bowbowis

[bowbowis]

It's not like the Empire had made no progress either:

They managed to claim a good chunk of Faerghus before deadlock set in.

Does Edelgard idle about, doing nothing, during the time skip of Crimson Flower?

This is a common take among Edelgard detractors. How it goes is, Edelgard spent all of the time skip in Crimson Flower either doing nothing due to not having Byleth there to hold her hand, or she spent all of it searching in vain for Byleth and just blowing off the war she started.

This is certainly an interesting take that has - shock and surprise - no support at all. I mean hell, it’s easily disproven: Crimson Flower is the only route where Byleth’s class don’t scatter to the four corners of Fodlan while waiting for the promised reunion. Further, Byleth happened to return as the Strike Force were already preparing to march and advance the deadlocked state of the war:

Indeed, while Byleth’s allies are unprepared to do anything in the other three storylines and have to spend a month just gathering soldiers and supplies and establishing Garreg Mach as their headquarters, the Black Eagle Strike Force in Three Houses are prepared to march less than a week after Byleth returns to them.

And indeed, the downfall of the Alliance does much to shake up the state of the war and begin a cascade of events that results in an Adrestian victory.

What this indicates is, far from depending on Byleth so she could do anything at all, Edelgard already was taking action. After all, it’s she, not Dimitri, not Claude, and not Seteth, who manages to keep Byleth’s class together in Byleth’s absence.

So then you might ask why the war’s in a deadlocked state for five years when Edelgard controlled the strongest military on Fodlan? Well… she doesn’t.

Hubert, not one to say such things lightly, calls the Empire the underdogs before the battle of Tailltean when compared to the combined might of the Knights of Seiros and the Kingdom.

Outside Crimson Flower, Cornelia deposes Dimitri and turns Faerghus upside-down with her deliberately shitty and destructive rule. And as for the Knights of Seiros? Well, ironically…

So what was different in Crimson Flower?

Well, the Knights of Seiros spent all of the time skip searching in vain for Rhea and just blowing off the war Edelgard started! Ironic.

But because Edelgard cut Thales out, thus denying herself the advantage of Demonic Beasts (which were responsible for capturing Rhea), Rhea was able to escape from Garreg Mach. Therefor, the Knights of Seiros remained united and dedicated to the task of fighting back, and they promptly sought shelter in Faerghus. Cornelia was either unwilling or unable to enact her plan to oust Dimitri (again, Edelgard cut her Agarthan allies largely out of the picture) so Dimitri was able to ascend the throne and unit the Kingdom against Adrestia.

The Empire had a much much harder fight against the Kingdom in Crimson Flower than it did in the other three routes. That, coupled with Claude’s faux-neutral uncertain status and House Rowe not surrendering Arianhrod to the Empire, resulted in the largely stagnant state of the war.

[bowbowis]

It's still less dumb than Dimitri interpretating the conversation to mean the Flame Emperor is responsible for the tragedy of Duscur.

If Edelgard didn’t care about Duscur...

Going back to the “Edelgard doesn’t care about the genocide of Duscur” argument. If that’s the case, why would she bring it up to Thales?

(source)

Assuming she cares about Duscur, she’s saying, “You did this terrible thing, which I am directly comparing against a horrific, nightmarish experience that scarred me, and you are going to pay for what you did.”

Assuming she doesn’t care about Duscur, she’s saying, “You did this thing I don’t care about. I’m going to directly compare against a horrific, nightmarish experience that scarred me, even though I don’t care that you did it, and I’m going to make you pay for what you did… even though I don’t care that you did it.”

Now you might ask, “she’s just lying to Thales to have ammunition against him!” but… why? If Thales gave any care at all about the outcome of Duscur it would be frustration over Dimitri having survived. The scene works as Edelgard genuinely lashing out about horrific things Thales did, but if she’s faking lashing out… just why? She’s not gonna guilt Thales into doing anything he wasn’t going to do, nor does she need to express false added motivation for punishing him for the things he did when the devastation of her family was enough.

It’s just, yeah. If Edelgard doesn’t care about what was done to Duscur, her behavior in this scene makes no sense at all.

[bowbowis]

"Okay, but why doesn't she get a redemption arc, admit she was a very naughty girl, and say she's sorry for starting the war?"

I feel like most of the Edelgard discourse just boils down to fandom misogyny and media illiteracy, imo.

This franchise has a well-documented history of not handling it well when women get focus, as shown by Lucina and Micaiah.

But a lot of it is just illiteracy. "Why does Edelgard go after the church, they didn't wrong her!"

Because she doesn't have Dimitri's character motivation, next question.

[bowbowis]

Counterintelligence is Evil!

One of my favorite aspects of Crimson Flower is how it touches on aspects of the war effort that are rarely acknowledged in other Fire Emblem games. In addition to directing frontline troop movements, we also see or hear about Edelgard concerning herself with espionage, counter-espionage, information control, propaganda, the management of occupied territories, and other things which are crucial to the success of any military campaign.

