Fire Emblem: The Dark (Real) History Behind Dietrich

Added: 2026-05-12

[00:00:00]Hello everyone. I'm Megan Sullivan and welcome to or welcome back to History and Games, a video and audio podcast where we celebrate the hidden history found in our favorite video games. Today we're continuing my series on Fire Emblem Fortunes Weave. And this time we'll be taking a closer look at Dedricch, the dark and brooding swordsman who is one of four main characters participating in the heroic games of Dagian or Dagda. In this episode, we'll first look at Dedric, the Fire Emblem character, and go over some exciting details that fans have noticed about him from the reveal trailer. Then, we'll discuss how Dedric is tied to Dedric von Burn, a legendary hero famous for slaying giants, dragons, and Roman rulers. [music] And finally, saving the best for last, we'll be looking at the real historical figure behind Dedric von Burn, Theodoric the Great. And his story is all kinds of bonkers. I can't wait for you to hear it. And if you like what you hear, let me know in the comments below or reach out to me at Meganisme Egni [music] s o r y atgmail.com. I would appreciate the feedback. Oh, before I get started though, just a quick warning to Fire Emblem fans that there are spoilers for Three Houses dead ahead. [music] Okay, so first let's explore what we know about Dedricch. If you look at the footage for the [music] revealed trailer of Fire Emblem Fortune Weave, you immediately notice that Dedricch [music] is pale skinned, pale-haired, paleeyed, wears jet black armor, and wields [music] a deadly sword called the answerer. This dark knight has a brooding aura about him. And many Fire Emblem fans have theorized that he might actually be related to the death knight in Fire Emblem 3 Houses. After all, spoiler alert, he looks an awful lot [music] like Uritza. And not only that, Dedricch, like Uritza, is associated with the crest of Lemine, [music] can wield the combat skill murderous intent, has black armor with shoulder spikes, and although Dedric uses a sword in battle as opposed to a scythe like the death knight, that sword has scythelike claws. Now, this may be an indication that Dedricch is wielding not just a sword, but a hero's relic, a powerful weapon fashioned from the blood and bones of the Nebatans, aka dragons. And here is where fiction meets fable because [music] many of the hero relics in Fire Emblem are named after real life legendary weapons. And Dedric's sword, the answer is no exception. The answer is a legendary sword out of Irish mythology known as Fragarok. [music] This godforged sword could cut through any armor and always dealt a fatal blow. The most interesting thing about the sword is that when held against someone's throat, it would force that person to tell the truth. And we actually see Dedricch holding his sword against a bandit's throat in the trailer, suggesting he wants answers. Now, it's not surprising to see the answer appear in Fortune's [music] Weave. After all, the Fire Emblem series always features some type of weapon or armor or place name taken from Celtic tradition. But Dedric is a German name, not an Irish one. What's [music] going on here? Well, if we dig a little further into who or what directly inspired Dedrick's character, it's possible that the answer is actually being superimposed onto another legendary German sword called Echkos. This sword, along with a matching set of armor, was said to be fortified with [music] dragon's blood, which made its wielder invincible. And that sword fused with dragon's blood was wielded by, wait for it, Dedricch vonburn. So, two Dedrics, one from Fire Emblem and one from Fable, use swords connected to the slaying of dragons. But who is Dedric Vonburn? Dedric von Burn was a legendary figure in medieval folklore. According to tradition, he was an exiled Italian prince and was known as a slayer of giants, dwarves, and dragons. He often fought with other heroes in order to test their might. And one tradition even states that he could breathe fire. Dedric had all sorts of adventures and some of these adventures included real life historical figures like Attilla the Hun called Zel in the sagas and Odoaker ruler of Italy during the late Roman Empire. But how did Dietrich von Burn become associated with both fantasy characters and real life figures like Odoer? Well, this is where Fable meets Federati because now we can talk about Theodoric the Alain, also known as Theodoric the Great, a real king of Italy from 493 until 525 CE. And his story is wild. There are all kinds of twists and turns, betrayals and backstabbings. I mean, this history doesn't even need a dragon to make it interesting. Although, a quick FYI, I came across multiple spellings and pronunciations for some of these names.

[00:04:47]And honestly, I have no idea which one is the supposed correct one. So, I'm just going to pick one way of saying a name and hopefully you can understand me. All right, let's talk about the insanity that was fifth century Europe.

