It's still wild to me that Rhea just lets the pagan alter be there in abyss. Imagine you went to the Vatican and the pope himself was like "hey we got a Buddhist shrine in the basement if that's your thing. Don't tell anyone tho"

If anything, I like how Abyss retroactively explained just what was up with Jeritza's super secret underground hideout in Chapter 6, 'cause, like, Flayn and the Fake Monica being held in an incredibly elaborate underground maze located just below the monastery just... goes unexplained in the main plot.

Catherine-Dedue support in FE3Hopes makes clear Rhea isn't necessarily against other faiths. Having a pagan altar in the Abyss is odd but considering it's hidden from the public eye, well yeah I can see Rhea allowing it as long as it doesn't tarnish the reputation of the Church.

“We’re here to peel back the layers of mystery surrounding Abyss.” So we’re here for an Abysstery?

Abyss has a ton of mysteries left unsolved, but the biggest one to me is that one old man who claimed to have witnessed the original Javelin of Light strike against Garreg Mach that got redirected to Ailell. This implies he's at least 1000 years old, and we have no indication of what Crest he may have, if any. Also, I don't think the Mysterious Professor is the same guy who Byleth replaced because the latter went AWOL, and the former was let go a few years before, if I remember.

Abyss' music is the most calming thing ever. Wish more stuff happened there.

I think the implication is that Rhea doesn't know about the Shadow library or its contents. The books and manuscripts are either salvage spy reports or have Seteth's signature. A lot of those books were probably still in the library until Seteth showed up like twenty years ago.

I imagine that the Abyss to Rhea/Church of Seiors is in similar vein to how brothels were for medieval/early modern churches. They don't exactly like that they exist, but most of the time just turn the other way about it. Abyss is a place that contains the bad aspects of society (criminals, heretics, etc.) and protects the good, Goddess-abiding members from them. Rhea best maintains control by letting them feel like they are safer and happier inside Abyss than out.

I wonder where Aelfric was during the events of Three Hopes? Hapi even name drops him during one of her supports with Shamir.

Cindered Shadow's story may be nothing to write home about, but it's gameplay was honestly some of the most fun I've had with Fire Emblem to date. Great map design and objectives (except that damn forest map with the three keys) and some real challenge on Hard.

6:41 props to the voice actress putting her all into dialogue 99% of players will never hear.

Personally, it isn't (only) for tolerance and to protect innocent people that Rhea maintains Abyss, but for control. There're always marginalized people, and they're often a source of chaos or change. So offering them a shelter, if possible secure (Aefric and the Ashen Wolves) but leaving them enough free in this shelter (pagans, library), is a good way to isolate them away from problems, including the ones they can create. Especially if this shelter is actually your basement (so if they start become too cocky, just purge it, nobody will know), thus you keep the status quo to your advantage.

My favorite thing if the abyss is the secret library you unlock it after the timeskip. A lot of the implications of those books is really interesting and it fits with the music.

It would’ve been amazing if you could go to Abyss in Golden Wildfire so Claude can actually get some evidence as a basis for his claims against the church

14:50 The pagan altar and such could be allowed by her, as a small pocket for those other beliefs, so she doesn't have to execute everybody. Give them a small outlet, so you don't have even more enemies. As long as they stay out of the way on the surface, they can have their little place there. Having a known location for these things, might also allow her spy on it more easily to watch if it goes out of control. If she would not allow that outlet, such altars might be constructed anyway, but elsewhere where she has less insight & power over what's going on. At least that's how I read Hapi's "needs this place to function" line. It's *a controlled outlet* to avoid uncontrolled ones. It's also possible that Rhea sometimes needs to hire some people outside the law herself.