Of course, to the haters, Edelgard behaving like a competent military leader is actually a sign of her true, corrupt nature. Apparently compartmentalizing and keeping sensitive information on a need-to-know basis after Arianrhod is an unforgivable sin; and appointing Leopold to oversee the integration of the Leicester territories following the Alliance's dissolution is an act of unspeakable tyranny.

[bowbowis]

Diaphin has covered most of what I wanted to say, so I'll keep this relatively brief. On the subject of Edelgard remaining marketable, it's worth noting that the lines which get cited to support the interpretation that she is a rabid anti-Nabatean bigot are largely inventions of the English dub.

Comparisons courtesy of Teaspoon Translations:

In short, I highly doubt that keeping Edelgard marketable is a consideration for IS when dealing in Nabatean lore. Presumably the Japanese writers are working off the Japanese script, where Edelgard wasn't really written to be racist against Nabateans (her issue is more with how the Nabateans in the Church elevate themselves as though they have the right to control humanity), so presenting the Nabateans sympathetically shouldn't impact her popularity.

I do think viewing Crests as an allegory for being mixed-race is kind of silly. Especially considering one of the leads is actually biracial and that this fact is a central part of his story.

As you yourself point out most Crest bearers got their Crest through either intaking Nabatean blood in some fashion or being descended from somebody who did. Generally speaking, I don't think most people would consider a white person who gets a blood transfusion from a black person to suddenly become part black. Of course here we run into the problem that race is a cultural construct, not a biological reality, though I don't think most people would consider someone who got a xenotransfusion from a pig to be part pig either.

Besides, it's pretty clear that Crests are meant as an allegory for the divine right of kings and agnatic primogeniture. Power won through barbaric violence becomes legitimized by the dominant religious institution declaring those who accrued that power to have God's blessing, and future people have their level of power, wealth, and status dictated by their bloodline and a fluke of their birth with no regard for their competence, morals, or desires.

Crests aren't a problem because they're dragon blood; they're a problem because the Church, intentionally or otherwise, has created and maintained a society in which having one or not dictates your perceived value as a person.

Why do the FEH devs insist on ignoring Nabatean lore so much?

I recently had a surprisingly cordial discussion on redshit with someone about the "nabateans = colonisers" take, and one of the main points raised was that the game was purposedly foggy around Nabateans/Sothis/their story because it would obviously favor a certain narrative (and thus make another narrative look, uh, not that marketable anymore).

To be honest, we still ended up with a product that had a lead go "this race and its blood* is the reason why the world sucks" and yet that lead is still marketable enough to have raunchy cipher cards and 5 FEH alts, so I actually wonder if, while pissing on that lore had that purpose, it was ultimately pointless since Supreme Leader can still sell goodies despite her incarnation in FE16.

And not only Supreme Leader - but the entirety of WC where we basically have 70% of the cast crying/complaining about their "mixed blood" or lack of and basically adding their 10 cents to the "this race and its blood is the reason why the world sucks".

I mean, can you imagine Sylvain selling any goodies and alts if Flayn replied to his "wah wah people only are kind to me and want to fuck me because I have Nabatean blood :(" by some uncharacteristic "good for you, I have to hide my ears, had to dye my hair, have to lie about my family because if the truth is found out about my identity, I will be hunted and vivisected like an animal and harvested for parts by people who call my kin abominations - just like what happens in the game where the same people who call my kin "abominations" ally with a classmate who calls me a creature and pretends I am incapable of human feelings based on my race".

FE Fodlan's main selling point is its cast of students, for various reasons, but even if I tried to kid myself, Nopes and FEH made it clears : students are the main selling point.

If you spare more time and attention to the Nabatean plot/lore, the students either grow from "likeable" to "despicable" or worse, you won't gaf about them because yeah sure, Hilda might be upset because people expect things from her due to her crust, but it would feel like a "peanut" compared to Seteth's irrational (granted, it's not so irrational since GW exists) fear that Flayn's newest friends would dissect her if they learnt she was a Nabatean, and being conflicted by finally letting her have human friends and form bonds she crave, or protect her due to the trauma from the genocide of their species.

Don't get me wrong, I love peanuts, I mean, not everyone can have a tragik of loaded backstory!

And yet, given how this verse's DNA is "can you fight against the red emperor who uwus about you", they had to add copious amounts of Earl Grey to their games so there's no clear-cut factions :

The "Your alien blood and its influence on the world corrupted it, so I want to reform it under my command" vs "I don't want to die and you oppose me due to my race and side with the people who genocided my kin"

is turned to :

"Your alien blood Crests and its your church's influence on the world corrupted it, so I want to reform it under my command"

"I don't want to die and you oppose me due to my race and side with the people who genocided my kin"

Sprinkle with the cast's hammering here and there that the "reforms" might be needed - but never develop on what they are - and add a few baseless and groundless takes as a toping (basically everything Claude says about tolerance and the general "isolationism/foreign policy" stuff) and you get FE Fodlan where the Red Emperor's war isn't seen as the catastrophe it is in the other entries from the series!

