#(unless of course the fic is upfront about being OOC for Edelgard - which is fine btw! I've done that plenty of times before!)

[butwhatifidothis]

In the analysis of CaptainFlash's fic, a common theme of the notes is "this is not how Edelgard is", as in the claim is that she is being mischaracterized. But for how much the claim gets thrown, there's little in the way of "this is how she SHOULD be written". And so a question I have is - for fanfic writers, how do you think Edelgard SHOULD be written in order to be true to canon? Assume both from a perspective of BL/GD fic and a BE fic.

Well, I believe that I have put in guidelines at the very least lol, but I get where you're comin' from.

Edelgard is bold, fearless, arrogant, self-serving. She is detached from others for the most part, she does not like being challenged (and not just because the other person is oh so wrong and it just annoys her because how could they be so wrong - no, when her flaws are pointed out to her she does not listen to what the other person says). She allows those in her care to be hurt - sometimes mortally - to get what she wants, and almost always without any guilt or regret. She thinks she's the smartest person in the room, the most capable, the most correct. She uses people, lends out her men like tools. Violence is the first option, and peaceful surrender something she will never consider when asked to do so. She looks down on those who oppose her, no matter how they do so, whether they stand their ground and fight to the end or if they try to surrender - that they've fought against her at all is worthy of derision in Edelgard's eyes. She's racist towards the Nabateans and will always kill them. She looks down on religion and those who believe in it. She's deceptive and manipulative. She's selfish and power-hungry. She has no self-awareness, saying things that are factually incorrect without knowing that they're incorrect often, accuses others of doing the morally reprehensible actions that she performs often.

Those above traits ought to always be incorporated into her character no matter what the route - at the minimum, these are the traits an author must work of off from a ground level in the beginning of their fic, because these traits are always present in Edelgard. Of course there are nicer traits - she's a romantic, she's secretly childish (and not in the strictly derisive way either, but that she likes sweets and teddy bears and is embarrassed about it), on the rare occasion she'll try to accommodate for someone (Bernadetta... when she's not setting her on fire that is), she very obviously cares a good deal about family (again, I don't really count Dimitri here for her since she forgot him and even then didn't know they were step-siblings). Edelgard isn't literally, actually, 100% No GMO's evil evil, she has her traits that can make her likeable, but there's a very big reason why she's not just an antagonist, but a villain.

If an author genuinely wants to make Edelgard grow out of a villainous status and be a genuinely good person, they must work through the numerous flaws she has. Her moral bankruptcy, her selfishness, her hunger for power, etc. etc., these must be actually addressed in order for her to have even a chance at being better.

Like, take Flayn's kidnapping for example. In canon, we know that Edelgard willingly hands over the Death Knight to Thales with quite literally no fear in her at all, and we know she must have had, at the very least, some clue as to what the guy was using the Death Knight for (since she teleports to directly where Flayn and the Death Knight are, and will even take them both away if over 25 turns have passed). There are a couple ways to go about this scene in a fic trying to make Edelgard a better person: either 1) have sufficient build-up of Edelgard's very gradually growing morals, have her commit the crime anyway, and then feel a twinge of guilt that steadily grows larger as she grows as a character, or 2) have her commit this crime with little to no guilt at the current state of her character arc, keep building her character until she gains more self-awareness over what all she's doing, and then have her feel guilt. These possibilities (and likely more that I can’t think of at the moment) keep her flaws intact while still allowing her some room for growth; the flaws are acknowledged, and so they can be properly grown out of.

But look at Cap'n's version of events. Remember, in canon, Edelgard was directly involved with the kidnapping. Cap'n, however, not only has it to where Edelgard was forced to hand over the Death Knight, not only was she terrified of Thales while doing so, but she had no idea that Flayn was being kidnapped. It ignores all of her flaws and places her into a status of helpless victimhood, and places her on a higher moral ground than Thales when in reality, in that moment, she is just as bad as him. Her flaws can't be grown out of because they've been erased. This is a prime case of canon!Edelgard being swapped out for Woobiegard - we aren't seeing Edelgard feel guilt for allowing Flayn to be kidnapped, we're seeing Woobiegard feel guilt. Woobiegard doesn't have these flaws that Edelgard has, so she doesn't have to have them acknowledged - which, I don't think needs to be said, is terrible from a fanfiction writing standpoint.

Edelgard has been morphed and twisted so much as to not even really resemble her canon iteration much at all. Woobiegard isn't bold, she isn't arrogant, she isn't morally bankrupt - or at least, isn’t intentionally these flaws, or other flaws - she lacks so many of the deep, troubling flaws of Edelgard because, frankly, they make her too mean and Cap'n very clearly doesn't like that. But, in erasing those flaws in her, instead of writing a fic where Edelgard grows as a person due to the positive influence of Byleth (and, through Byleth, the Black Eagles), he’s writing a fic where Woobiegard feels oh so much guilt for things she just shouldn’t feel guilty for because the poor little darling didn’t have any way of stopping anything. 

Edelgard is a conqueror, as said by her creators themselves. She mows down anyone who stands against her convictions and ideals, even if she knows them personally. This is true for all routes, even and especially CF (as it is known as the Military Rule route), and so this must be kept in mind when writing Edelgard whenever someone tries to write her base character as someone better than she is in canon. What Cap’n is doing is basically writing an OOC crack-fic, except he’s doing so unintentionally. He flat out removes every single flaw Edelgard canonically has, pretends as though he didn’t do that, and then flaunts how much Woobiegard has “grown” thanks to Byleth. But, again, since Cap’n doesn’t want to write Edelgard’s flaws he’s never really written Edelgard. It’s the same idea as keeping Claude never fully trusting his friends in mind when writing him - this is a large part of his character, and leaving that out means leaving out a significant portion of who he is as a character. That has to be acknowledged before having him grow out of it, or else you haven’t really written Claude, as that is a huge part of who he is.

So I guess a TL;DR version of this answer is that to properly write Edelgard, one has to keep in mind her flaws and have her actually act them out before having her grow out of them. It’s just that for Edelgard, because of who she is, it would take a lot of time and effort for the fic to realistically have her grow out of all of these flaws (or at minimum grow out of the more severe ones). That stays whether from a BL/GD perspective or from a BE one. Hope that answers the question!