History N' Games Episode 9 (Fire Emblem: 3 Houses - Part 4)

In this episode of History N' Games, host Meghan Sullivan explains how Fire Emblem: 3 Houses is closely connected to William Shakespeare's King Lear, as well as the stories behind the play.

Transcript

Hi, everyone! I’m Meghan Sullivan and welcome to History N’ Games. A podcast where I play historical fiction games and talk about the REAL history behind the game.

In today’s episode, we continue to deep dive the hidden history of Fire Emblem: 3 Houses, developed by Intelligent Systems and Koei Tecmo Games for the Nintendo Switch.

Now, in the last three episodes, we talked about Fire Emblem Three Houses’ connection to Ancient Egypt, Ancient Greece, Ancient Nabatea, the Ancient Himalayas, and Ancient China. That’s a lot of history! But wait, there’s more! Today, we’ll talk about the game’s possible connections to Ancient Britain. Wait, what? Where is this coming from? 

Well, as it happens  (and thank you to the many Fire Emblem fans who pointed this out) the game contains NUMEROUS references to King Lear. Yes, THAT King Lear, made so famous by William Shakespear. References to King Lear are found literally all over the map in Fire Emblem: 3 Houses, particularly in the territory of the Leicester alliance, although there is at LEAST one significant reference to King Lear found in the Holy Kingdom of Ferghus. And understanding these references will not only help us  appreciate the history hidden in Fire Emblem, but appreciate the hidden history in the play itself. But before we get to King Lear’s connection to Fire Emblem and why it’s so interesting, let’s quickly review what the play is all about. So get ready for Meghan’s attempt at summarizing a very complex play, and then untangling the complex but fascinating history behind it. 

The play King Lear is set in ancient Britain. In the story, an elderly king wants to retire, but as it happens he has no male heir he can bequeath his kingdom to. He only has three daughters: Goneril, Reigan, and Cordelia. Thus he decides to divide his kingdom amongst them. But there’s a catch. First, they must publicly and loudly declare their love for him. The two elder married daughters Gonreil and Regan, do so, loudly and publicly, but the youngest daughter, the maidenly Coredelia catches everyone off guard by declaring she loves her father as much as a dutiful daughter should, no more, no less.  Leer is understandably less than impressed with this paltry answer and nudges his youngest daughter to do a little better. But strangely, instead of taking the hint, she repeats herself. Upset, embarrassed and ANGRY, Lear disinherits his daughter on the spot. At this point the king’s most loyal retainer the Earl of Kent tries to plead with Lear to be reasonable, but he too is banished!  And thus Kent spends the rest of the play following the king around in disguise in the hopes of continuing to offer good advice.

But what about poor Cordelia? Luckily, the king of Gaul AKA France is in the building and declares that although Cordelia has been stripped of her inheritance, he still wants to marry her, and King Leir agrees. And so Cordelia says goodbye to her father and sisters, who are rather chilly in their response, and goes off to France. Meanwhile Lear divides the last third of the Kingdom between his daughters Gonreil and Reigan. And for all intents and purposes, that should have been the end of the story. But it’s not.

King Lear decides that though he is no longer king, and no longer has kingly responsibilities, he shall continue to indulge himself in the privileges and prerogative of a king, including bouncing between his two eldest daughters’ estates with a large and rowdy retinue of knights. THe problem is that his daughters and their powerful husbands --the Dukes of Albany and Cornwall get tired of Lear and his knights very quickly. And so Goneril finally tells Lear he must drastically cut back his entourage. The king, hurt, upset and insulted, decides instead to take his entourage and go stay with his other daughter, Regan. But Regan is of the same mind set, and demands that if Leer wants to stay at her estate he must reduce his retinue of knights or GET OUT. At that point, Goneril and her husband show up and echo Regan’s sentiment, and it becomes clear the daughters just want Lear out of the way so they can have power for themselves. Lear is so upset by being tag teamed by his own family he storms out of Regan’s castle….in the middle of a storm. The only person that goes with him is his court fool. Everyone else stays behind and the daughters lock the castle gates so that Lear can’t get back in. In other words, they literally leave their elderly and now insane father (Leer’s out there screaming somewhat incoherently) to fend for himself.