Now, for FEH...

FWIW, the F!F!Billy's trailer had them try to explain that Sothis was a bit pissed about her slaughtered/massacred children when Nopes never gave any reason about why she was pissed - maybe on Billy's behalf bcs Jerry's dead, but come on, she would indeed deserve the medal of the worst parent in the franchise if that was the case, since Billy can murder her daughter without Sothis taking over ! - but given that they cannot write/go against the source game those characters are from.

They tried a bit, with B!Supreme Leader and Hegemongard's FB, but then it stopped (because she had no "new unit" released since then lol) and I can understand why : Hegemongard came out before the Supreme Emblem, and Hegemongard hates dragons who are seen/perceived as gods by some of their human followers. Come FE17, and now Supreme Emblem accepts Alear because they are "one of the good ones". We can come up with HCs and details and talk about what are emblems or if Hegemongard's views were only hers at the end of AM all day long... But imo, Doylist wise, it still feels it's a retcon because the devs from the main games tried to scrap and remove the most "controversial" traits she had.

For the other characters... Well, you see what Marianne is in FEH (but even in her base games), she's one of the few characters who reacts - in a way - to the partial history about relics and demonic beasts and all... only to give sad uwus to Maurice.

FE16 (and Nopes) refused to have any "student" character react to the Nabatean lore/reveal, about what are relics and all. There are no lines, Claude shared some knowledge in the explore section of VW's last chapter, but we don't have anyone muse or think or even talk about what are relics, what are crests, and what kind of fuckery their ancestors or the ancient humans of Fodlan did.

With that in mind, FEH can't do much : either they write Marianne in a retcon-y way like what happened for Hegemongard (and they're not afraid to piss on characterisation, look at Lyon!), or they flanderise her "character" and develop her around 3 lines she had in the game in her paralogue, and continue to give sad uwus about Momo when he was at best a guy who slaughtered and murdered so much that he abused the Nabatean turned into a relic to the point where he turned in a demonic beast even if he had a matching crest, or at worst, had been part of Nemesis's piñata party in Zanado and was something of a genocider.

Tldr :

Why FE Fodlan never gaf about Nabateans : earl grey + the marketable cast has to stay marketable and you can't sell peanuts at the same price you'd sell swordfish

Why FEH dgaf about Nabatean lore : they can't afford to retcon characters + they have to sell peanut alts with the same seasoning they had in their base game.

For what it's worth though, I think FEH is more daring than the base game(s) given how they gave more lines and screentime to Rhea - through her different alts - than GW. And they even designed her Halloween!alt's lines to piss on some of Claude's assertions, while the various FB involving members of the church also - indirectly - reply to some accusations thrown their way in FE16 when, FE16, never gave them an opportunity or lines to explain that those takes were full of dung.

*"but random, maybe she doesn't know that the crests she often decries is "dragon blood"!"

It's highly debatable, especially given what she and Hubert throw to Billy in CF - but even if she doesn't, Doylist wise we still have a character who, knowingly or not, says "this race and its blood* is the reason why the world sucks" and who is never called out on her prejudice. That's more of an issue regarding the general writing though, she has to be a red emperor and took pages from Ashnard's book, and yet, the player must still feel bad and want to romance her, so her mindest/goal cannot be looked at too closely, because, I guess, even the devs thought it would be difficult to romance her (thus sell goodies!) if more light was shed on the "blood from this race corrupts our people" schtick -> which in turn would also make characters whose backstory and gimmick rely on "crying about crests" be way less likeable, thus marketable and able to sell goodies.

[bowbowis]

Taking a break from Edelgard posting to reblog this post about my other favorite video game character.

Habe you ever had a "did we even play the same game?" moment with someone?

My favorite game ever used to be Metal Gear Solid 4, it’s still up there in my top favorites, and this time at a party I met a guy that said he didn’t like MGS4 because he felt like it ruined Snake as a character and that it misrepresented him. I asked if he could elaborate and his response was that they took this Rambo dude, this super manly war hero and emasculated him into a weak old man.

I need you to understand that Solid Snake was without exaggeration fundamental in my growth as a person: I am from a latino country, grew up in what’s widely considered the wrong side of the tracks in the middle of nowhere, being macho, manly, tough was incredibly important to me, because that’s how it was in there, and Snake (plus “The Knight In Rusty Armor” by Robert Fisher) basically made me question all of what I’d grown up thinking up until then, because Snake isn’t a badass because grrr manly beef jerky I kill and swear, he is this incredibly solemn guy who hates what he can do, but is the only one that can do it, and if he doesn’t do it, then nuclear war happens, or worse. There’s a whole angle of expectation as a narrative arc in regards to Snake: Meryl expected a glorious, boisterous war hero, Otacon expected a grizzled, badass action hero, Liquid expected Himself But Better In Every Way, Ocelot expected a tool and nothing else, Naomi expected a callous and cold killer… And they were all wrong, he is, ultimately, an exhausted man that cannot stop no matter how much he wants to stop, because if he does, the world might likely go up in literal flames.

