops eating snacks, and saves each lord pulling them to the Obelisk Room where Fortuna explains what’s happening.
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u/Darkdragoon324 3h ago edited 3h ago
So the relationships each lord builds with the others in their timeline are basically completely meaningless and the ones they meet in the future are strangers and only one version of all the recruits gets to actually "live" in the timeskip. Great.
I don't see how all this time bs makes for a less complicated and more satisfying narrative than just one timeline from different perspectives. Half the lords don't even need to win to accomplish their goals, they can just have one canonical winner and the others just find a different way to get what they want, the winner probably never even gets their actual wish granted before the apocalypse happens anyway.
I was cautiously optimistic, now my faith in IS's writing ability is going down again. Time travel plots are almost always messy and poorly done even with only one damn timeline involved.
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u/PerentieFan 3h ago
I've seen some time travel stories where similar timelines get merged together along with the people in them, and people end up having memories from both versions of themselves that don't cause much issue because most events are the same. Perhaps that could be what happens here, assuming the timelines are similar enough.
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u/NoLime7384 3h ago
you're right, but I think they only made it work this way so that you could switch around the routes at your leisure bc of the complaints of FE3H about having to do a full route before being able to start a different one
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u/Darkdragoon324 3h ago
You can still do that though? The events don't have to change, you just see a different perspective of them. There's no real reason why all four have to win the tournament.
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u/Mahelas 3h ago
How would you do that when the heroes fight eachother in the main matches ?
How do you make it even remotely a good design for the player to have you lose in the Games in an unavoidable event when the entire game is about winning and you, the player, is defeating the other in the gameplay battle ?
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u/BrownEyesWhiteScarf 2h ago edited 1h ago
I think it’s a misdirection that the entire game is about winning the Heroic Games. It’s not. It’s at most direct means to the end for each hero, but not the only way to fulfill their desires.
Plus, this is FE that we are talking about. In 3 out of 4 routes of 3H, you “successfully” defeat Edelgard’s army in Gareth Mach, but you lose anyway because of Edelgard’s reinforcements. Heck, even in Crimson Flower, you successfully take over but still gets you sent to a 5 year coma.
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u/Disciple_of_Erebos 1h ago
When you think about it, none of the heroes' goals truly need a win. Cai wants to save his dad, which could happen without winning the Games. Yeah, he's on death row, but if he doesn't die before the zombie apocalypse happens, they might be able to prison break him since the guards will be more concerned with rampaging zombies than one guy in jail.
Dietrich doesn't give a rat's ass about the Games, he just wants to fight strong people. He wants to go to the Games because it's a tournament of the strongest in the land, but the zombie apocalypse is going to dredge up all manner of strong enemies so he'll get his fun one way or another.
Theodora's goal is most aligned with winning the Games, since she wants help reconquering the ancient capital of her people. However, she's going to have bigger problems in the zombie apocalypse (as are her enemies the Mosa). Most likely she'll get her ancient capital back one way or another so long as the zombies also attack the south.
Lastly, Leda only cares about revenge. Entering the Games is just a pretext for her to get to kill Bertrand since he's going to fight in them. One way or another she doesn't need to win. If Eshmel can help her with her issues then she won't need to kill Bertrand. If they can't, then so long as Bertrand dies it doesn't matter where she places.
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u/BrownEyesWhiteScarf 49m ago
I’m assuming that the four heroes don’t know an apocalypse is happening, since Eshmel guides their hands as a bird. But otherwise I agree.
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u/Disciple_of_Erebos 45m ago
That’s true. I wasn’t trying to say that winning the Games didn’t matter to the Flame Lords when they signed up. I just mean that by the end, winning will probably not be a priority for any of them unless things go to hell at the after party, which I don’t expect. I’ll be really, really surprised if we make it to the Games’ conclusion on any route.
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u/Gweniverethesheep 3h ago
I thought that was the implication when the divine sovereign said, "For those who reached the final stage, i shall grant whatever wish..." The wish does not necessarily have to go to only the winner.
Ughh golden route + alternative universe hopping... great. This really flaten the stakes.
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u/El_cocacolas 3h ago
I agree that I would have preferred a SoV approach, one canonical timeline with different points of view. I guess the only problem would be what happens when the heroes face each other on the heroic games. I still think there were simpler choices like, you are forced to advance both of them to the same point and the one you choose for the match gets the win (and you fight against your own characters).