Long story short, Lear, his fool, and two loyal followers, the Earl of Kent who has now managed to rejoin the king and another loyal retainer, the Earl of Gloucester--end up in a small hut where they meet a supposedly crazy man named Tom O’ Bedlan. As it turns out Tom is actually Edgar, the son of the Earl of Gloucester in disguise, So what’s the story here? Well as it turns out Edgar is on the run from the authorities, and the reason is found in the play’s somewhat strange subplot, which goes like this: The Earl of Gloucester has one legitimate son Edgar and one illegitimate son Edmund. In the play we sense Edmund has been overlooked all his life because of his illegitimate status,which has caused him to become greedy and grasping and has led  Edmund into harboring secret ambitions to overthrow his family in order to become the next Earl of Gloucester. This ambition leads him to frame both his half brother and his father for crimes they did not commit, which eventually results in Edgar being declared a wanted criminal and later in the play the Earl of Gloucester getting his eyes gouged out. Strangely almost all of these characters have now ended up in the same little hut but because two of the characters are in disguise and King Lear is completely insane, almost nobody recognizes each other. Yet everyone recognizes Lear and wants to help him.  And as it turns out there may be a way to do so: the king of France and his wife Queen Cordelia have heard about the plight of Lear and have just now arrived in Britain with an army in the hopes of restoring Lear to power. And so after much drama the motley crue finally manage to join up with Cordelia’s army. Unfortunately, Lear's other daughters have also arrived on the scene along with Edmund, now having been declared the new Earl of Gloucester and leading his own army against the French troops.

Now here’s where things get soapy: During an earlier scene in the  play, the Duke of Cornwall--Regan’s husband died of wounds given to him by a servant during a skirmish, which has left Regan a very available widow. But here’s the problem: Goneril for reasons unknown--has also fallen in love with Edmund, even though HER husband is alive and well. This awkward love triangle creates a weird tension between the sisters. Meanwhile Edmund doesn’t have a lot of time to ponder the romantic mess he’s gotten himself into because he’s about to go to war. And sure enough battle ensues. Now, at this point you would think Team Cordelia--AKA the good guy’s win the war, but PLOT TWIST---they LOSE. And Edmund has Lear and Coredlia carted off to prison and sentenced to death. But just then Edmund’s nefarious actions come to light. And it’s all due to a letter that exposes him as the lover of both Goneril and Regan. This letter is shown to the Duke of Albany--Goneril’s very much alive husband--but it is not he who gets vengeance--it’s his metaphorical champion the still in disguise Edgar--who wants to avenge his father and himself after being framed by Edmund. Edgar thus challenges his brother, and Edmund is mortally wounded during the fight. While dying he realizes the error of his ways, and tries to recant the order he gave to have Lear and Cordelia killed. But too late: Cordelia’s sentence has already been carried out. King Lear sees her body and pretty much dies of grief on the spot, and around this time the Earl of Gloucester dies as well. Oh. And as it turns out both Goneril and Regan have ALSO died: Goneril kills herself after having poisoned Regan in a fit of jealousy. Essentially this leaves just a handful of people left alive, including Edgar and Kent, and even Kent expects he will not long outlive his master Lear. And thus, Edgar I guess? Becomes king of Britain... The end.  And that’s the short, short version of William Shakespear’s “The True Chronicle History of King Leir”.  Believe it or not there are more scenes in characters in the play, check out King’s Lear to learn all about it.

And now that I’ve given you the cliff notes version of the play, we can now start to better appreciate the names and backstories of some of the characters in Fire Emblem: 3 Houses. And the best place to do so is to look at the Golden Deer House. You’ll notice half the names of the Golden Deer students are straight out of the play: Claude is from House Reagan, Hilda is from house Gonereil, Lysithea is from House Ordelia--most likely a play on the name Cordelia, Lorenz is from House Gloucester,  and Maryanne is from House Edmund. Oh, and stick a pin in this one because we’re coming back to it later- there is a character outside the Golden Deer who is also strongly tied to King Lear--Dimitri of the Blue Lions-- whose last name (Bladud) is the name of King Lear's legendary father. All in all, It’s a pretty cool naming convention. But are there any deeper connections between the play and the game other than just names? Yes! So let’s take a closer look at that.

And we’ll start with the name of the territory the Golden Deer hail from: the Leicester Alliance. As it turns out, King Lear is often associated with the real-life territory of Leicestershire in England. Now there’s nothing about that in Shakespear’s play. So where does the association come from? Well, it comes from the original source of the play, one you might already know with if you’re familiar with the legend of King Arthur: Geoffrey of Monmuth’s 12th century work The History of the Kings of Britain. 

In this pseudo-history of England, Geoffrey of Monmouth gives us our earliest account of a British king named Lear, who supposedly reigned in the 8th century BCE and was the eponymous founder of Leicestershire in south-east England. No reason is given for why Lear founded this territory, but the author might have gotten the idea from the name of a river that flows through Leicestershire: the River Soar(?), also known as the River Lear. Thus King Lear became associated with the area, and you can see how the  Leicester Alliance in Fire Emblem: 3 Houses connects us right back to the legendary British king. 

