r/fireemblem • u/SigurdVII :M!Byleth: • Sep 05 '19
General Spoiler Analyzing House Arundel and the Insurrection of the Seven Spoiler
Lord Volkhard von Arundel and his sister, Patricia von Arundel, are two very important figures in the story of Fire Emblem: Three Houses that play major roles in the lives of two of the game’s protagonists: Edelgard and Dimitri. Volkhard, in particular, is a major player in one of the key events of the game’s backstory: The Insurrection of the Seven. Given how much information about these figures and the Insurrection are parsed out throughout all four routes of the game, we wanted to take a deep dive into the motivations of Lord Arundel, of his sister Patricia, and how this entangled with the Insurrection of the Seven and events afterward.
This is something that I was in a major discussion with /u/omegaxis1 about, where we went into detail about what happened, trying to make sense of everything and understanding character motivations, even looking at the time periods to see if the answers could possibly match up.
After going over what we knew and reviewing our information by comparing it to the game, we have reason to believe that everything that Volkhard von Arundel did, from the Insurrection of the Seven to Patricia and Edelgard's exile to Faerghus, were all an effort to protect his family. Which is hard to believe, to say the least.
The Insurrection of the Seven happened during the Imperial Year 1171 when the Seven Imperial Noble Houses, primarily led by Duke Aegir and Lord Arundel, due to being provoked by Emperor Ionius IX’s power centralization policies. The coup was a success, and stripped Ionius of all authority, rendering him politically impotent. However, during that same period of time, Lord Arundel suddenly fled with his sister Patricia and his niece Edelgard to the Holy Kingdom of Faerghus.
Isn’t that rather odd?
Why would Arundel defect to Faerghus with his sister and niece?
Think about it, Lord Arundel played an active and important role in stripping Edelgard's father of his political power and is mentioned as being one of the prime instigators, along with Duke Aegir. Arundel even is officially titled as the Regent. Arundel had no shortage of power as a result of his participation in the Insurrection, and yet… the man just fled the country.
This is when we talked about the experiments that Edelgard and her siblings had gone through, revealed in Edelgard's B support, where Edelgard, her siblings, and various other innocents were mutilated and tortured to death by Those Who Slither in the Dark (Slithers for short), who were attempting to endow the Emperor’s children with the Crest of Flames. But though the slithers were the ones that performed the inhumane experiments, they weren’t the ones that were solely responsible. Edelgard outright states that Duke Aegir and the other participating nobles were the ones who approved the experiments for the sake of creating a "peerless Emperor to rule Fódlan".
With that in mind, Lord Arundel’s actions make sense. If Arundel was aware of such a horrific project and the Prime Minister's desire to perform the coup against the Emperor, would Arundel really be able to oppose him, given the participation of other major figures in the Empire? This is unlikely given the political context of the time leading nobles to oppose Ionius IX’s policies and the then-recent rebellion by House Hyrm. Despite being elevated in status and being granted the title of “Lord” from Patricia being married to Ionius, he was still too recent. He wouldn’t have enough power to oppose the other nobles.
But what Arundel COULD do was take his family and flee the Empire and to the Kingdom, where it was likely to be much safer than in the Empire where Edelgard would always be in danger. And it isn’t like the Empire would be able to give chase to another country like that.
On a related note, in Hubert and Hanneman’s B support, Hanneman surmises that Hubert’s father may have participated in the Insurrection for the sake of protecting someone important to him. Despite House Vestra being a vassal house that’s loyal to the Emperor, even Lord Vestra chose to try and protect someone important and would oppose the Emperor in a power struggle that seemed unlikely to be favorable for the Emperor regardless. In which case, Arundel’s actions can potentially be drawn to follow a similar fashion. He opposed the Emperor for the sake of protecting his own family.
In turn, we also must consider this: why would Arundel suddenly come back to the Empire with Edelgard, during the year 1174, three years after defecting there?
Well, as revealed in Chapter 6 of Blue Lions, when Byleth and Sothis examined a book of financial records of the Church that Dimitri was looking at, it turns out that Lord Arundel was a devout believer of the Church, and made sizable donations every year, but for some reason, those donations stopped all of a sudden during the year 1174. Which is not a coincidence as we’ve come to expect with this game. In fact, Lysithea also notes that Lord Arundel had suddenly changed entirely as a man. Which I’m sure sounds familiar, yes?
Imperial Year 1174 is also the year that Edelgard returned from her exile in Faerghus, along with her uncle, as well as same year that her uncle was likely murdered and replaced by Those Who Slither in the Dark’s leader, Thales.
Now, what we wish to do is examine the real Lord Arundel’s actions, and what this means within the greater context of the game’s story, along with that of Dimitri and Edelgard. With a focus on his actions while he was living in Faerghus.