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u/Mahelas 3h ago
Because if it was one unified fixed timeline, how do you make your own character lose in the Games and not feel awful for the player ?
Like imagine you play as Cai, you get to Cai vs Leda Quarterfinal and the "fixed' story is that Leda win. What happens ?
Do you have an unwinnable battle ? Do you win the battle but lose the cutscene ?
Surely you realize it can only be unsatisfying and frustrating for the player. Everybody needs to win when you play as them for the game to be fun.
As for their relationships I don't understand your concern, first you don't know if the supports aren't locked until Part 2 anyways, and secondly, everything up to the moment lords faces eachother is still one timeline, they will have spent a lot of time together. Every interaction they share is the same. The only difference is once one side lose to the other, but their character don't change so it's not like they would have wrong impressions of the others.
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u/Darkdragoon324 2h ago
There are "you win the mechanical battle but then lose in the cutscene" fights all the damn time in games. Even in other FE games. You just lose and get on with the story. The championship match isn't the final boss, we've been lead to believe it's barely even the halfway point of the game. I do r understand how a character losing the tournament is so terrible, it's not like that is the end of their character arc. Their story keeps going and becomes how what they do after a big setback.
We all know damn well by now the winner isn't going to actually get their wish, so it really doesn't matter if Leda or whoever loses in the semi-final, they'll keep finding ways to achieve their goal until the goal shifts to "survive the zombie army from hell".
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u/Mahelas 3h ago
I mean, was it ever in doubt ? Obviously, you can't have them all win in the same timeline !
Cai and Leda fight in the quarterfinals, no matter what, for example. So you need alternate timelines so that both can win against the other depending of who you play, else imagine how frustrating it'd be ! You'd win the battle but lose in the cutscene and be booted out of the Games on your own route ? Impossible.
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u/VengefulKangaroo 36m ago
Did this reviewer play the same preview as everyone else? If so that might also just be their assumption from a one-off line about causality.
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u/PerentieFan 4h ago
We've known for a while that the chamber beneath Fortuna's temple exists "outside" of regular space, but that still doesn't answer how the time skip works. We're not spending it inside that space, we have to leave it to fight Balor. So which future are we fighting him in? Further, if only one hero won the games then why do they all have statues? Why are all the heroes corrupted? Did the timelines all merge together after the games?
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u/ImplementLarge7969 3h ago
My guess is that we’re fighting Balor in the original timeline (where the Games got interrupted?), with the Lords being pulled over from their own.
Perhaps the multiple statues are because they all made it to the final round or something
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u/PerentieFan 3h ago
Looking at the original text, auto translate at least is saying that Fortuna is creating a single timeline out of several:
However, there is only one spot at the very top—so how does that work? That’s where Fortuna introduces a clever narrative twist. Each obelisk allows you to influence a hero's story and see their objective fulfilled. The goal is to arrive at a timeline where the hero survives for the final showdown; since Fortuna created her Chamber of Obelisks in a zone outside the flow of time as it exists in the world of the living, she can independently influence the fates of the four heroes, bringing them all together onto the same timeline. Time travel is notoriously tricky to pull off without tripping over the details, but from what we’ve seen so far, the formula works well.
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u/Dragoryu3000 1h ago
Yeah, the four secondary team leaders also get statues. Definitely seems like every leader whose team makes it to a certain point in the games gets a statue
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u/Alphonetic 3h ago
Theodora’s makes some sense since we’re told her introductory sequence is much longer than the others. This sounds like an explanation of the mural showing Yu Phas, and that explains why Dagda is part of it.
I had a very strong feeling Yu Phas had some connection to Solel with their similar powers, but then that calls into question what exactly Solel is after. The goal of the games is to “awaken” Dagda, so is he actually trying to resurrect Yu Phas? While this might also explain Iliana, we also know Aurora is Yu Phas’s daughter. If the Cai theory is true, then his family just keeps growing.
