Fire Emblem Fates presents the player with an appealing question:

What if you could end fascism forever?

First, a little bit of background.

Fates is the second Fire Emblem game on the 3DS, released in 2016 and separated into three mainline entries: Birthright, Conquest, and Revelation. Birthright and Conquest were released as two entirely different games, with Revelation as an additional DLC that bridged the gap between both stories.

The games were a significant critical success, but in the years since, they have become widely disliked by fans— a result of controversial decisions made during development, namely streamlining the Fire Emblem formula and "censoring" a physical contact minigame for the English release of the game. One thing that fans particularly disliked was the storyline of Conquest, which was known for being... unrealistic.

The year was 2016; just a few months earlier, Donald Trump had been elected for his first term as President of the United States.

Conquest is the game where Corrin, the protagonist and player Avatar, decides to say with a genocidal kidnapper instead of going to live with her family.

This is the joke version of the story, the thing that people say when they're describing Conquest uncritically; the actual story is a lot less clear-cut. Nohr is where Corrin has lived for her entire life. Her family, Nohr's royal family, has protected her and loved her for at least a decade, and she only learns that she's actually a member of Hoshidan royalty a few days before she has to pick a side in their war.

King Garon, ruler of Nohr, is a man with a long history of being a fascist. He killed Corrin's actual parents, incited tensions between Nohr and Hoshido, escalated those tensions to all-out war, and acts with extreme prejudice towards everyone around him. He is violent, manipulative, and cruel. He threatens to kill Corrin multiple times. By all accounts, everyone should hate this man. And instead, he's running the country into the ground, happily sitting on his big-ass throne and surrounding himself exclusively with people who work for his interests.

Corrin spends the first half of the game grappling with her decision— the ramifications of it. She knows that Garon is evil and is actively trying to stop him. What's getting in her way is... everything.

In 2025, Conquest lands as a political commentary in a way that it didn't back in 2016. King Garon seemed so comically evil at the time that it was laughable. This is fascism? This is a "real" political identity? It's one old man tearing apart an entire country, two entire countries, and nobody is stopping him. Everyone just... lets him do whatever he wants.

With the benefit of hindsight, Conquest isn't a joke anymore. It's not really funny at all, actually. It's an expression of powerlessness— our very real inability to stop a dictatorship reflected back at us as Corrin's inability to change her situation in any way.

This is where I would point to Conquest as an allegorical tool; Corrin's political landscape is relatable to us, but she stops her father, ends the war, and ultimately destroys fascism. What can we take from this game to apply to our own political situation?

...As it turns out, not much.

I call Conquest a fantasy— not because it has roots in high fantasy, or the fact that it's a story about a fictional country, but because its politics are idealized. It presents a more appealing version of reality.

King Garon isn't really a fascist. He's a blob monster, a puppet for the dragon-god Anankos. And before you ask, Anankos isn't a fascist either. He made Garon go insane, but he doesn't take responsibility for the state that Nohr is in.

Who will take responsibility? Xander and the other royals are complicit, serving their father politically even as they undermine him. Iago and Hans are clearly fascist. They serve Garon as cabinet members and have repeatedly shown that they enjoy it. We could say that they're the "real" fascists in the greater context of the game, that they're the agents of Garon's political agenda. And I would be satisfied with that, but... Garon doesn't have a political agenda. He's a blob monster.

Fire Emblem's portrayal of fascism makes the same mistake that a lot of us do: It assumes that fascism is a natural force— a methodology for seizing power and silencing political resistance, but not an ideology in and of itself. It's a form of self-defense; we don't want to admit that fascim, that racism, that anti-intellectualism are genuine beliefs. It's easier to think of conservatives as opportunists, to deny them political agency and characterize them as carpetbaggers who don't understand what they're voting for.

But... they do.

Conquest reinforces that assumption, that fear of reality, and portrays fascism as a very literal natural force: Fascism as a god.

It's frustrating, because this gives fascism way too much credit, but it also completely absolves fascists for their actions. The modern conservative isn't a brainwashed cultist— they're a person, a violent person, who shields themselves from responsibility by offloading that violence onto the institution that they vote for. The cruelty, the xenophobia, the eugenics, these form the framework of a political ideology. These are a "cause" that people genuinely believe in. That's why we can't let them off the hook.

It's our own form of leftist anti-intellectualism to oversimplify the conflict: Good versus evil, "real people" fighting against "fake politics."

The ultimate form of the fantasy, what makes Conquest an ideal game for avoiding reality, is the conclusion. If fascism is the product of a physical entity, one fundamental force, then you can address that root cause. You can cut fascism off at the source.

Corrin defeats Anankos, and the day is saved.

Reality is messier, more frustrating, and less appealing. If we address fascism as a natural force, as a religion, and not as a political ideology, we will lose. Killing the guy on the chair is not enough. Killing god is not enough. We have to address fascism through its true source: The institutions and the people who have spent their entire lives reinforcing it. We have to stand up for the people that are targeted by those institutions. We have to physically, emotionally, politically tear down the belief system of the people who want to destroy us. We have to take care of people. We have to take care of each other.

Doing all of that is a lot harder than swinging a sword.