And of course that’s not the Leicester Alliance’s only connection to King Lear.  According to a book found in the library at Garrech Mach Monastery, the origins story of the Leicester Alliance sounds a bit like the plot of Shakespear’s play. You see the Leicester Alliance actually once belonged to the Holy Kingdom of Fahrgus. When King Klaus of Fahrgus dies however, the kingdom is divided between his three sons, each ruling over one of three territories within the kingdom and becoming arch dukes in the process. But after the archduke of  the eastern territory dies from an illness, the nobles in that area decide to rebel against the kingdom and create a whole separate political entity known as the the Leicester Alliance, led by five powerful noble houses:  Regan, Goneril, Ordelia, Gloucester, and Edmund. This story of a kingdom being split between 3 children, a war within the kingdom and a realignment of power definitely has echoes of the story of King Lear. 

And there’s more. Some of the characters from the Leicester alliance seem to have backstories directly influenced by Shakespear’s play: For example, Marianne is the adopted daughter of the Duke of Edmund, a powerful force in the Leicester Alliance known to be a smooth orator and extremely ambitious, so ambitious that he’s determined to pawn Maryanne off to the first powerful bridegroom available, so that he himself can gain more power. The Duke of Edmund in the game seems directly inspired by the character Edmund in King Lear, who is also a smooth orator obsessed with climbing the ranks of power. 

And then there’s Lorenz from House Gloucester. Like the Earl of Gloucester in Shakespear’s play, Lorenz is a bit of a womanizer who’s sometimes blind to people’s virtues and vices. And like Cordelia, Lysithea from House Ordelia is forced to go through a lot of trials and tribulations through no fault of her own and (spoiler alert) is doomed to die at a young age.  

But the strongest, most interesting, and unexpected connection between a Fire Emblem character and King Lear is found in the tragic backstory of Dimitri Bladud, the leader of the Blue Lions and heir to the throne of Fahrgus. Dimitri’s last name comes from the name of King Lear’s legendary father Bladud, who isn’t mentioned in the play but IS mentioned in Geoffrey of Monmouth’s  A History of Britain. Bladud, which means Wolf Lord in Welsh, was said to have been the founder of the legendary city of Bath in England (which would have surprised the Ancient Romans who in fact built the city and called it Aquae Sulis). According to Geoffrey of Monmouth, he did so after contracting leprosy in his youth and managed to miraculously cure his condition by rolling around in the mineral-rich mud found near the waters at Bath. But Bladud isn’t just known for being the founder of a major city and ridding himself of a difficult disease. He’s also known for his strange death, in which he pulled an Icarus by tumbling out of the sky after attempting to fly with a set of homemade wings. Later stories would also claim that Bladud got this idea after turning to necromancy and consulting with spirits. 

Now Dimitri doesn’t wear wings, but if you look at his post-time skip outfit, you’ll notice he IS wearing a cloak made out of a wolf pelt, which is most likely a nod to his last name Bladud, which as I mentioned before means Wolf Lord in Welsh. And if you pay close attention to Dimitri’s backstory during the Blue Lions route, you’ll learn that his mother died during a devastating plague that swept over the Kingdom of Fahrgus.  This disease was only cured after a mage appeared in the kingdom and miraculously healed the populace. The game’s inclusion of a devastating disease being miraculously cured could have been inspired by the story of  Bladud’s ability to miraculously cure his leprosy. And finally also like Bladud Dimitri regularly consults with the dead, although tragically this is a result of the terrible PTSD he suffers throughout the game. In conclusion you can see how the story of King Lear and his family inspired a lot of the names places and backstories found in Fire Emblem: 3 Houses

Now at this point you might be thinking: this is HISTORY N’ Games, right? I mean, King Lear’s story is interesting, but it also seems highly dubious. Especially since earlier historical works on Britain don't mention a King Lear --or a King Bladud for that matter. So where did Geoffrey of Monmouth--the original source of King Lear get his information? Did he just make this person up? Is there any historical truth to King Lear? Well, there actually might be! And the story is quite interesting.