I think the reason why Shamir is allowed to be a Knight of Seiros despite being a non-believer comes down to a few things. During the Dagda-Brigid War that took place about five years prior to the story a mercenary that Shamir had the hots for died and she was left for dead when they were repelled by Leopold von Bergliez. She traveled Fodlan and probably collapsed somewhere near Garreg Mach from exhaustion caused by her wounds and avoiding the detection of the Imperial army. Rhea took her in and after she was fully recovered she signed on to be a knight to repay a personal debt she feel she owes to the Archbishop. So the first reason is that Shamir is willingly working for Rhea to repay a personal debt. So then we have the practical reason to keep her in the knights, Shamir is one of the deadliest assassins and best snipers in the lore of Three Houses. Why get rid of someone who can avoid detection and take out a potential threat to the peace of Fodlan/your power as easily as one drinks water? It makes no sense. And many of the knights and students speak very highly of Shamir's skills as a warrior and since part of the duty of the Knights of Seiros is to teach the next generation of elite soldiers she can pass on those skills to better bolster the defenses of Rhea's potential allies. I mean Shamir in Scarlet Blaze snuck past most of the Imperial Guard, which is praised as being one of the best of the units on the continent, avoided detection by Hubert, and nearly killed Edelgard, which she might have done if Shez hadn't blocked that arrow after catching sight of her. So basically Shamir is one of Rhea's best fighters even if she doesn't actually fight up close and personal and if she got rid of her for her differing beliefs she would be losing a lot of military strength. Finally is Rhea is actually very tolerant towards other's beliefs. Cyril in his B-support with Byleth said that even though he isn't a believer Rhea is actually okay with it saying that he should only worship Sothis if he shows an interest in doing so and he has said that he hasn't since his time at Garreg Mach. Even in Three Hopes Rhea says to Catherine to not push her beliefs onto Shamir despite Catherine saying that if anyone other than Shamir had said as much blasphemous things as she did in their B-support she would have cut her down in Three Houses. Even with Almyra's constant antagonistic actions towards Fodlan she doesn't tell them to launch a counter invasion, Dagda either. In fact most subjugation in Fodlan comes from the orders of the nobility rather than her, Rhea is more of an isolationist preferring to keep a certain distance from neighboring lands through simply allowing merchants the ability to buy and sell. So it wouldn't really fit her personality anyway, she really only takes offense to others beliefs when it shakes the peace of Fodlan like with the Western Church and the can of worms that opened up.

You forgot to mention Yuri's catchphrase " Let's go Wolves"

If nothing else, at least it gave the world "Shackled Wolves", one of the best music tracks out there.

The pagan altar makes sense being there. Cyril and Shamir are both nonbelievers who work for the church. The library is the only thing there that doesn't make sense. Not only that but why hasn't anyone in abyss said anything about the books to surface dwellers?

You misunderstand Rhea. Whatever happens in the Abyss is irrelevant to her goals. She's been alive for a millennia and knows full well that not everyone is going to accept Sothis. She is fine with this, and she's fine with outsiders in Fodlan too. For instance, both Shamir and Cyril are Seiros staffmembers at the church. You think Rhea cares if everyone worships Sothis? Why would she? You think she sees Dagda's idol as a threat? The small coven in the abyss is not equal to the western church's influence. You must be joking. When Christianity reigned in the Roman Empire, do you believe every statue or idol was destroyed? We still have statues of ancient gods in Europe. Rhea just wants Sothis revived. I dont think Rhea has any stake in the future of humans- like, at all. Rhea is strong enough on her own to wipe out the entirety of the Abyss before lunchtime 100 times over.

I think the line about Rhea and the church “needing a place like Abyss to thrive” was being figurative. Thinking further on it and the types of people who live there, I think Abyss is probably a representation of Rhea’s guilt about making the world the way it is, ie letting crestbearers run roughshod over the populace because they are effectively untouchable, etc. While I don’t think she would actually change anything if it got in the way of her goals, I do think she feels bad about it. So having a weird underground area that she can send victims of circumstance to sort of fits to me.

I've always loved the inclusion of abyss, however clumsy, for the four amazing characters it gave us. This especially applies to Hapi who did a lot to make me more open to Edelgard's quest to bring down the central church despite seeing her side with the turbo-evil slitherers for 3 playthroughs. (From a gameplay standpoint, I also love that we got a brawling class that female units can get as well, but that's more a point against the base game)

When I saw Aelfric at Sitri's Grave 🪦 in the Main story it threw me off so hard, I was like "Did I miss you before ? Or did you just finally spawn because I finished the CS DLC?"

What truly makes abyss DLC so special is being able to strategize with all 3 lords as a team.

