Fire Emblem Three Houses: Why Gronder Field Doesn't Work As Well The Second Time

Spoilers for Fire Emblem: Three Houses follow

 If you've played Fire Emblem: Three Houses, you may recall that one of the highlights of Part 1 is the Battle of the Eagle and Lion, a three-way mock battle in Gronder Field between your house and your two rivals, in Chapter 7. The battle is repeated after the timeskip on Chapter 17 of the Azure Moon(Blue Lions) and Verdant Wind(Golden Deer) routes(but not on the Black Eagles and Church routes- Crimson Flower and Silver Snow), only it's an all-out war and the former classmates are fighting to the death.

It seems like a good concept in theory- take a level that worked well as a mock battle and bring it back as a three-way battle to the death to show how grim things have become. Unfortunately, in practice, the level neither lives up to its full potential nor fully replicates what made the original Battle of the Eagle and Lion enjoyable.

Gameplay

First, let's look at the map from a gameplay standpoint.

In Chapter 7, the enemy armies are relatively small compared to many other missions, and don't have reinforcements. They do, however, have every single named character in attendance(or a Kingdom/Alliance/Empire General with similar skills if you recruited that character), plus a handful of generic units. Like with the mock battle in Chapter 1, your enemies will change their strategy based on how you move your units. Unlike the mock battle, the two other houses will fight each other, but you shouldn't sit back and let them fight. Not only do you gain a prize for defeating the most units, but after the enemy defeats a certain number of units, their stats increase. You can also seize the ballista in the center for a tactical advantage, although one of the two houses(the Blue Lions if you are playing the Black Eagles, otherwise the Black Eagles) already has it at the start.

In Chapter 17 ,the Empire has by far the largest army on the field, although the only named characters who appear are Edelgard, Hubert, Petra and Bernadetta, assuming you didn't recruit the latter two. The Alliance or Kingdom has fewer forces present at the start but more named characters- Dimitri comes with Felix, Sylvain, Ingrid and Dedue, while Claude brings Leonie, Lysithea, Raphael and Hilda. Unfortunately, they will summon reinforcements as they advance. One group of reinforcements appears just to the north of your starting location, and can easily kill some of your units if you are playing on Maddening(which allows reinforcements to act on the same turn they appear). Like with many reinforcement spawns, it's hard to tell what triggers the reinforcements.

The level sets a nasty surprise for anyone who wants to seize the ballista. Not only does advancing too quickly cause Kingdom/Alliance reinforcements to spawn, but it also results in Petra charging you. After Petra is defeated, Edelgard will launch an attack on the hill, turning it into a fiery wasteland that damages and disables any units caught in it. While some people claim that Edelgard's willingness to use this tactic if Bernadetta is on the hill is proof of how ruthless Edelgard has become, that appears to be an unintended consequence; I've seen a video in which Edelgard bombs the hill while she herself is on it. When I played it on Maddening on the Azure Moon route, the hill got firebombed twice- once when the Alliance killed the Empire General that was a placeholder for Bernadetta, and again when I got too close to it. This goes to show that some triggered events seem arbitrary.

The level takes away some of the fun parts of the three-way Battle of the Eagle and Lion- trying to not only win the battle but get the most KOs- while adding a few frustrating elements of its own, such as reinforcements and seemingly random triggered events. As such, it's no surprise that it doesn't compare favorably to the first trip to Gronder field.

Story

Now, I will evaluate both versions of the battle in terms of story.

Chapter 7 is a bit of a lighthearted "breather episode, which follows Flayn's rescue and precedes a mysterious attack on the village of Remire. A fishing tournament is held, and everyone is in good spirits, at least for the moment. Of course, the Battle of the Eagle and Lion is built up rather well, first being mentioned at the end of the mock battle, and helps serve to show how far you and your house have come.

Chapter 17 serves as a climax of sorts to the first half of the post-timeskip parts of the Azure Moon and Verdant Wind routes, especially the former, in which Dimitri sees the error of his ways and begins to change for the better. As your faction heads to Gronder Field, a third party arrives- on the Azure Moon route, the Alliance arrives as a possible ally, while on Verdant Wind, the remnants of the Kingdom army head there on their own, following Dimtri's single-minded quest for vengeance against Edelgard.

The main problem with having another three-way battle at Gronder Field is that there's little reason for the Kingdom and Alliance to fight, since the Empire, which started the war and intends to conquer Fodlan, is their mutual enemy. On Verdant Wind, it's understandable that the psychotic and revenge-obsessed Dimitri would be unwilling to cooperate with the Alliance, but Claude is ordinarily much more reasonable. Despite Claude generally being intelligent, on Azure Moon, he plunges right into a melee in which he cannot tell friend from foe, resulting in needless casualties. By the end of the Azure Moon version of the battle, while Edelgard is wounded and her army has suffered casualties, the Empire is arguably the strategic winner of this battle, and she has Claude to thank for that.

You may notice that you won't go to Gronder Field post-timeskip if you teach the Black Eagles. On Crimson Flower, in which you follow Edelgard, you cross the Great Bridge of Myrddin and conquer the Alliance in the first two post-timeskip chapters, resulting in the latter four chapters being focused on th war against the Kingdom-Church alliance. On Silver Snow, in which you refuse to follow Edelgard, Gronder Field takes place offscreen, and the outcome is the same as Verdant Wind- Edelgard's men kill Dimitri, and all the other soldiers under his command die senseless deaths. One of the main flaws of Three Houses is that the non-Crimson Flower routes are too similar to each other, so perhaps the developers could have only included the battle of Gronder Field in Verdant Wind, the one route in which it makes sense.

Speaking of the two sides fighting each other, there's surprisingly few chances for unique battle dialogue here. The only unique dialogue in Chapter 17 occurs when the house leaders fight each other or Byleth, or when Byleth fights Bernadetta. It feels like a bit of a wasted opportunity to not at least acknowledge the possibility of having friends fight each other, even though the Kingdom and Alliance characters wouldn't take their comrades defecting to the other group as personally as their friends joining the Empire.

For a comparison, let's use Chapter 17 of Crimson Flower, in which the Empire fights the Church on Tailtean Plains. Here's a list of all the enemy generals and the characters who get special dialogue with them when they do battle.

1. Sylvain: Felix, Ingrid, Byleth(different dialogue based on Byleth's gender)
2. Seiros/Rhea: Edelgard, Byleth
3. Mercedes: Annette, Constance, Jeritza, Byleth.
4. Dedue: Byleth(but only before he transforms)
5. Dimitri: Edelgard, Felix, Byleth.

That said, there were a few things I liked about the battle of Gronder Field. "Between Heaven and Earth," the BGM for this map is an excellent remix of "Blue Skies and a Battle" that sets the tone for the war. The map effectively reflects how much of an advantage the Empire is at in the war, but also shows that they're no match for the Kingdom and the Alliance if the other two factions put aside their differences and work together(which happens on Azure Moon).

Conclusion

While the mock battle in Gronder Field was a high point in White Clouds, the return to Gronder Field doesn't work as well, being a rehashed map that makes less narrative sense. The lack of this map is one point in Crimson Flower's favor, as rather than copy what the other three routes did, it instead chose what worked for the narrative, in which the Empire is at an advantage and is able to bring a swifter end to the war, starting with neutralizing the Alliance. In short, Three Houses would have been better if the routes had been more distinct, and each had made choices that fit the route, even if you only went to Gronder in one route, if any.