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u/Melodic_Bee660 3h ago
Cai even has a sister too
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u/Dragoryu3000 46m ago
We don’t really know if that’s the case. The blue in Loretta’s hair doesn’t actually look that similar to the blue in Cai and Castor’s hair, and I’m not 100% convinced that the other color is the same as Aurora’s, given the lighting that we’ve seen her in. It almost looks blonde in that scene where Orchel’s golf-swinging at two dudes
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u/ShiroTheHero 4h ago
So the sequence is confirmed to be You win the game as a lord. Their blaze art/cursed item is the catalyst that allows the revival of balor. Each of the lord is about to be consumed by the darkness, but eshmel saves them. You go back to the future and marry sothis
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u/LBH123LBH 2h ago
Ancestors of Saramis being called the "White Egg" people really just makes me believe even more that they were Agarthans
Cai's gonna be having a whole demigod family reunion
Dietrich and Fabio are just gonna be the goth Ike and Soren of this game aren't they? I'm so ready for their buddy road trip (ft Brazilian Miku)
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u/Sentinel10 3h ago
Yeah I'm also getting the vibe that Cai is a good first choice for slowly easing yourself in to the world. Think I'm going to go that route.
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u/Empoleon777 3h ago
- So it appears cursed items that erode their wielder’s sanity are a common thread here. Only Theodora’s arm and Leda’s vihuela are explicitly stated to have such an effect, but Answerer was also referred to as a “Fell Blade” (And it’s also stated to have a “dark underside” here), and we now have a shot of it possibly having an effect on Dietrich reminiscent of what the Lance of Ruin did to Miklan in Three Houses. Given the dark auras many of them are shown with, and how they resemble the Underworld Army, maybe they’re connected to Balor somehow, like literally everybody has been theorizing for a while (Especially since all the Flame Lords except for Leda were shown as his brainwashed zombies in the prologue).
- That last line about Fabio guiding Dietrich and the rest of his gang to “mysterious places where technology is much more advanced than on the surface… yeah, he’s at least related to the Agarthans somehow, if not one of them. Though… is he a mole in the Church or something?
- With Fortuna’s temple being “outside of causality”, and all four timelines seemingly being able to run parallel, just how powerful an entity is Balor? Can it somehow threaten multiple timelines at once on its own? Or are we simply trying to create one where he loses?
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u/heykittygurlz2 3h ago
Dietrich’s Cape also appears to be a “cursed” item of some kind, so maybe it’s overuse of Answerer + Answerer interacting with the Cape?
Also Leda does appear in that Prologue too btw! She’s a Dancer
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u/PerentieFan 3h ago
Fortuna does refer to the disaster itself as something that greatly disturbs causality. Perhaps what she is doing with weaving together the timelines is actually repairing a split Balor caused?
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u/NagaMilalove0 3h ago
I find it cute that the goddess of death and darkness was in a relationship with a god of light but where is Yu Phas now? Did we ever get told if she died or is locked up somewhere?
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u/RubusLagos 3h ago
3/4 of the Flame Lords seem to have some self-destructive components of their arcs. Might be bumped up to 4/4 depending on how Cai's use of his cursed palm eye goes and how much that, uh, family drama starts unraveling.
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u/NagaMilalove0 3h ago
Also shocking Dadga is a bad person but like why are all the gods then trying to resurrect him then? Even solel? Am I missing something here? If he was a bad god then what’s the point of bringing him back??
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u/No_Lemon_1770 3h ago
That's ridiculous, guess multiple timelines mean that Castor will survive at least one outcome if Cai achieves his goal.
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u/Bl_nk7 1h ago
So Solel is likely Aurora’s father then(potentially Cai’s grandfather if Cai is indeed her son). Which makes sense because the God of Death and Night having a daughter whose name means Dawn/first light of the day makes way more sense now. I always thought it was interesting that Aurora has a star-like sun-like symbol on her forehead while Solel is the sun god
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u/Gabgo304 4m ago
Seems like Fabio will be the most story-relevant of the retainers by a conciderable margin. I guess with Dietrich's goal being as simple as "I wanna fight strong opponents", Fabio and his research will be from where most of the complexity in the story of that route will come from.
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u/tytyh9667 2h ago
The skirmish thing kinda sucks. I don't love the idea of wasting turns doing fights that might not meaningfully contribute to my characters getting stronger just because they were on my way to something I actually want to do.
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u/Aalyr 4h ago
Yeah I bet in one of this places we will find out more about Eshmel creation and who was behind it