[00:04:59]Theodoric Theolon, son of Theodir, was born on the eastern edge of the Roman Empire around 454 CE and entered the world at a very tumultuous time for Europe. This era is known as the great migration period or barbarian invasion period [music] and involved several warlike tribes fanning out across Europe and seizing territory for themselves.

[00:05:24]The most infamous group was the Huns, led by the notorious Attilla the Hun.

[00:05:29]This group terrorized Europe throughout the 440s. And even after Itillaa's death in 452, which happened before Theodoric was born, the once mighty Roman Empire would remain unstable for quite some time. [music] Due to both internal strife and the power vacuum left by the Huns, this power vacuum would quickly be filled by a variety of Germanic tribes, including the Vandals, the Thraangos, the Visigos, and the Ostos. [music] Theodoric being part of the latter. In fact, Theodoric's uncle Valamir was the ruler of the Ostrogos. And this powerful leader not only [music] managed to throw off the shackles of his former Han masters, he was able to lead raids along the east coast of the Adriatic Sea. This was technically Roman territory, but nobody in the empire could prevent the Ostrogos from raiding, pillaging, and settling there because, well, the empire had problems. Since the 4th century, the Roman Empire had been split into two distinct courts. one in the east with its capital at Constantinople [music] and one in the west. First at Rome and then later at Revena. When Theodoric was born, both courts were a hot mess. In the west, things were especially messy.

[00:06:42][music] When Theodoric was just a toddler, Emperor Valentinian III was murdered by the bodyguard of a general named Atus. This event caused mass chaos in the West, which Gazeric, ruler of the nearby Vandal Kingdom, took full advantage of. While the Romans were preoccupied with the assassination [music] of an emperor, Gaiseric quickly sailed from his capital at Carthage, which he had snatched from Rome just a decade before, up the Tyber River and into the eternal city. And not only did Gazeric sack Rome and gain huge amounts of wealth, he was also able to take the Empress Udoxia and her two daughters hostage in what was a very impressive and very scary display of power.

[00:07:24]Meanwhile, in the eastern half of the Roman Empire, the newly crowned Emperor Leo was dealing with his own issues.

[00:07:29][music] Not only did he have to beat back a number of quote unquote barbarian tribes pouring into Roman territory post Aillaa [music] the Hun, but he ended up having to deal with an earthquake in Antioch, a fire in Constantinople, and a religious schism within the eastern [music] church that just wouldn't go away. In short, his plate was also pretty full. So when the Ostrogos raided the eastern territory [music] of Ilkum, Leo decided it was easier to just buy them off rather than fight them. In exchange, however, the Alains, that is the rulers of the Ostrogos, had to send a royal hostage to Constantinople. And that hostage ended up being King Valamir's nephew, Theodoric. And this worked out rather nicely for Theodoric. Not only did he receive an excellent Roman education, but he learned the ins and outs of the Roman people and was able to live peacefully in the eastern capital [music] while his family waged war on various tribes in and around the Ostrogos home of Panonia. But Theodoric being a hostage in Constantinople did not guarantee peace between the Ostrogos and Rome. The Goss quickly figured out that if they raided and paged the empire enough, they could extract concessions from Rome whenever they wanted.

[00:08:40]>> [music] >> And so that's what they did. And once again, the empire was kind of powerless to stop them because they were once again dealing with drama. In the west, the empire just could not get rid of the Vandal King Gazeric, who not only trounced the emperor, Majorian, in battle in 461, but also defeated both another emperor, Anthemus, and Leo's brother-in-law, Basiliscus, in a naval battle in 468. [music] These military debacles further weakened the western half of the empire and nearly bankrupted the eastern half of the empire. [music] But things were about to get worse for the entire empire. In 471, Leo had his highly ambitious general Aspar murdered and convinced his co-emperor Anthemus to do the same to his highly ambitious general Rissameir. The outcome was a disaster on both fronts. In 472, Anthemus was captured and [music] executed by Rissameir. Although the latter died just six weeks later. And in the east, the Thrakian Gothic soldiers who served under Ospar were so enraged at the murder of their general that their next leader, Theodoric Strao, rose up in rebellion, forcing the Eastern Empire to compensate the Goss, even though technically the Romans managed to stamp [music] out the insurrection. It was around this time in the early 470s that Theodoric's father, who had inherited the kingship from Valamir, led a raid into the southern Balkans, forcing Emperor Leo to agree to settle the Olstrogos in Macedonia. Perhaps as part of that deal, Leo also allowed Theodoric to return to [music] his family. And so, a somewhat quasi peaceful coexistence was established between the Ostrogos and the [music] Romans. But not for long. Emperor Leo died in 474 and a new emperor would ascend the throne in Constantinople.

