Of all of Three Houses's beloved ships, none is more strange than the pairing of Mercedes and Annette. These two giggling schoolgirls make a perfect match, and yet their Support chain prominently features them arguing to the point of shattering their entire friendship. Mercedes has the interest in women, but the two girls sit at opposite ends of the age range, giving an almost terrifying 23-16 (28-21) age gap. What is it about these two girls that makes pairing them both easy and difficult?
The place to start looking is in their respective experiences. Mercedes's story is told in several parts, having gone through no less than four guardians, two of whom were abusive (it's Fodlan, the place is full of them). The part relevant to this analysis is her major background, with Baron Bartels. At some point in her childhood, her mother decided she was no longer safe there and took her away, leaving her eight-year-old younger brother to fend for himself for ten long years- it was deemed too big a risk to leave Bartels empty-handed, as that would have only increased his desperation. Both Mercedes and her mother regretted this decision, even before it turned out that Emile would one day be driven to murder the Bartels family.
Annette, in contrast, found herself without a father, once the man who sired her decided that his inability to get murdered by assassins was grounds for exile from Faerghus. Since she was thirteen at the time, she decided that she must've been the one at fault, and resolved to better herself through learning, prove that she was a worthy noble because of her brains as well as her Crest, and get sent to Garreg Mach's great school so she could track down her father, who was in hiding there.
And so the two girls met at the School of Sorcery, and to say they got on well would be an understatement. Mercedes, the girl who needs to be doting, and Annette, the girl who craves being doted on, fit together, and their youthful friendship would blossom, although every step of the way, the element that was Mercedes looking out for Annette persisted. Their friendship is almost built on that.
And this is when we get to the B Support. While on a shopping trip, Mercedes and Annette are accosted by a thief, who seems to have the opinion that they are spending with stolen gold and intends to reclaim it. Annette, being the sixteen year old girl that she is, steps forward and tells him to bring it on- to be fair, Garreg Mach teaches students how to kill bandits much more dangerous than this fellow- and Mercedes gets them out of the situation peacefully... before rounding on Annette and scolding her for her actions. Annette is as clueless as anyone else here. What's going on here?
The answer is in the A Support, of course. But it's a little confusing at best if you don't keep in mind what I brought up earlier: That Mercedes lost her cherished brother when he decided to do the right thing to keep her safe. Mercedes has been bearing that guilt for years, and it seems that with her close connection to Annette, she has found herself not a close friend or even a girlfriend, but a substitute baby sister.
But what of Annette? Unlike Mercedes, Annette's missing relative is still- technically- sane, and Annette has no desire or inclination to replace him. She may face a strong deficit in positive attention from her remaining family- her uncle does threaten that a useless Crested daughter is liable to be sold, after all- but she doesn't see that as something she needs to correct or compensate for. Mercedes's doting, while appreciated, is not what Annette entered the relationship seeking to acquire, and when Mercedes comes on too strong, Annette strikes back.
The problem with Mercedes/Annette, in the end, is a problem that is not necessarily resolved by their reconciliation in the A Support: Annette enjoys doing things with Mercedes, and given her clumsiness both in and out of the kitchen, she spends a lot of that time together being guided by Mercedes, but she does not enjoy being babied, while Mercedes has invested too much of her heart into Annette to allow her to drift away. The girls have entered a relationship where their respective traumas symbiotically feed the other, and because neither of them fully realise what the other one is suffering from and how it is expressed, they both allow the other to indulge in potentially harmful behaviours. Mercedes's nurturing instinct needs to be curtailed, so that she can let people leave her on good terms, while Annette's need for approval needs to be dealt with, so she can feel successful without standing on someone else's shoulders. Neither of these are onerous tasks- compared to some of the traumas the rest of Fodlan has to deal with, including Emile's own- and I am sure Mercedes and Annette will be well up to the task of doing so after the game, especially if Annette becomes a teacher of any kind.
Why isn't the problem obvious to the players? Because the clues just weren't there when we got the B Support. To understand Mercedes's maternal instinct, you not only need to know about Emile and the shattered relationship left there, but you need to consider how that element of her character shaped her approach to other people in her life. And not only is that just not feasible on a first playthrough, it also requires that you encounter this relationship information in Crimson Flower and bring it to a conversation that most players will be quick to develop in Azure Moon- and not only that, it wasn't there at launch, although it's likely it was intended to be so. While Mercedes also shows off her misplaced mothering instinct in many other Supports, only Felix's really has her partner bear her ministrations poorly and draw attention to them- many people in Garreg Mach find Mercedes's warm, doting presence reassuring, because again, many people in Garreg Mach didn't grow up with one. It's difficult to see Mercedes being maternal as a bad thing, and that's why it's a problem at all.