So to hear this self-proclaimed superfan of Snake say this just made me skip anger and go all the way to pity. In-universe, those in the know of Snake worship him as an actual God of War, and it’s a common thing that gets addressed in-universe: The whole point of MGS2 is that Raiden could never have won if he tried to be Snake, because you don’t want to be Snake. Snake hates being Snake. Snake isn’t manly because he beat a tank on foot one on one, Snake is admirable because he does the right thing, even if he’s breaking down molecule by molecule as he goes and he wants nothing more than to fuck off and raise dogs in the arctic, but keeps on going anyways because he can do something about it. The most important message he imparts on Raiden and Meryl is Don’t Be Me; Create A World Where Snake Doesn’t Need To Exist.

I felt pity because if you feel like MGS4 misrepresented Snake, then you really and explicitly are exactly the kind of fodder PMC nobody that feeds the proxy wars in MGS4. I think only by skipping every cutscene you can come out thinking that way. The only thing super about him was ficial.

[bowbowis]

Obvious that's because Edelgard worships Nemesis as a hero for genociding the Nabateans even though she doesn't know the true history of Fódlan and would totally be cool with Rhea if she did. /s

Does Edelgard even trust Thales’s words? From my memory of my playthroughs, she came off more like knowing he was full of shit but just tolerated it because she didn’t have the leeway to call him out on it.

Yeah, this. When Thales calls Nemesis a thief she just reacts in bafflement, as would... basically everyone else in Fodlan.

[bowbowis]

This is the line she OPENS the level 40 conversation with, I think this poor woman is cursed to fall in love with protagonists everywhere she goes

[bowbowis]

butwhatifidothis's last paragraph is really telling:

Like I'm sorry but you can't choose to not get fucked by literally the entire damn world and that's what makes Edelsue so fucking boring and uninteresting and annoying. All of that meticulous planning Edelgard did for years to enact this war, in this interpretation, boils down to "she didn't do shit, everyone else did, she was just forced to be the fall guy." Any action that isn't squeaky clean in moral whiteness has nothing to do with her agency and that sucks ass

Has any Edelgard fan ever claimed she didn't bear responsibility for starting the war? It's like Strikes is so stuck in her echo-chamber that she genuinely cannot fathom that Edelgard's fans might accept her actions as justified.

In which we discuss Edelgard's flaws (she has none)

Hey folks! Been a while since I did a longpost. There just hasn't been anything to stir my interest.

But fortunately I found something, so I suppose it's a good time to get away from Resident Evil 4 Remake S+ prep runs, cooking dinner, going to the gym, and writing my fanfic to indulge in my hobby of being terminally online.

So recently butwhatifidothis, who I will henceforth call Strikes, made a post in which she allegedly discussed how we Edelgard fans view Edelgard's flaws that she doesn't have any of but mostly just sounded off about how Edelgard was presented in a fanfic that consumes an inordinate amount of her mental focus. Let's see what she has to say!

I think the main thing that makes Edelstans' version of Edelgard so annoying is that she ultimately has every ounce of agency stripped out of her,

Don't get confused by her bringing up agency when I was talking about flaws so far, this is the typical Edelcrit strategy of saying that if we deny Edelgard did certain bad things then we're denying she did all the things.

by people who insist that they're "making her grow" into a character they already made her out to be from the start.

Well in a manner of speaking depending on how you handle her character arc it is possible to portray her properly growing into the role of a more focused revolutionary that we all view her as, so I suppose that's not too far off.

We get told that Edelgard has this amazing character arc,

She does.

and then are presented with a Mary Sue with no discernable flaws and/or who makes no substantial mistakes.

Strikes is confusing us denying that Edelgard's an awful racist imperialist with us saying she never did anything wrong. Shitposting in the title (and in the intro) aside, Edelgard obviously did some wrong things in the name of pragmatism. It's rather notable that she's often having to rapidly play catch-up helping to put out the fires Solon starts throughout White Clouds (chapters 6, 8, and 10 being the most notable examples), so she is a little more reactive rather than proactive in stopping some of their activities before they could begin.

Part of the issue is we're just never given an absolutely clear view of just how much Edelgard knew about what the Agarthans were up to and when she knew. One thing we do know is that she doesn't operate the way they do, her attacks are always targeted and have a specific purpose, she doesn't spread chaos like they do, so it's very unlikely she'd approve of most anything they do, especially considering how she often takes measures to fight back against them.

This Edelgard is perfect out the box, no discolorations or tears to be seen.