[00:10:26]This emperor was [music] Zeno and he would prove to be a very cany and very difficult ruler to deal with. To be fair, Zeno had an extremely rocky start to his rule, which may have set the tone for the rest of his royal career. Just a year into being proclaimed emperor, he was faced with a coup led by none other than Basiliscus, Emperor Leo's brother-in-law and the same general who got his butt kicked by the Vandal King Gazeric back in 468. Despite that humiliating loss, [music] Basiliskus managed to hang on to quite a bit of political power and in 475 drove Zeno out of Constantinople and had himself proclaimed emperor. But long story short, his reign sucked due to a lot of infighting [music] and incompetence. And in 476, Zeno was back in power. And no sooner was he back in power than he received some shocking news from the west. A powerful barbarian general named Odoer [music] had just disposed of the young emperor Ramulus Augustus, whose family had in turn kicked the previous emperor Julius Nepos off the throne. [music] I cannot stress to you how messy the western half of the Roman Empire was at this point. But rather than proclaim himself emperor, Odoaker proposed that the Roman Empire really only needed one emperor and that in exchange for letting him rule Italy as a kind of viceroy, Odoaker would recognize Zeno as the one and only emperor of Rome. Having just come back into power, Zeno really wasn't in a position to argue against [music] this. Although he did ask Odoer to at least acknowledge on paper Julius Nepo's right to the throne. But he might as well saved his breath because to the surprise of no one, just a few short years later, Nepus was murdered. And this would prove to be the end of [music] the Western Roman Empire. From then on until the 15th century, Constantinople alone would carry on the imperial tradition. At any rate, having just [music] survived a coup, Zeno wasn't able to do much about the fall of Western Rome. But he could still shore up his power in the east. Back before his rule was rudely interrupted, he actually [music] managed to make a permanent peace treaty with the Vandal King Gazeric, who up until that point was still having a lot of fun [music] causing trouble in the Mediterranean.

[00:12:34]The terms of the treaty were that if Gazeric agreed to stop persecuting Catholics in North Africa and stop playing pirate in the Mediterranean, Zena would officially recognize all the lands the Vandals claimed as her own, including Carthage, which was a major win for Gaeric. And yes, it hurt the empire to lose that territory. But it also meant that the emperor had one less thing to worry about. And so with his throne and trade routes fully secured, Zeno could now finally turn his attention to the pesky Goss lurking in the background. He decided to go after Theodor Strao first. And he had good reason for doing so. When [music] Basiliskus rose up against Zeno in 475, Theodor Strao threw his full support behind the usurper, which Zeno duly noted. So once the crisis was over and Zeno was back on the throne, he almost immediately set about pitting Theodoric Stravo against Theodoric Theolon, who by then had inherited the title of King of the Ostos from his father. Well, he also kind of earned it through a series of battles, but never mind. Secretly, Zeno hoped that the two goths would destroy each other without Rome having to lift a finger. And in fact, although he promised the Olstos military reinforcements once they engaged the enemy, no reinforcements ever showed up.

[00:13:49]That's when Theodoric Strao figured out what Zeno was up to and convinced the younger Theodoric that instead of fighting each other, they should team up and make joint demands on the emperor, which they did. But Zeno proved to be quite shrewd. First, he tried to get back into the good graces of Theodoral by offering all kinds of bribes. And when that failed, he managed to coax Strao back into the Roman fold with a promise of money, military support, and fancy titles. In other words, bribes.

