Fire Emblem: Three Houses-The Power of Losing it

For someone as impulsive as I am, I think a lot. Like, a lot a lot. Arguably too much.

I think myself into and out of moods, feelings, and situations. I over analyze every choice, every word, every action, and every possible outcome- with special emphasis on the worst ones.

I think about my coffee before ordering the same thing I always get. I think about if I should get bangs, what that person saying “fine” really meant, and if there was enough time between retweeting those things. I think about where I’ll be in five years, my ever-growing to-do list, the twelve text messages I’ve yet to respond to, and how much the death of a loved one is going to hurt when it happens. 

Hell, I thought too much about this letter- which is why I turned it in a week late. 

It’s as if I feel thinking about things and processing the pain now will eliminate the need to process it later. 

But it doesn’t.

You just feel everything twice as much.

Ever since I was little, I’ve strived for perfection- to make the “right” choice, prove my worth, mitigate pain, and avoid unpleasantness at any cost. Many times, the cost is myself- my boundaries, my feelings, my wants, and needs. And, despite my lack of assertion when it comes to my own needs, from an early age I learned to hold myself accountable for the happiness of others. I believed that if I willed it- if I were strong enough, I could and should assume responsibility and control over all situations and things. My Uppercut co-worker Kayla would tell me this is my Libra sun and Virgo rising, my therapist would cite my Borderline Personality Disorder. But be it stars or chemicals, my fatalistic and fearful thinking is all I’ve ever known.

I am absolutely paralyzed by the fear of fucking up.

So, let’s talk about FIre Emblem: Three Houses.

FIre Emblem: Three Houses is a game driven entirely by the choices you make, from how you spend your day and the relationships you foster, to the alliances you forge and how you utilize your troops in battle. The game begins with our silent protagonist, Byleth, stumbling into a position as a professor at Garreg Mach Monastery- an academy of sorts, training the future leaders of the three realms of Fodlan. After accepting the position, Byleth must choose which of three houses they would like to be the headmaster of- each option containing their own unique quirks and plot points. It is this choice that sends you down one of three main paths, each of which branch out further depending upon how you play the game, with the Black Eagles path boasting the most deviations. 

As a professor, you must train your students and choose what areas you want them to focus on, though each one has their own unique talents and wants. Your students then utilize the knowledge you have bestowed upon them on the battlefield, where you command them in tactics style combat. The real kicker? If you so choose, the deaths of your students on the battlefield is permanent. This feature was a staple of the Fire Emblem series until Fire Emblem: Awakening’s release in 2012, and adds a healthy dose of stress and urgency to the experience. 

When not ensuring your students survival, you get the chance to strengthen your relationships with them and recruit other students and supporting characters into your house. The interactions between characters and they way the events of the game alter their personalities as time goes on is incredibly intricate and charming. It’s one of a handful of games with that many characters where each one feels so unique and fleshed out. The great thing about Fire Emblem is how much it successfully connect with its players. The offers a best boy, best girl, and best house for every player, and while the relationships and characters do not offer a great deal of diversity or as much depth as I would like, I really am enamored by what does exist.

Now, while this is all happening, shit is going down in Fodlan. You see, the three realms don’t always see eye to eye and a great deal of tension exists between them. In addition, the country is overrun with racism, classism, and religious oppression. So basically, it’s your average world. But luckily, you’re here to help-with the assistance of a god living inside of you. It’s a very anime game, please bear with me. One of the greatest aides to this cause, as well as one of the many unique things about Byleth is that Sothis, the aforementioned god, has granted them the power to reverse time in times of crisis. This mechanic, called divine pulse, is incredibly useful in battle, and is also utilized outside of it during various plot points.

While the story contains several game-changing moments, there’s one in particular I want to talk about: the first time Byleth loses control. After several students are reported missing, your house, alongside your father Jeralt, pays a visit to an abandoned chapel. Whilst investigating the area, they are ambushed by beasts we come to realize are the missing students. At the battle’s close, we are reunited with Monica, a student we’ve seen several times during our residency at Garreg Mach. While we are initially relieved to discover at least one student remained unchanged, the relief turns to despair when Monica approaches Jeralt and mortally wounds him. 

Of course Byleth is quick to invoke divine pulse, that blessed deus ex machina. By this point, we’ve used this ability so frequently its significance has greatly diminished- consequences have become inconsequential, and each time we meet fate, we do so not with a pleading look, but a smug smile. 