So Edelgard's biggest flaw early on is her trust issues. Because she struggles to trust she tries to go it alone, resulting in her taking more extreme measures than truly necessary. Of course this isn't entirely without reason, seeing as how on three out of four routes Byleth ultimately rejects her and plays a key role in halting her revolution, but it's only when she puts her trust in Byleth and appears before them without the mask of the Flame Emperor that Byleth has a chance to take her hand.

She even seems to realize she'll one day have to do this:

She just has a bit of dust, but the doll itself is flawless.

Don't like the idea of calling her a doll...

And that is, in the end, what ruins her. She’s not prideful and arrogant,

Oh no, she is 100% those things, roflmao. Sothis even calls her out on it:

Hell, Edelgard herself admits she can seem arrogant, so she's not wholly unaware of that flaw.

she’s not stubborn and narrow-minded,

Stubborn, yeah.

Narrow-minded? Multiple of her supports are about her coming around to the viewpoints of her interlocutors, most especially Manuela, Ferdinand, and Linhardt, so nice try.

she’s not manipulative and deceitful,

Now we're getting into scwary words!

Can't fight against the framework of the continent if you don't hold your cards close to your chest, Strikes.

she’s not violent and abrasive,

No, no, if you want violent you want Rhea or Dimitri.

Abrasive, yeah, that's another thing she grows out of. She's rather impatient with some of her goofier friends in the early supports, and grows to be much more patient and compassionate by the timeskip.

she’s not nationalistic and imperialistic,

She's neither of those things.

but nor is she fearless and confident,

...Where did Strikes see Edelgard fans calling her an uncertain little coward?

I mean I know where she thinks she saw that, but we'll get into that later.

she’s not ambitious and resolute

Ditto. Please show me these Edelgard fans who say she isn't ambitious, I'm dying to see the idiots masquerading as her fans.

- she has none of her character flaws or boons, because they make her too full of agency. They drive her to choose to do anything; they're not forces outside of her control that make her do things that she would just never, ever do were the WORLD not so broken and flawed.

Here we go, so Strikes has twisted the acknowledgement that some things were out of Edelgard's control (because they were) to some kind of admission that everything is out of her control.

There's a certain interesting meta analysis to be looked into on the subject of whether a revolutionary truly has a say in the matter when it comes to rebelling against a world that's gone so firmly wrong, as Fodlan had, but with Edelgard in particular I think the thing most of us love about her is that she's the only one willing to make the difficult choice of ripping the bandaid off. I'd certainly like her less if she just kinda bumbled her way into fixing the system the way Naruto does.

The few "flaws" Edelstans begrudgingly allow her are only meant to further endear her to the player. She’s childish, but only because she’s oh so traumatized and that should be accepted as who she is and not something to grow out of (nor something that is truly wrong of her to be even in her 20's).

Sadly I have no idea what Strikes means by Edelgard being childish. I guess her liking of cute things and sweets? Or maybe her abrassiveness that Strikes claims we think she isn't?

She’s self-unaware, but only because the world made her unsure of who she really is, which is a perfect little angel.

Yeah now we're just getting into Strikes blatantly sounding off about that whole fanfic thing I mentioned earlier. Most of her complaints are about a very specific incarnation of Edelgard, because Strikes and others like will her will never stop trying to pillory somebody for the crime of...

Hang on a sec.

(Flips through notes)

Ah. The crime of writing a fanfic.

The only "mistakes" she makes are because others failed her; Byleth and the Black Eagles fail Edelgard in the Holy Tomb, that wasn't her fault, they didn't ensure her that they could be trusted, for example.

At this point is there any reason in replying concretely to anything Strikes says? Not every Edelgard fan in the world interprets her the way The Emperor and the Goddess does, Strikes, and the point Captain Flash was trying to reach wasn't that the others were wrong, but rather that Edelgard's lack of trust was lamentable but a very really thing founded in the nature of the world she lived in.

Claude and Rhea have flaws - real flaws, that aren't "they just don't wove themselves enuff."

Yeah, Rhea's flaw is "she was a genocide victim, you have to be nice to her :(" according to these people.

Dimitri makes mistakes - real mistakes, that aren't "he twusted the wrong people and got hurt fwom them."

Actually he kinda did trust the wrong people and got hurt by them, roflmao. Thales is... about the worst person ever to trust.

She’s just a little flower

You know, that thing Byleth calls Edelgard in The Emperor and the Goddess!

Man, Strikes's so buttmad at that fic for the crime of existing and being popular.

plucked of all her thorns, safe and easy to pick up and admire, weak, meek and too innocent and pure for this dirty dirty world, coveted by all for her perfection and beauty. Which is just so... boring? And annoying?

Yeah, that would be pretty boring if Edelgard fans viewed her that way...

It's so clear that this Edelgard is one that is sanitized of any pesky little flaw that could make people dislike her or like her in the "wrong" way (because liking villains for being villains Is Wrong), and that is ironically the exact reason why she's so insufferable.