[00:14:16]Once he had done so, Zeno then ordered his imperial army to chase the younger Theodoric all the way back to the Adriatic coast, well away from the capital of Constantinople. But Zena's support of Theodoric Stravo proved to be a major blunder because when another coup against Zeno broke out in 479, this time led by Marcian, Zeno's own brother-in-law, Theodor Strao once again was quick to support the usurper. And even when the revolt failed, Strao would continue to fight Zeno off and on until his death in 481 when the Gothic leader was thrown from [music] a horse and impaled on a spear. But even with the death of Theodoric Strao, the emperor was unable to rest on his laurels because in 482, Theodoral once again [music] burst onto the scene. This time attacking Macedonia and Thessal. Since Zena was busy trying to hold things together in Constantinople, he decided to just buy Theodoric off in the hopes that the Oststeros would quit causing trouble. He even allowed Theodoric to kill Strao's eldest son, [music] Reat, and unite both Gothic tribes under one banner. But this proved to be yet another huge mistake on Zeno's part because bribery only encouraged Theodoric, who kept harassing the empire and demanding more concessions. At one point, Theodoric even threatened the walls of Constantinople itself. By then it was clear that the situation was becoming untenable for the Roman Emperor. Luckily it was at this point that the wy Zeno came up with a daring scheme. You see by then Zeno wasn't just fighting with the Goss. He was fighting with his western viceroy Odoakar [music] and was desperate to get rid of him. And so in the winter of 488 he made Theodoric an offer too good to refuse.

[00:15:54]If Theodoric along with [music] his entire Goth army managed to defeat Odoaker in battle, Zeno would recognize Theodoric as the next imperial viceroy of Italy. The Ostraas were happy to accept this offer and thus began a long campaign against Odoer. It took 5 years of fighting, but Theodoric finally managed to wear Odoer down just long enough to get him to agree to a truce.

[00:16:17]But Theodoric had no intention of honoring this truce. Less than two weeks after peace was declared, Theodoric invited Odoaka to a banquet. Then during the meal, he took out his sword and struck [music] Odoaker down at the dinner table. Now, Theodoric's sword may not have been dowsted in dragon's blood, but it was a lethal blow that nearly cleaved the victim in two. Theodoric then ordered his men to hunt down and kill the king's most loyal retainers, ensuring that nobody was left to contest Theodoric for the position of imperial viceroy. It was ruthless and underhanded. But even still, Zeno kept his promise to recognize Theodoric as ruler of Italy. And although Theodoric wore the imperial purple, minted coins in his own image, and made sure everyone knew he was in charge, Theodoric was careful not to call himself emperor.

[00:17:04][music] Instead, he simply named himself Rex, the Latin word for king. And this king wasted no time expanding his territory to include places like Pannonia in the east, his former homeland, and the nearby Visikoth Kingdom, where some of his relatives had ended up a few years before. He even arranged all sorts of advantageous marriage alliances for his family.

[00:17:25]Although a lot of these didn't pan out so well. In fact, he spent his final years fighting for or against his own family. Meanwhile, back at home, Theodoric ended up being an extremely competent administrator. Or at least it seems that way according to contemporary sources, including Casiodoris, who wrote 46 [music] letters in the name of Theodoric. According to historians, the viceroy allowed the Romans to continue following wellestablished Roman laws while allowing the Ostrogos to continue following their own set of laws. In other words, Theodoric was careful not to disrupt people's day-to-day lives too much. And according to the letters of Casiodoris, Theodore tried his best to maintain a just balance between the people and the powerful. But he became most famous for his ambitious building program. He promoted the rebuilding of Roman cities, the preservation of ancient monuments, and even built new walls, aqueducts, churches, and bathous for the populace to use. This new building program gave the Romans a renewed sense of pride and purpose. And a lot of people loved him for it. By the way, some of this architecture still stands in Italy today. In short, Theodoric's rule brought both stability and a resurgence of power to the Italian peninsula. And although the Gothic superstate he created did not survive his death in 525, later generations continued to celebrate him as Theodoric the Great, later immortalized in Gothic tradition as Dedricch Vonburn. And believe it or not, that's the short short version of the life and times of Theodoric the Great. He did a lot in his life. And I didn't even get to some of the juicier details, but and I hate to be abrupt about it, we've got to move on to our last Fire Emblem hero, K or Kai.

[00:19:05]Who is this mysterious boy? What does he have to do with the Roman Empire or Carthage or anything really? We'll explore that in the next episode. Thanks so much for supporting History and Games, guys. See you later.