The clock rewinds, wounds heal, and our hero, now wise to Monica’s treachery, readies to attack. But the blade does not connect. 

Thales, one of the games handful of antagonists, appears before Byleth, braced for the attack and intent on preserving the future he has worked so hard to ensure. For the second time, Byleth’s father is killed. For the second time, Byleth is rendered powerless as they watch the person they are closest to- this warm warrior and father, fall at the hands of a young girl and her dagger.

And all the strength, will, and faith in the world cannot undo what has been done. There is no reclaiming control.

In a game that celebrates the micromanager, the hardest blow comes when you are presented with the unmanageable. 

But that’s life, right?

Life is unmanageable. We can try to outthink, outplan, and outwit it. We can seek a means to control it, whether it be power, wealth, knowledge, charisma, or belief. But at some point, hell at many points, nothing we’ve acquired grants us the ability to shape our world into the one we wish it were. And at some point, it hurts to hold to hold all those ropes. So what do we do when that happens? What do we do when we find ourselves face to face with an immovable object?

Well, I think we do what we can. 

In both Fire Emblem: Three Houses and life, we continue. We surround ourselves with the people who lift us up when our hearts are too heavy to lift alone. We work on ourselves- exploring our passions, growing stronger and smarter. We work on finding out what doesn’t work. And really, we work on becoming gentler and better people than we were yesterday. 

There are so many things in the present, so many things within our control that we can focus on, that we needn’t get hung up on the future, our hyperbolic hypotheticals, and the plethora of things we cannot change. And I don’t mean that in that sort of minimalistic, Instagram life coach kind of way. It’s no simple feat. I struggle with it constantly. Seriously. Constantly. And while some might tell you the attitude you approach life with is everything, I don’t buy that shit. Life isn’t about finding a way to achieve constant happiness and positivity, and if you go at it with that mindset, I think you’ll find you feel quite the contrary. Life is about processing the good and bad, and moving forward both in spite of and because of it.

Simply put, you can’t see the picture if you don’t develop it.

Fire Emblem: Three Houses helps to teach us that regardless of the choices you make and what happens to you, you are creating a fantastic story- one that’s a bit different than everyone else’s and is worthy of celebrating. I think it reminds us there is no such thing as “right” choices, and not everything will go right. 

But god- isn’t that a relief? 

Can you imagine how boring it would be if that were the case? If we could simply divine pulse our way through life and get everything we’ve ever thought we wanted? I don’t know about you all, but man, I’ve wanted a lot of god awful things and even more god awful people. You know, maybe sometimes letting things happen isn’t so bad.

At this point, I think it’s important to say here I’ve never been a believer of the whole “everything happens for a reason” thing, and I’m not going to start. Frankly, I find the concept a bit dismissive and reductive. However, I do believe you can get through anything life throws at you, and sometimes, perhaps most of the time, you walk away better. I think the fact that I’m here, alive, in love, and emboldened in strange, new ways, is a testament to that.

Now, the end of the year isn’t just about game of the year content. (Though god, when you work in games journalism it can sure start to feel that way, huh?) No, long before we considered if games are art, we considered the various ways we could better ourselves. The end of the year is a time for reflection, and everyone’s favorite, resolutions.

I’m notorious for making far too many. You probably are too. To be honest, if you have more than like, two, please make one of them to be gentler on yourself. As long as you’re doing the best you can, that’s pretty great. 

As for myself, I’ve reflected on everything that’s happened to me and have settled on just one.

In 2020, I want to fearlessly advocate for myself when I can, and graciously accept the times when I cannot. 

When I played Fire Emblem: Three Houses, I approached each choice with cautiousness, enthusiasm, and curiosity- never fear. Granted, the stakes are much lower in a video game, even with perma-death on, but that’s the kind of energy I want to bring into my own life. I want to make myself proud and love myself harder than anyone else could. I want to make my own choices and stand by them with the same level of conviction I have when I tweet out The Golden Deer house is the best. I want to create a story worth all the hours I sink into it.

So thank you, Fire Emblem: Three Houses. Thank you for the memes, for Claude Von Reigen, and for, quite ironically, being a choice-based, strategy game that helped unburden me from my choice-based, strategy brain.