Frankly I'll never understand this flailing claim Edelcrits like to make, insisting we try to deny Edelgard is a villain because "liking villains for being villains is wrong."

I'm sorry, but what? People don't like villains, you say? People love villains! This, probably more than anything else they say, is sheer desperate idiocy.

Cornelia's one of my favorite characters in Three Houses purely because she's just an unrepentant vicious bitch to everyone, including Thales. She became an ascended extra in my fanfic because of it.

Like, it's almost kinda hard to explain why having a character choose to be an asshole is so much more engaging to watch than having a character be entirely reactive UNTIL they can get Good Noodle Stars because.... yeah? Of course? Because there's more meat to bite into whenever a character makes a choice - whether kind or spiteful, whether good or bad - over someone else forcing a character to do something.

Alarak my beloved <3

"Edelgard believes in imperialism because she has been raised in and agrees with a culture that believes itself to be the rightful 'owner' of the continent due to it being the progenitor country, and she genuinely believes Fodlan would be better if back under this 'glorious' reign of Adrestia, even despite her being around those outside of Adrestia for almost a year" says so much about her AND Adrestia.

...It would if she did? Except she doesn't? Says a lot about the nobles who do think that way.

Like the implied Duke Aegir, who Edelcrits try to mildly whitewash of his crimes, coincidentally enough.

"Edelgard DOESN'T believe in imperialism, it's just that everyone else is doing so badly that they FORCE her to kill them or otherwise get rid of them" says things about the ones DOING things badly, MAYBE, but all it says about Edelgard is that she Doesn't Like Bad Things.

That kind of is a way to describe her movement, though naturally Strikes phrased it in a way that strips her of agency because that's convenient for her argument.

I'd phrase it more as "Edelgard chooses war with the rest of Fodlan as a last resort, hating it but accepting the necessity as a means to bring about real and lasting change".

Or, oh so much deeper, it says she likes *gasp* Good Things! How brave, how stunning!

Someone's getting hangry.

Yeah, I have no actual argument for this, Strikes is just mad and saying things.

And before you can try to say "Well maybe Edelgard went to violence so quickly because she views fear and control to be the best way to force a society into being 'good' over trying to convince people peacefully,"

...No. When does Edelgard resort to the Tarkin Doctrine? Ever?

the Edelstan Edelgard is already packaged with "Edelgard went to war first because literally everyone MADE her go to war because THEY wouldn't let anything else work."

That's a rather obtuse way to say diplomacy wouldn't have worked.

"Edelgard tried to assassinate Dimitri and Claude at the very beginning of the game because she wanted to make her eventual war go way easier"

Heheheheheheh, you know where this is going.

turns into the infamous "Edelgard was just trying to scare THE TEACHER away to get JERITZA installed in their place, and CLAUDE ruined it by running away; she wasn't ACTUALLY trying to hurt anyone."

Infamous, and proven true. Edelcrits are still furious about that over two years later. Hopes was a bad time for them, I get it.

And also, if she was trying to kill Dimitri and Claude? So what? If killing them would have made the future war easier, I could understand why she'd make that choice. Their two lives don't weigh heavier on the scales than that of all Fodlan's people.

"Edelgard let Remire be massacred because - like she literally said she would - she was willing to sacrifice her people's lives in service of her higher cause" turns into one of "TWS forced her to be compliant" or "Edelgard definitely didn't know anything because she would have stopped it had she known."

So while it is implied Edelgard had some inkling of what happened,

But she clearly didn't expect Remire to be so terrible,

An interesting thing to note is that the cutscene where Seteth and Rhea talk about the situation in Remire happens on the 1st of the month, Byleth passes out on the 2nd after speaking with Manuela, and we get the scene with Hubert and Edelgard on the 4th. That's the earliest we know that she has some idea what's happening in Remire, and given how in the same scene Hubert openly asks Byleth how the investigation is going, it's likely Byleth had already told the class about the mission by then.

The Agarthans don't respect Edelgard, they don't need to ask her for permission for anything, and they don't need her help with anything. Solon has already vanished from the monastery to finish up the experiments, so by the time Edelgard even knows what's happening in Remire, it's already too late to do anything about it.

"Edelgard directly assisted in Flayn's kidnapping because TWS having more tools to work with means she gets more weapons to fight with" turns into "She was forced to do that."

I think she means, "Edelgard was forced to give up the Death Knight to Thales," when she says "she was forced to do that", because that's the closest I've ever seen it argued. Usually the take I've seen is that Edelgard didn't know Flayn would be kidnapped until she was, because, again, why would Solon bother to tell her about it? He's already had the Death Knight for over a month by then and he doesn't need any further help from Edelgard. If Edelgard wanted Flayn captive, why would she help in the search, why would she let Flayn go, and why wouldn't she take Flayn captive at the Holy Tomb?

"Edelgard helped hide Kronya among the student populace even as she kidnapped students and mutated them into Demonic Beasts because it will help in giving her Demonic Beasts to work with in the war" turns into, you guessed it, "Edelgard was forced to do that."

