Here’s a game: Fire Emblem Three Houses
Why a gift-giving simulator made me contemplate the unavoidable march of time.
[Vague spoilers ahead. It won’t hurt a bit, I promise.]
Fire Emblem: Three Houses is a game that makes me sad. It makes me sad because it reminds me of the fleeting nature of innocence and how the passage of time can turn friends into bitter enemies.
It is also a deeply silly game where you take your teenage students on a field trip to fight pirates. Where you have a tea party with a stoic giant because it’s his birthday, but you can’t think of anything to talk about so the two of you just sip your drinks in silence. You might learn that one of your students is having trouble adjusting to life away from home, or that they hate bitter foods.
You spend dozens of hours learning these humanizing details about each and every character. You work tirelessly to shepherd them well, to solve their problems, and to give them hope. You have ultimate control over the daily lives of your students. Even when times are tough, you are there to guide and protect them. And then, the game takes that control away.
Time passes. The students leave the Monastery and enter the harsh reality of the world beyond the walls. When you meet them again, they are different people, weighed down by responsibility and failure. The hopeful dreams of their school days are gone.
In your own head, you had imagined what your students would become. A wise king, a chivalrous knight, a stern but loving commander. Most rise to your expectations but emerge humbled by a world in chaos.
Once again, you must lead them; but this time, you lead them into battle against their peers, their families, their neighbors. You strike down an enemy knight charging into your ranks, but your thoughts stray. You remember his favorite tea and the way he casually stood against bigotry by befriending Dedue, a student from Duscur, a hated minority. You never told him how proud you were of that. And now he was dead. He did his duty, and you did yours.
Everyone processes this part of the war in their own way. But they are all damaged. You still host tea parties, but they feel different now. They feel like mourning.
Life moves on. You still fish, you still practice cooking, and you still try to help everyone at the Monastery solve their problems. But with every week that passes, with every battle, your world feels smaller.
Lysithea was scared of ghosts. Caspar would face any danger for a friend in need. Felix worried over his friends. Ignatz never wanted to be a knight. Bernadetta’s father told her she was unmarriageable, but gregarious Alois reminded her of her beloved uncle. You have buried many of them, friends who you couldn’t save or victims of circumstance. You will bury more before the fighting is over.
You hope that the survivors will press on to build a better world. You worry that the tide of blood will continue to push and pull them into conflict.
Fire Emblem: Three Houses is a silly game. That does not devalue the emotional impact at all. It actually helps create it. I care about 14-year old Cyril because I trained him to punch giant demons to death even though he wasn’t really one of my students. But also because he is a straight-shooter and a hard-worker. If he dies, he’s not just a list of stats on a menu screen, but the only student brave enough to try to help Professor Manuela with her drinking problem. And I know his favorite tea.
The mechanics of Fire Emblem: Three Houses, along with the game’s story and support conversations, are designed to make you love these characters, and then lose them. That, to me, is what has made Fire Emblem great from the beginning. It’s hard to imagine a better execution of that concept than they’ve pulled off here.
