#but yeah like it really DOES sap the life out of her character to woobify her so much

[butwhatifidothis]

Okay I couldn't bring myself to read all your posts about the Woobiegard fic, bc it was that painful to even imagine, but it made me think. Why are edelstans so eager to ruin her character? She's genuinely interesting, and if you really wanted it would be hard but not impossible to make her WAY less racist. But instead they always lean into the racism and says the Nabataeans deserved it?? Everyone always makes the actions of the war out to not be her fault but she's interesting bc it IS her fault. But no, everyone has to bend over backwards, ruining other characters, in order to make her a saint, when her canon personality is infinitely more interesting. She's the villain for a reason guys. It's possible to like her character and not be fucking weird about it. I could go on for days about it but whatever. If you want a saint who only reunified fodlan bc they had to Claude is right there. (VW for the win)

If I were to take a shot in the dark, it's the go-to of "Edelgard can never be wrong ever."

Making her less racist would mean that she would have been racist to start with - that is a flaw, and Edelgard can't have actual flaws. She can be stubborn, she can be ~self-loathing~, she can have flaws that endear the reader/player to her, but actual flaws in her personality and beliefs? Nah. Her racism, her tendency to go for violence first words second, her imperialism, her tendency to not admit she was wrong, her deceitful nature, her ability to easily betray supposedly close friends, her self-centeredness, her laziness and childishness - those all can't actually be negative to her character.

So her racism is justified as right. She's forced to be violent but would never want to initiate it otherwise. Her imperialism is what saves Fodlan. She can admit she's wrong about needing to love herself, the poor darling, but she's right on everything else. She was forced to lie, and forced to betray her friends, because fate. Her self-centered is portrayed as empathy. She's very hard-working and she views herself as the broken pieces of a shattered child - she's self-aware that she is nothing more than whatever is left of lil' El's spirit but she never does anything like want power but no responsibility, or eat sweets all day, or think that everything would go great if everyone everywhere in Fodlan would just agree she has a right to rule over them (and if she does think that, well, she's right of course!).

Actually engaging with Edelgard's character would mean acknowledging that she is a deeply flawed individual. They do not want to admit that she is a deeply flawed individual. And since she's "not flawed," her flaws thus can't be wrong. They either are a result of someone else making her do something, are correct of her to have, or are "misunderstood."

Which is a shame, because I do think Edelgard could be an interesting character in the hands of a writer unafraid to actually engage with her flaws (since even 3H doesn't want to get too far with it many times). But this view of her either being on the same moral level as Dimitri and Claude or being on a higher moral level than them is just so pervasive - you'd have to tag whatever work does this as "negative" just for daring to focus on her base personality.

Also yes Claude rules 🤘