Shocking news, Fire Emblem fans - everyone’s favorite meme lord and leader of the Golden Deer House, Claude von Riegan, has been lying to us all. Well, okay - maybe the fact that Claude’s been lying isn’t too shocking given his prankster reputation. But the subject of this particular lie is pretty surprising. Are you ready for this? Claude von Riegan…is not really “Claude” von Riegan. He’s been lying about his real name.

SPOILERS FOR FIRE EMBLEM: THREE HOUSES & THE “CINDERED SHADOWS” DLC BELOW.

The information was first implied in a line in the Cindered Shadows DLC, which was released last month. When Claude is talking with Balthus, he says the following head-scratching line: “Claude’s a common name in Fodlan. It’s just too dashing for new moms to pass up. It’s even a popular choice for fake names. Just a good, solid, all-purpose moniker, you know?”

The line and its subject matter is never mentioned again in the context of the Cindered Shadows side story or in the main game itself (even in the Claude-centric Golden Deer route). On one hand, given Claude’s reputation, it’s not entirely unbelievable that he’s just kidding around and making stuff up.

However, those who were familiar with Claude’s schemes and wit didn’t forget about the implications of that seemingly insignificant line.

This past week, in the most recent issue of the Nintendo Dream magazine, the nature of Claude’s real name was confirmed in an interview with the Fire Emblem: Three Houses’ writers. When asked about the abovementioned mysterious comment regarding the name “Claude”, the writers said the following (translation provided by yks160519 on Tumblr):

Screenshots from the interview are below:

As many of you have guessed, Claude is a false name. His real name is Khalid. We wanted to reveal this at some point but we never got the chance to…and here we are. In the game we had originally planned a scene for Nader to call his real name but it never really worked out so the plan was scrapped.

So “Claude von Riegan” is actually… Khalid von Riegan. While this may initially be surprising, this actually makes a ton of sense given Claude’s secret identity as the Prince of Almyra. He likely changed his name to avoid suspicion when he moved to Fódlan; and, as he explains himself in his quote from Cindered Shadows, went with one of the most common names in his new country - Claude.

Crazy how we’re nine months out from the official release of Three Houses and more story secrets are being revealed. What else are you hiding from us, Intelligent Systems?

Fire Emblem: Three Houses is available now, exclusively for the Nintendo Switch.

Source: Reddit