This time I have no idea what Edelgard was supposedly "forced" to do in the context of Edelgard fan apologia. Edelgard "hid" Kronya by not outing her.

And yeah, it ain't great that Edelgard didn't do that, but there's a lot of reasons she couldn't. By the time Solon reveals himself Kronya's already about to disappear from the monastery, revealing her would be too blatant a backstab against Thales, it wouldn't also reveal Edelgard herself, and there's no guarantee the church would do anything judging from how Rhea reacts to Edelgard outing Thales in Three Hopes.

"Edelgard sent her army and Demonic Beasts onto either her direct Black Eagle classmates or otherwise innocent students to stop them from stopping her from getting Crest Stones to use in her upcoming war"? Oh, a surprise! "She HAD to do that, because OTHER PEOPLE were going to take the Crest Stones if she didn't!"

The students can't be innocent if they're fighting for the church. You don't get to have it both ways: if they're innocent non-combatants then Rhea has no business recruiting them to fight on behalf of the Church of Seiros.

And yes, she endangers her classmates. Again that ain't great, but the future of Fodlan is more important than the lives of a few of her close friends.

She was forced to, she wasn't hurting/trying to hurt anyone, she didn't do anything wrong - if her actions lead to people getting hurt and/or killed, those are the exclusive reasons allowed as to why she did it.

No, they weren't exclusive, I threw several more. The issue here is Strikes wants to either make it:

A) Edelgard is an evil vicious imperialist racist.

B) Edelgard has no control over anything.

With zero nuance because that furthers her point. Edelgard's either EVIL or has no agency, with zero in-between.

These reasons being excuses to alleviate her of any accountability, not genuine explanations that still demand her to take accountability.

Who's she to take accountability to? Most of the people she fails are dead, is she supposed to apologize for starting a revolution to better Fodlan?

That's the difference between Rhea and Dimitri, who Strikes will mention onward: their mistakes they take accountability for are inherently selfish ones. If Edelgard was selfish she'd just hide in her room all day munching on sweets.

Meanwhile, Rhea distorted history to keep her and her family safe - which in verse is said to be something she was still wrong to do, and which in verse she ADMITS was wrong of her to do.

And her fans try to minimize what she did. "Rhea only briefly held back certain inventions, and only so that humanity wouldn't progress 'too fast'." "Rhea had no control over the Crest system, that was humans being bad!" "Rhea was just the midwife, she didn't do anything suspicious to Sitri and Byleth!" "Rhea thought Byleth was an amnesiac Sothis!"

Dimitri was absolutely willing to torture Randolph because he viewed the guy as less than human and felt him getting such inhumane treatment was justice

And his fans try to argue either that Randolph deserved it or because Byleth stopped him it wasn't all that bad.

Hell, Strikes herself is minimizing what Dimitri did here! He didn't just attempt to torture Randolph, he did torture Randolph. Even if you don't know that describing torture you're about to inflict upon a person is legally classified as torture in and of itself, just look at how Randolph is reacting to Dimitri's dressing-down: the dude is having a complete breakdown and Dimitri hasn't even laid a finger on him yet!

- which he directly takes accountability for to Randolph's remaining family.

Uhh what? Did I miss the alt scene where Dimitri stops Byleth from gutting Fleche, admits what he did to her brother, and kneels to her in penitence?

Claude weaseled up to Byleth because he felt he could use them for his own ambitions - which he owns up to and grows out of doing.

Yeah, this is the only thing I generally don't see people trying to minimize, probably because it's the least-obvious offense and doesn't really hurt anyone. Claude comes out of Three Houses with squeaky-clean hands, and I respect Three Hopes for dirtying them a bit.

And yeah, that's about it. As I explained in the opening, Strikes is mostly just mad that we Edelgard fans don't view her as an awful person the way Strikes herself does. She's upset we can actually explain her actions, so she's venting that we're stripping Edelgard of all agency, with a side helping of shitting on Emperor and the Goddess again because that's her life, I guess.

[bowbowis]

💔

The Emperor's first kill

[bowbowis]

❤️

[bowbowis]

You missed this one.

if three hopes is accurate in characterization wrt claude and edelgard’s support, then its hubert who wants rhea dead absolutely and simply went with what edelgard wanted bc he knew itd be beneficial for her at the time. also claude seems to ponder rhea dying a lot. lmao

[bowbowis]

[bowbowis]

Another interpretation is that he's calling back to what he said in an earlier conversation with Byleth:

Claude sees church doctrine as malleable, something to be shaped by whoever controls the institution. With Rhea's status uncertain it's up in the air whether her doctrines will stand or whether they'll be abrogated by Byleth's (presumably less xenophobic) policies.

Knowing Claude, he's probably got a few schemes cooking to ensure it's the latter.

