Favorite Three Houses Characters Part 1: Claude

So I've been wanting to go into a deeper dive on my favorite characters and make a "Top 10 Favorite Three Houses Characters" list. So here we go.


1) Claude


Claude is easily my favorite character from Three Houses. Heck, he's tied with Ike for being my favorite Fire Emblem character. Claude has a wonderful combination of tactical brilliance, wit and charm. He also gets many of the best lines in the game. Some of my favorite Claude moments:

• His trolling Lysithea 

• His conversation with Edelgard where he temporarily riles her up during one of the mock battles.

• Claude's introduction of Hilda to Byleth 

• This quote in Chapter 20 about Edelgard: "She's a fellow student to all of us. If there's a path that we can walk together, that would be preferable. But that all depends on Edelgard. If she won't yield, then that's that. If showing pity would put my allies in danger, I will not hesitate to kill her. I ask that you and everyone here prepare yourselves to do the same."

That last quote displays a neat attitude for a Fire Emblem lord to have. Claude prefers diplomacy and talking things out, but if push comes to shove he WILL use violence and end the threat. He's pragmatic without going overboard about it the way Edelgard does.

Claude's tactical nature being put on display is really fun to witness. One little addition I liked was how he was coming up with a non-lethal poison or how he was planning to use it on the other students during the battle of the Eagle and the Lion. Even his talk with the other houses / students about getting the prize versus them getting the glory is pretty funny when you stop to think about it. Him maneuvering around House Gloucester in his own route was great to behold. I could keep going but the overall point here is that the game does a good job showing us his tactical brilliance and in a strategy RPG game it is nice to see a main character who's forte is tactics and strategy.




I recently came across a brilliant in-depth essay about Claude that I highly recommend reading:

https://www.reddit.com/r/fireemblem/comments/dhy0vg/unmasking_the_master_tactician_an_analysis_on/

^ One of the interesting things it brings up is that Claude's Japanese version is more explicit about his willingness to use violence to achieve his ends. I still think his English version gets the point across from the line I quoted, but when you stop to think about how big of an obstacle Rhea is for him it makes a lot of sense that Claude would be okay with her being dead. Heck, Claude even admits to Cyril in their B support that he'd be willing to take her on as an enemy. There's a comment made after the essay that also sheds light on his character:

"IMO, he's a bit like Margaery Tyrell from Game of Thrones. (Talking about TV Margaery here, since she has a much more prominent role.) Like Claude, Margaery is quite cunning and manipulative, happy to use others for her own advancement. But Margaery and Claude both benefit from the people around them appearing so much worse by comparison, and from their own manipulations being relatively bloodless. No one's gonna complain about Margaery when Cersei's running around, and likewise, Claude does seem rather benign compared to the other faction leaders.

Personally, I thought this was a rather clever narrative trick in both cases, since it lulls the audience into a convenient false sense of security along with the characters in the story. Claude is aggressively charming in Verdant Wind, and it's easy to forget that behind that charm lies the guy who wanted to cut down the mountains with the Sword of the Creator. IMO, it gave the moments where Claude tips his hand (the arrival of Almyran troops, his angry confrontation with Rhea) a lot of narrative punch."

Another interesting point about Claude that that reddit link brought up is that his closed off guarded nature has a more interesting dynamic to it when you realize that he has to be this way because of Fodlan's xenophobic / racist tendencies. Thanks to Rhea and the Church, Claude has to be more guarded and distrusting because if he's more open he could be killed. If you look at his support with Leonie and Petra we see that Claude has a profoundly different view of religion than the Church. In his support with Leonie it's mentioned that his view of nature could be viewed as heresy. This is a more subtle take on prejudice and intolerance and it also gives Claude's dream more extra weight and a bigger narrative punch to it. 

One more aspect about Claude that I'd like to bring up is just how much of a refreshing contrast he is to Dimitri and Edelgard. Both of them have dark, dramatic backstories and both are at each others throats. Claude brings a fresh perspective to the story that Three Houses needed. His willingness to get answers from Rhea about Fodlan and its history was great to watch and it was nice that the game bothered to show us how the conflict looked from an outsider's perspective. Claude opens up the idea that there's more to the world of Fodlan than just the Church of Seiros, or the conflict between Adrestia and Faerghus. 

 It's kind of ironic how the outsider of the Big Three is the one who ultimately finds out about the bigger picture. The Golden Deer route was my first route and it provides a wonderful backdrop to the history and lore about Fodlan's world. 


To sum it all up: Claude's hilarious, tactical, pragmatic, went about changing Fodlan in the best way and he brings a much needed extra perspective to the story. His supports are a ton of fun to read and he stands out from both the lords in his game and the lords of other Fire Emblem titles in all the right ways.