It sucks to say (mostly because I do have a ton of fun playing the 2 Fodlan games, 3Houses and 3Hopes) BUT they half arsed quite a few too many things when it came to the story and lore. Which is why I can understand (to an extent) why lots of people have a lot of misgivings with Engage’s current story details, for the Fodlan games TOO MUCH is left to our imaginations and if this was intentionally done at the end of production, well, they haven’t said anything to even allude to that sentiment. Intelligent Systems and whoever else that works in development of Fire Emblem hopefully have learned from their mistakes with Fodlan and make everything lore-wise more cohesive with less plot holes and confusion in Engage and onwards. But I digress, like with the Fodlan world, as long as I have fun with the gameplay and I end up liking more than 2 characters then I can’t really complain about much else since everything else would be minor inconvenience levels of a problem.

You would think with as much lore Fire Emblem has they would've explained the underground a lot more

I would love if in the future we get a scenario of Shez visiting Abyss, with his personality it would be interesting to say the least

Rhea being xenophobic has always been a misconception, half of the Knights of Seiros are either foreigners or nonbelievers for crying out loud (Even Catherine isn't a believer, it's basically just Gilbert who is devout). Claude himself acknowledges he was wrong in thinking that in VW, as well as in his support with Cyril. As for the Shadow Library, I just assume it's noncannon, otherwise Edelgard would have easy access to books that straight up say that half the stuff she blames Rhea for is due to twsitd influence, like how the splitting of Fodlan was literally caused by the Agarthans which would go directly against her narrative for conquest.

Rhea's xenophobia was always an informed trait, never actually shown.

My head canon is that Rhea uses the four students as a covert team for handling off the record matters With Byleth on the scene she feels she's close enough to her goal that she can let them go

I really enjoyed that DLC! I'm glad it existed!:)

The church stuff is really confusing regarding the underground library. Linhardt says that there's a bunch of forgeries and faked books amongst the contents and even he wouldn't be able to tell the real things from the forgeries. There's nothing that lets you sort the lies from the truth and it leaves me immensely dissatisfied because it makes me feel like the game is telling me to headcannon things without a way to solidly back up any claims I try to make. It's frustrating.

This was a very interesting video! However, Rhea isn't really xenophobic. She looks after Cyril and hired Shamir, despite the fact that neither of them believe in the goddess. Heck, even Catherine isn't a part of the Knights as a religious thing, but rather out of loyalty to Rhea. Rhea says all of this is fine and doesn't force people to follow the church or even be from Fodlan in order to live at Garreg Mach. Why else would Claude be the leader of the Golden Deer in the first place? I'm sure Rhea, in her position as Archbishop, heard rumors about Claude's backstory, but she evidently doesn't care. The whole "Rhea is xenophobic" nonsense is misinformation Claude pushes in Verdant Wind indirectly and Golden Wildfire practically verbatim; it is not actually accurate to Rhea's characterization or the doctrine of the Church of Seiros.

Off topic but does anyone know the song in the outro?

Umm is the pagan altar very similiar looking to Arval/Epimenedies race, like with the wings and stuff? Or is it just me?

Since the pagan statue is too big to even fit through the door of the room it's in, my best guess is that it was already there as Garreg Mach was being built. The workforce would naturally have included those who hadn't converted to the brand-new Church of Seiros, maybe even captive Dagdans.

The pagan alter might have had a different meaning before Three Hopes came out so that can as a oops we screwed that one up, writing issue, as for the Library it's more than likely that they don't know about what it's contents might hold since if it did Seteth more than likely would be the one down their with other members purging any and all records not following the churches strict rules, as for everything else, I guess left for the players imagination. They really should have down more with Abyss' writing and background, but seeing how that's not the case I can assume, it's nothing more than just that the slums of Garreg Mach, a haven for those who have no where else to go.

Hey, my favorite characters came from there. But, I'm not blind to it's short comings. Even after completing cindered shadows, I felt like several plot threads went unresolved.

not gonna question beast come to place with hapi sneezes lol

Still waiting for a possible DLC for 3 Hopes staring them.

I'll be honest, I didn't need to be sold that Rhea can do some sketchy stuff or might be outright evil, the main stories do a good job of that on their own. You are right though that this would have been much more compelling if it was used as a chance to deepen son of her good qualities more by exploring how she is willing to allow this place to exist because of her care for the youth and others that live there. It would have been a good way of humanizing her? Or at least giving a kinder reading to her over the at best gray ones we usually get.