I often see this post being used as an argument to contradict Claudes claim in Three Hopes that the Church promotes isolationism when...it does the exact opposite. It actually pushes forward the idea of the Church actually being isolationist in its very tenets, considering how Lorenz speaks with certainty, that it does. In this case Lorenz would be much more knowledgeable about the churches practiced doctrine and tenets, because he was born and raised into the faith, as everyone in Fodlan has. Claude was not, he was born and raised in Almyra and his supports strongly hint at his personal spirituality leaning towards eastern practices of meditations as well as a form of animism in which the land is worshipped, with hints of zoroastrian inspired practices existing in Almyra.

Claude would be certainly knowledgeable about the church and its doctrine, him being clearly a studious person invested in increasing his knowledge, but he never seems in any way invested in the faith, outside of its cultural and political significance in Fodlan and howthat interacts with his personal political ambitions. Finally, in this case he doesn't even contradict Lorenz statement or present an argument, instead he answers the question with another question and sews uncertainty, which I think is either the Appeal to the Stone or invincible ignorance fallacy, where instead of offering an argumentative rebutal, he feigns ignorance on the topic entirely. Which makes sense in character, but only an idiot would be capable of taking at face value, especially when we later on got a definitive answer to that question from him, which is that Lorenz was right, the church prohibits official relations with outsiders. Its a character moment though, because it shows Claudes willingness to engage in fallacies to dismiss opposition to his goals, which somebody like Lorenz, who has a very strict, diligent and straight forward personality, does not know to engage with.

So yeah, one of the Church Fans biggest arguments of the church being not racist hints at them being actually racist.

[bowbowis]

Reminds me of people who say Marianne is Bernadetta "done right". As though their issues are interchangeable and Bernadetta is lesser representation because her symptoms present themselves in a highly disruptive way that people find annoying.

Regarding Edelgard, there's probably some interesting analysis to be done on how she is received as a mentally ill character who "passes". I'm not sure I'm the right person to write it though.

Saw this one on twitter and its like legit the most funny shit ever, because its basically the pot calling the cattle black. After all, these people go as far as claiming that Edelgard lied about her trauma and make up all kinds of gross Headcanons about her because her depiction of Trauma and Mental Illness does not make them feel better or comfortable. After all, its not one where her behavior creats and appeal to sympathy or pity, most of the time, even when she is crying for the first time in years, she acts well composed and in control, something many trauma survivors have to learn to do. Year general behavior meanwhile is often very blunt and can be abrasive, again, not uncommon in people who struggle with mental illness and trauma. And these people basically treat her like the most evil video character in all time.

Because it doesn't make them feel better. Because it isn't comfortable for them to see a more undramatized depiction of trauma. Dimitri meanwhile is kind of more comfortable, he expresses his mental illness very overtly and without subtlety and reacts strongly towards grand gestures that just immediately cure schizophrenia and make him the Savior King. With Rhea on the other hand, they outright either refuse to acknowledge or justify behavior that is ugly and uncomfortable, focussing mostly on depictions of trauma that are strongly framed in a way to invoke strong feelings of pity and sympathy.

And I will not lie, alot of it just reeks of justifying and excusing abusive and toxic behavior under the guise of advocacy. After all, whenever Crimson Flower Rhea is mentioned, her trauma is basically just used as an excuse, a shield, which in on itself is dismissing it and turns Trauma and MI into an excuse for abusive behavior, which in on itself is ableist because it treats toxic and abusive behavior as a part of Mental Illness instead of acknowledging that the majority of people struggling with MI work as hard as they can to function well in society and seek to prevent potential harm for themselves and especially others. Rhea barely ever in only a few routes at the very end of the entire game barely tries to reduce the harm she caused.

And yeah, I also noticed the trend of dismissing Jeritza as a serial killer or violent monster, when he strongly tries to reduce the potential harm his actions cause and never undergoes a sudden miracle healing and instead slowly heals over time in the epilogue.

[bowbowis]

I don't think I've posted this here sooo 😗

[bowbowis]

I was actually thinking about this the other day, that Edelgard is really a break from TWSitD's usual modius operandi. Normally they operate as Faustian dealmakers, offering their power to people whose ambitions serve their ends. With Edelgard though they forced their power on someone who didn't want it and ruined her life for an ambition that was not her own. They thought they could gaslight and intimidate her into compliance. They were wrong.

why these people think aegir is innocent I have no idea like its not like its out of character for the twisted to use patsy, rufus, nemesis, loog, count gloucster (or whoever really killed claudes uncle) rhea (semi joke but her actions have helped them cause solon was right their in the academy) its their entire mo to get people who either have power who want more (gloucestor and aegir) or those who have been passed over for power (rufus) to do things for them

Oh, it's simple, Aegir was one of Edelgard's opponents, she blames him for various things, they think Edelgard is an evil liar, so Aegir couldn't have been that bad!

But yes, the Agarthans have a long history of doing their thing through the worst dregs of surface folk.