The story of Seiros AKA Archbishop Rhea and the Immacute One from the Fódlan Saga of Nintendo's Fire Emblem franchise.
Origin[]
In the ancient times of Fódlan, Seiros and a race known as the Nabateans (also Children of the Goddess) were born of the Progenitor God, Sothis, upon her arrival in Fódlan. They lived peacefully for a time within Zanado, the Red Canyon, coexisting with the native peoples of the land known as the Agarthans. However, things began to change when the Agarthans waged wars among themselves, eventually believing themselves to be gods and turning on Sothis to kill her and the other Nabateans. The Agarthans were eventually vanquished by Sothis and the Nabateans, but the brutal conflict between the two races destroyed Fódlan and killed the majority of the human population. Furthermore, remnants of the Agarthans fled into underground hiding places, resulting in the formation of Those Who Slither in the Dark, led by Epimenides and a dark priest known as Thales.
A millennium later, following the conflict between the Nabateans and the Agarthans, Those Who Slither in the Dark persuaded a bandit leader known as Nemesis to infiltrate the Holy Tomb, where Sothis was sleeping after exhausting herself healing the land from the then-ancient war, to kill her and steal her body. From the progenitor god's body, Those Who Slither in the Dark gave Nemesis the Crest of Flames and the Sword of the Creator. Equipped with the relic, Nemesis went back to Zanado and slaughtered the local Nabateans in order to turn their bodies into Heroes' Relics and Crests. Seiros was one of the few Nabateans who survived the massacre, but was left severely traumatized by the death of her mother and her people.
The War of Heroes[]
As Nemesis led the Liberation Army and his Ten Elites, he conquered all of Fódlan beyond the borders of the Adrestian Empire. To end his brutal reign and exact her revenge against Nemesis for the murder of her mother and genocide of her people, Seiros formed an alliance with Wilhelm Paul Hresvelg, the founder of the Adrestian Empire, in Imperial Year 91, by sharing her blood with him and bestowing upon him the Crest of Seiros. With the combined forces of herself, Wilhelm, and the survivors of the Nabatean genocide, the Four Saints, Seiros led the battle against Nemesis and the Ten Elites, killing him in hand-in-hand combat at the Tailtean Plains, avenging her mother and her people.
Seiros vs Nemesis during the Battle of the Tailtean Plains.
During the War of Heroes, Seiros helped Wilhelm establish the Adrestian Empire, crowning him as its first emperor. After the War, she founded the Church of Seiros, rewriting history via Church doctrine to obscure the existence of Nabateans and protect the few that remained. These revisions included claiming that the Crests were gifts from the Goddess to humanity (rather than the stolen blood of Nabateans), that the Ten Elites were heroes (rather than allies of Nemesis who helped in his conquest of Fódlan), and obscuring Nemesis' original, villainous past, instead portraying him as a hero (initially blessed by the Goddess) who was corrupted by power and fell from grace. She also claimed that the weapons forged from Nabatean bones were "Heroes' Relics" bestowed upon humanity by the goddess rather than the bodies of her murdered family, in order to conceal their true nature and the Nabatean genocide that led to their creation from the people. Unfournately, this would lead to terrible consquences, such as nobles taking advantages of the Crest system to further their personal agendeas and increase their power.
After the establishment of the Church, Seiros began her endeavor to revive Sothis, whom she believed could restore the land after all the violence and war it had seen and reunite with her. She created artificial homunculi to serve as vessels for the Goddess, though these experiments never proved successful.
Becoming Archbishop Rhea[]
As Nabateans have a longer life span than humans, Seiros faked her death to not arouse suspicion and instead controlled the Church from behind the scenes. A thousand years later, she assumed the alias of Rhea and once again assumed direct control of the Church as Archbishop. During her tenure as Archbishop, Rhea shared her blood with a man named Jeralt Reus Eisner to save his life, granting him the Crest of Seiros and extending his lifespan. She also attempted a twelfth try at creating a vessel for Sothis during this time. While the experiment failed at reviving Sothis, she successfully created a living artificial human with Sothis's Crest Stone as her heat, whom she named Sitri and came to view as a daughter. Sometime later, Sitri and Jeralt fell in love and married, but due to Sitri's poor health, she was unable to bring a viable pregnancy to term, giving birth to a stillborn and dying in childbirth. On her deathbed, Sitri begged Rhea to use her own heart (Sothis's creststone) to revive her child, Byleth. Rhea implanted Sothis's Crest Stone in their heart when they were a baby, which gave them life. Because of this, Rhea believed that Byleth would be the perfect vessel for the Goddess.