According to ancient Latin sources, during the rise of the Roman Empire in the early first century AD there was a powerful leader in the south-east of Britain named Cunobelinus (coo-noh-boh-lee-nuhs) who ruled over a tribe known as the Catuvellauni(Cat-uh-vuh-lah-nee). Cunobelinus was said to have three sons: Adminius who ruled the British territory of Kent, and two other sons named Togodumnus and Caratacus (kuh-rat-uh-cuhs). Shortly before 40 AD, the pro-Roman Adminius --whose  name btw can be interpreted as Brittonic *Ad-minios, "he who is very tender" was exiled by his father for reasons unknown, although it’s possible it had something to do with his two brothers, who were both part of an anti-Roman faction in Britain at the time.)

After losing power, Adminius fled to Europe where we appealed his case to none other than the Roman emperor Caligula, and tried to convince him to invade Britain. The invasion never happened, but the next emperor Claudius did successfully invade Britain after Adminius’ brother Cataracus exiled an enemy chieftain aligned with Rome, prompting Claudius  to invade Adminius’ former territory of Kent in 43 AD. And what’s interesting is that one of the reasons Caratacus lost to the Romans is because during one of the battles his allies from the territory of Gloucestershire switched sides. What’s even more interesting is that Caratacus may be the inspiration for a man named Caradoc, a powerful ruler mentioned in ancient Welsh genealogies. Caradoc was said to be not only the father of a man named--get this --Bleydiud--or Bladud, but was also the grandson of a Celtic sea god named Llyr who in turn may have been the inspiration for a number of tales about a ruler whose children suffer all sorts of terrible tragedy. And so between real historical sources and a variety of Celtic lore you can see where Geoffrey of Monmouth begins to pull together his history of King Lear. Crazy, right? But wait. There’s nothing in any of these sources about a love test involving an old man and his three daughters. Where the heck did Geoffrey of Monmouth get that from?

Well, according to a scholar named Catherine Belsey, he might have borrowed that part of the story from a very old folktale called “Love like Salt,” in which an old man subjects his daughters to a love test by demanding they tell him just how much they love him. He then banishes his youngest daughter after she tells him she loves him like fresh meat loves salt, which he finds insulting and it’s only after she marries a rich noble and serves her father saltless and therefore tasteless meat dishes at the wedding feast does he realize his daughter was trying to tell him she loves him very much. After that they reconcile and live happily ever after. It’s a very ancient European folktale,  and could explain where Geoffrey of Mommouth got the idea of King Lear subjecting his daughters to a similar trial. So that explains that mystery. 

But there’s one more mystery that remains: King Lear is never portrayed by Geoffrey of Monmouth or anyone else as being crazy. Only Shakespeare portrays him that way.  So where did THAT idea from?  Well, it MIGHT have been inspired by a real life event that unfolded just a few years before the play was written: According to some commentators, Shakespear may have overheard the story of a man named Brian Annesley, a wealthy noble from Kent whose eldest daughter Grace --possibly with the encouragement of her sister Christian--attempted to have her father declared insane so she and her husband could take over his estate. This coup d'etat was protested however by the man’s youngest daughter Cordell, who ended up winning a court case against her sister. The father was so grateful to his youngest daughter for sticking up for him that when he died he left his entire estate to Cordell. Grace then contested the will, but to no avail. It was quite the family drama, and since Shakespear’s patron was the stepson of one of the executives of the will--it’s possible he passed on all the juicy details of the story to Shakespear, who included them in his play. (Also, this is a slight tangent but in case you were wondering where Shakespear got the idea for that bonkers subplot about jealous family members fighting over the same man, poisoning each other and running around in disguise, that was probably borrowed from Sir Philip Syndney’s 16th century work The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia. ) 

Neat, huh? But why write this crazy, depressing play in the first place? Well, there are a couple of possible reasons. One might be that since King Lear for whatever reasons was a popular subject matter in the 16th and 17th centuries, Shakespear might have just wanted to cash in on that. But there might have been another reason: During this time, King James I of England was attempting to unite all of Britain. Shakespear’s play about the dangers of a divided kingdom may have been the playwright's way of signaling his support for the king. In fact Shakespear first performed King Lear in front of James I and his two sons, get this--the Dukes of Cornwall and Albany. So it’s possible there was political motivation for writing the play as well as a desire to entertain. But of course that’s all speculative.

At any rate we did! We’ve unravelled both the history of Shakespear’s King Lear, and the mystery of how it closely ties into Fire Emblem: 3 Houses. But wait! There’s still MORE history we can pull from 3 Houses. And we’ll talk about that in a future episode. 

At any rate guys, questions comments, suggestions? Let me know by emailing me at megnhistory@gmail.com, hit up on Twitter at Meghan_IGN, or following me on Instagram at celtic_queen_meg. And if you’re enjoying this series, don’t forget to like, subscribe, and leave a comment. Hopefully a happy one. Thanks again guys. See you later!