It's not out of the ordinary for Three Houses to leave it up to the player to infer character motivations, especially when it comes to Rhea. And "out of sight, out of mind" is a very typical attitude for her. She turns a blind eye to plenty of things, and it takes either an active threat to the status quo or something happening right in front of her to get her moving. Abyss largely prevents both such situations. A pagan statue that barely anyone can recognize and only outcasts worship is no threat to Fodlan's rigid organized religion, while open contact with outside areas with whole nations of people holding divergent beliefs is. Rhea is not tolerant, she is simply, as ever, negligent.

I don't really think rhea is a xenophobe. I think she just takes issue with people adulterating the religion she herself made up. Rhea above all else values loyalty and devotion. The underground actually has some real world parallels. Churchs and governments will often provide shelter or resources for the unfortunate. This serves the public by limiting the likelihood that these people will cause disorder/crime but also serves as a method of fostering loyalty to said organization.

Am I the only one who thought this was going to be about Thabes Labyrinth?

dammit, I thought you'd found out what this Abyss NPC was about who wanted you to throw money at him, but no matter how much money you actually had, it was never enough and then he was just ... gone. I honestly thought this was what the video was about. Nevertheless, an interesting video ;)

This game will be remembered forever as one of the best story and world building experiences in the whole series so goddamn good

The whole thing is a bit silly and nonsensical, but it is also the pretty standard fantasy rpg fare that wouldn't seem out of place in a typical D&D campaign setting. So I'd give it a pass, as imo Fire Emblem itself is the most D&Dish game franchise in jrpgs.

Again, I have to suggest a video discussing Rhea’s character.

At this point I'm more convinced that Rhea is just a one note good guy character who comes across as complicated or grey or authoritative etc, because of poor writing. It is Rhea who is Tiki and Flayn is Nowi, Seteth is Bantu I guess.

Ghast, where are you getting the idea that Rhea is xenophobic? There are at least a couple of evidences that say otherwise.

The dank church basement

I genuinely wish they made the writing more consistent and airtight. If Three Houses was a ship, it'd be sinking with these holes

I found the whole dlc a bit of a let down. I beat it twice but never bothered since. I actually prefer Fe3H in base form.

It says a lot about Rhea’s character when even Sothis, when not blinded by her memories of Seros, doesn’t trust her.

They could have done a better job to put this in the game instead of a expand.

I think that Rhea never bothered to actually explore Abyss. The only reason she'd ever go to Abyss is either passing judgment on someone or admire Sitri's corpse. As a result, Rhea likely didn't actually know of the pagan alter, or by the time she did, she can't destroy it else there'd be backlash from the Abyssians. Same with the shadow library. She probably doesn't know exactly what types of books there are. Hell, even the technological suppression was hidden behind a false cover that was about Fodlan's insects, likely in an attempt to prevent its contents from being destroyed entirely.

I tink Abyss is a reference to class struggle irl, its inhabitants are the cheap workers who made the church powerful to begin with, that's why characters say the surface world need a place like abyss to trhive, in the same way that Europe and the US needed China during the eighties after their centuries old exploitation of Africa became less and less possible.

Thanks to this side story! They make a Spinoff of this game and is bad!🤷‍♀️More plot holes!🤷‍♀️

I've always found Rhea super shady and inconsistent. I learned not to trust her during the story arc in Chapter 4(?) of Three Houses where she puts the apostates of the Western Church to death without even trying to figure out why they turned on her in the first place or why they think she's actually the apostate. Never mind the different experiments she's done to try to resurrect Sothis, which she does at the cost of others. Rhea is not a good person. The choice to "betray" her and take Edelgard's side was the easiest choice in the game. The only thing that was disappointing about it was that it came at the cost of losing Seteth and Flayn.

Yeah this is one of the few reasons I don't like three houses that much.

Rhea has xenophobic tendencies? First I've heard on it.

If anything, the shadow library proves just what a monster Rhea is and everything she did, while certainly understandable, does not justify keeping all of Fodhlan closed off and in a state of cultural, medical, and technological stagnancy because she missed her mom.

All of Three Houses story is nonsensical rubbish. Really hope modern Fire Emblem can eventually learn to pair good storytelling with it’s tried and true gameplay.

The best thing about the Ashen Wolfs DLC was the characters by far. All 4 of them are some of my favorite characters in that game. In fact, Hapi is my favorite character in that game. But in my opinion, the worst part about it was the actual side story itself because it was needlessly hard. Especially the Battle where your desperately running to gates before they close. That was the first Battle in both the main story And the side story that I actually lost legitimately on easy.