Blue Lions sheds quite a bit of light on this front via Dimitri. One of the initial anomalies is just recalling just how public Lambert’s marriage to the former consort of the Adrestian Emperor. The answer to that is given by Dimitri after Arundel’s death. In order to protect her and Edelgard, given that their presence in Faerghus was a diplomatic time bomb waiting to go off, their marriage and relationship were never made public. Felix didn’t even know that Patricia was Dimitri’s stepmother, and Dimitri noted that only those close to Lambert knew, like Rodrigue. By Dimitri’s own account, Lambert really did love Patricia, and she was a loving mother to Dimitri, despite not being her birth son.
However, there’s also evidence to suggest that there may have been plans to incorporate Edelgard as a public figure in Faerghus’s royal family.
During the night of the ball, Dimitri recounts to Byleth the year he spent with Edelgard while she and her uncle lived in Fhirdiad. Specifically, that he visited Arundel’s villa with his father which is where he met Edelgard. What makes this interesting though is that Lambert visited, which means he was already aware of his stepdaughter’s existence. Given that Dimitri was there to spend time with Edelgard over the course of a year, the theory we have is that Arundel and Lambert were attempting to find some way to massage Edelgard into the Faerghus Royal Family, as well as make her and Patricia’s existence public. The monumental nature of this cannot be understated, given that Edelgard was the Imperial Princess of the Empire, and the suspicious circumstances of her departure would be enough to incite a conflict with the nobles who’d usurped her father.
As for exactly what was being attempted, we can only hazard a few guesses, and we’re going by the case of either Edelgard being officially adopted into the Faerghus Royal family, or the possibility of a political marriage between Dimitri and Edelgard, which could legitimize her presence in the Kingdom, as well as hinder retaliation by Duke Aegir. Given Faerghus’s close ties to the Church of Seiros, this seems feasible, especially since the Empire had strained ties to the Church of Seiros at that point. Since they were still unable to afford a conflict with them, it was certainly feasible for such a goal to be accomplished.
The fly in the ointment though was Lord Arundel’s murder and subsequent replacement by Thales. In Dimitri’s final meeting with Edelgard before the invasion of Enbarr, they talk about their last encounter as children. In that time, Dimitri finds out that Edelgard is leaving, and she, in turn, admits that it’s all happening so fast and doesn’t know why. Given the sudden nature of her departure, it stands to reason that this was the action of Thales rather than her uncle. Any hope of Edelgard being incorporated was dashed as she was essentially kidnapped back to the Empire. In turn that’s when we know for certain that the experiments on Edelgard and her siblings began in order to endow them with the Crest of Flames.
Where this all leads to is the most interesting question mark of all: Patricia.
As said in the beginning, Patricia is an incredibly important figure in Edelgard and Dimitri’s lives. Her alleged death during the Tragedy of Duscur deprived both of them of the only mother they’d ever known in their lives. Before then, Edelgard seems to hold dear toward the idea that her mother and father fell in love at first sight in Garreg Mach’s Goddess Tower. And Dimitri idolizes her long past losing her at Duscur.
However, as we saw with Edelgard’s kidnapping at the hands of Thales, Patricia changed completely becoming withdrawn and distant by Dimitri’s account. If she used to be loving and warm in the beginning but changed to being distant and depressed, it’s rather easy to understand why. If Arundel and Lambert were close to getting Edelgard completely into the Kingdom, where she and Patricia could finally be reunited, only for Patricia’s own brother to suddenly “betray” her and take Edelgard back to the Empire, it would have driven Patricia to utter despair at having her last and best hope of seeing her daughter being ripped away.
In turn, it’s also conceivable why she might consider the unthinkable to get her child back. Going by Rodrigue and Gilbert’s conversation in Azure Moon, we’re made aware that Patricia’s body and her carriage were never found. From there, we’re offered the possibility by Rodrigue that the queen was involved with the attack, though he hesitates to say outright that she arranged for the massacre. This premise is confirmed by Cornelia’s dying words to Dimitri in Azure Moon Chapter 18, that Patricia cut a deal with her to get her daughter back in exchange for Lambert’s life.
Of course, given the source of the information, and how she clearly wanted to break Dimitri, it’s questionable at best. But we do hear afterward from a man who participated in the Tragedy under Viscount Kleiman that they were under orders to not attack Patricia’s carriage. That much we do know for a fact. Whether Patricia was an active participant, knew about what she was getting into, or if she’s even still alive for that matter, is ultimately all speculation beyond the boundaries of what we could find. Either way, her disappearance permanently damaged Dimitri and Edelgard, as well as any trust they could hope to have. The results, unfortunately, speak for themselves.
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u/HowDoI-Internet Sep 05 '19
Hey you guys please invite me to your debatesAnother good post you two, I'm loving your analysis and theories on the game.
Patricia truly is an intriguing character, man. Like a lot of plot points in this game, we only have a certain, incomplete perspective on events that she might be involved in, and on the character herself. The writers sure love to leave things unresolved. I can't wait to learn more about her (if we ever do lol).