However, Jeralt grew suspicious of Rhea due to the circumstances of his wife's death and Byleth's condition, who had a pulse but no heartbeat and never cried. Losing his faith in Rhea after believing his wife died of something else, Jeralt faked his and Byleth's deaths and left the Knights of Seiros with his child. In the years following Jeralt's disappearance, two of the Four Saints, Cichol and his daughter Cethleann who also participated in the War of Heroes before dissapering for a long time, joined Rhea at Garreg Mach Monastery, taking the names Seteth and Flayn respectively, and masquerading as brother and sister, with Seteth serving as Rhea's right-hand man and advisor. She also came to recruit more followers, such as Catherine, Shamir, and Cyril, with Catherine and Cyril becoming incredibly loyal to her due to her benevolence towards them.
Fire Emblem: Three Houses[]
The Academy Phase/White Clouds[]
Rhea Meets Byleth and Jeralt
Twenty years later, after being discovered by three house student leaders of the Church's Academy, Edelgard von Hresvelg, Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd, and Claude von Riegan, and a Knight of Seiros Alois, Jeralt was forced to return to the Church's service and reveal his child's existence to Rhea. Rhea recruits Byleth and assigns them as a teacher to a house of their choice: the Black Eagles, the Blue Lions, or the Golden Deer house, in order to observe them and see if they are capable of merging with Sothis in both mind and body.
Often times at the end of each month , Rhea assigns Byleth and his students missions to deal with those who threaten the Church, such as Kostas (the bandit who attacked the three house leaders), Lonato Gaspard (who wanted vengenace on the Church for the death of his son), and Miklan Gautier (who stole the Lance of Ruin). She and the Church also has deal with a mysterious faction led by the engimatic Flame Emperor and their personal enforcer the Death Knight, who is eventually revealed to be Jetriza von Hrym, one of the instructors in the Officers' Academy.
They were revealed to be also aided by two mysterious inviduals, Solon and Kronya, the former who infitrated the academy one year prior to the game as Tomas the Liberian and the latter who was disguised as Monica von Ochs, a Adrestian Empire student who dissapered a year ago. Before escaping, Kronya quickly kills Jeralt for interfering with her turning other students into cursed beasts. Byleth and his students were then tasked by Rhea to pursue and kill Kronya. She then discovers that Byleth fused with Sothis and gained her powers to defeat and kill Solon, leading to Rhea believing that her long struggle to revive her mother will soon be succeeded.
After Byleth's power fuses with Sothis', Rhea eagerly transports them to the Holy Tomb in the hopes of completing the transformation and reviving her mother. Her plans, however, are dashed when Sothis has not been revived, much to Rhea's confusion, and later the Flame Emperor and Adrestian Empire forces invade the tomb.
The Black Eagles (Crimson Flower) Route[]
| NOTE: This route can only be achieved by choosing the Black Eagle, reaching rank C+ in Edelgard's Support, attending her coronation ceremony in time, and choosing to spare her. |
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The Immaculte One's first appearance
After Byleth betrays Rhea and the Church of Seiros, choosing to defend Edelgard instead of killing her when she attacked the Holy Tomb of the Church, which held the remains of many Nabateans the Church was protecting, Rhea grows furious with Byleth, transforming into The Immaculate One. Before she can defeat them, though, they flee. After the Adrestrian Empire and the Black Eagles successfully storm Garreg Mach Monastery, she transforms again and attacks Byleth. Byleth goes missing for five years and, unlike other routes, Rhea is not captured. In those five years, Rhea and the Church of Seiros are granted asylum within the Holy Kingdom of Faerghus by the newly crowned King Dimitri, forming an alliance with him against Edelgard and the Empire and fighting them to a standstill.
She slips further down into madness and revenge over Byleth's betrayal, viewing them to be her arch-nemesis Nemesis, and eventually chooses to discard her alias as Archbishop Rhea and just be called Seiros again. While Edelgard and the Black Eagle Strike Force capture what is left of the Leicester Alliance and either kill or exile Claude, Rhea plans an assault to recapture the Monastery in their absence, with Seteth and Flayn appearing in the battle. If fought by Byleth, Seteth notes that even he can't follow Rhea/Seiros' course anymore, despite being her advisor for so many years. They can be spared if defeated by Byleth, after which the two will go into hiding. In this scenario, Seteth will send Seiros a letter after the battle, explaining that while he despises Byleth for their betrayal, he prioritizes Flayn's safety above all else, to which Seiros completely sympathezies with and allows Seteth and Flayn to leave. Regardless of the outcome, Seiros becomes even more furious at Byleth for taking them away from her as well (she will be even more furious if Byleth kills them however), becoming more determined to kill Byleth.
Seiros' final moments before her clash with Byleth and Edelgard, and her death.
She appears alongside Dimitri in the penultimate chapter as an optional enemy commander, hoping to intercept the Imperial army on their way to conquer Fhirdiad, the capital of Faerghus. Seiros is, of course, defeated and retreats. As the Imperial army nears Fhirdiad, she orders Catherine and Cyril to torch the city, disregarding the civilians still residing there; Catherine initially objects but reluctantly agrees. For the final battle, Seiros transforms into The Immaculate One once again and fights the Empire out of blind hatred towards Byleth. Upon her defeat, Byleth and Edelgard strike her down once and for all, causing Byleth's Crest of Flames to disappear, their hair and eyes to return to normal, and their heart to start beating for the first time in their life.
Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Houses[]
Prologue[]
In this timeline, it is the mercenary known as Shez who saves the three house leaders from Kostas and his bandits. They are then taken to Garreg Mach Monastery for an audience with Rhea, who offers Shez the opportunity to enroll in the Officers Academy as a student in the house of their choice, though Arval suspects that this offer was made in part to keep Shez under surveillance and cannot be refused, so Shez decides to accept Rhea's offer.
After Shez enrolls in the Officers' Academy, Rhea is convinced by Edelgard to lend her support in ousting Lord Volkhard von Arundel from the Empire, using Solan's treachery as an example. Around the same time, Rhea summons Dimitri to tell him that his uncle Rufus has taken over Fhirdiad, and has him and the Blue Lions house, accompaied by Gilbert under Rhea's orders, to quell Rufus' rebellion. Following the coup in Adrestia, the succession crisis in Faerghus, and an attempted Almyran invasion of Leicester, which was stopped by Claude, Rhea decides to shut down the Officers Academy and sends the few remaining students home.
The Scarlet Blaze route[]
Rhea first appears in Chapter 4: The Strrugle Commences. Two years latter following the closing of the Officers Academy, after Empress Edelgard declares war on the Central Church, Rhea and her loyalists try to defend Garreg Mach Monastery from Edelgard and her forces, but despite her and the knights' best efforts, they are defeated and Rhea and her loyal followers quicky escaped the monastery, being aided by Catherine. They are then driven into exile in the Kingdom of Faerghus in order to seek refuge. Rhea and her followers take the route to Ailell, the Valley of Torment, with Rhea vowing that she will retake Garreg Mach and kill Edelgard for her betrayal. Arriving in Faerghus, Rhea quickly declares to support Dimitri and lends her military aid to the Kingdom.
In Chapter 14: Torment of the Eagle and the Lion, Rhea didn't make an appearance during the large-scale battle between the Adrestian Empire-Leicester Alliance forces and the Kingdom forces, but sent Seteth and his force to aid the Kingdom forces. After the battle, Ferdinand makes a theory that Rhea and her forces are using a secret route in Ailell to attack Garreg Mach, currently ruled by Minister of Religious Affairs Grégoire von Varley. However, the monastery is also attacked by Thales and Those Who Sliter in the Dark, who wishes to use this moment to cause further chaos.
Seiros finally makes her appearance as one of the final bosses alongside Thales in Chapter 15: A Path Forward. Seeing TWSITD making their move, Rhea/Seiros immediately orders Catherine to dispose of them, seeing them as a greater evil than the empire. Catherine and Cyril tries to protect Seiros, but both perished in battle, with Seiros mourning them and thanking them for their service towards her. The Empire forces then arrived inside the monastery, where they would confront Seiros and Thales. After defeating Thales, the empire would face Seiros. After a brief strrugle, Seiros decides to transforms into the Immaculate One to best the odds against her. Despite her best efforts, Seiros is ultimately pushed back and transforms into her original form.
Thales then re-appears again and the conflict esclates into a three-way battle between them. Seiros then focus her efforts on Thales, refusing to let the dark mage sully the monastery. In the end, the both of them appearead to have killed each other, leading to the Adrestian Empire acheiving their victory. However, it is mentioned that both of their bodies have not been found, which implies that one of them had survived, or possibly did.
The Golden Wildfire Route[]
Rhea first appears during the second half of the Golden Wildfire route. After Claude becomes the King of the Leicester Federation, he declares war on the Central Church and the Kingdom, with the intention of killing Rhea in order to end the war and to ensure Leicester's independence. While not making any in-person appearances, she has been mentioned a lot of times in the following chapters.
Seiros/Rhea makes her appearance in Chapter 15: Field of the Beginnings as the final boss. While the empire pursued the kingdom forces, the federation pursues Rhea and her forces in the Tailtean Plains, the same battlefield where she faced and killed Nemesis. Rhea decides to confront Claude and his forces in the plains, while giving Seteth permission for him and Flayn to escape should the battle turn out ill-will for them.
The Church forces then confronts the Federation army in the plains. Despite their very best efforts, Cyril is killed in battle, while Seteth and Flayn are forced to escape the battle, leaving Seiros/Rhea on her own to contront the enemy. When she is push back, Claude states his reasons that she has been shackling Fódlan to the past, while the land requires new changes. As Claude and his allies begin their final push, Rhea transforms into the Immaculate One to defeat her enemies.
Despite her best efforts, she is ultimately defeated by the combined efforts of Shez and Claude, with the latter stating that her reign comes to an end and proceeds to fire his arrow towards Seiros/Rhea's head, killing her instantly. With her demise, the church has lost much of its martial prowess.