#like trying to piece together whether Edelgard was ever actually faithful is kinda ass to do lol

[butwhatifidothis]

Going through some cap flash fic notes and it got me curious , how much does edel know about the Goddess, Rhea , the Nabateans, and crest stones ?

Like Thales told Edelgard he turned her into a weapon that could burn even the gods but I can't tell how much Edelgard knows or what she believes

Does she know the Goddess exists and that Sothis is related to Rhea (child of the goddess)? I assumed Edelgard saw Sothis as a sort of silent goddess that humanity can't rely on for help, And saw Rhea and Nabateans as the Goddess' children, and I assume she knows Rhea is the Immaculate one so... she probably viewed the Nabateans as inhuman / 'godlike' beasts ?

I'm so confused by this whole situation!

She would know from the chapel incident (where Jeralt gets murdered) that Demonic Beasts come from Crest Stones, as that was the purpose of testing on the students. We know she knows this because she specifically pilfers the Holy Tomb for the Crest Stones due to wanting to use this power for herself (more clearly stated in the JPN version).

She would know that Nabatean blood does something to humans, due to Flayn's kidnapping and Remire. She also knows that Nabateans are of some sort of use to TWS, hence her keeping Rhea hostage to use as leverage against TWS in non-CF routes. The experiments also play into this.

She knows that Relics were made by humans, and aren't gifts from the goddess. Whether she knows that they were made from specifically genocide is unclear, although she does know that Seiros and Nemesis had some sort of bad blood (which she calls a "simple dispute," tho we of course know it goes infinitely further than that). It's also, if I remember right, unclear if she knows the exact reason why she needed a custom made Relic for her to use (with that reason of course being that Rhea isn't dead and so hasn't been scrapped for her parts).

She believes that a "so-called" goddess exists, that the "so-called" goddess is connected to Rhea and Byleth via a bloodline, and that Byleth has the power of the "so-called" goddess. She explicitly calls Rhea the Immaculate One... which she calls a vile beast, and which she explicitly seeks to obliterate from the world (along with Rhea's kin, aka Nabateans - again, more clearly shown in the JPN version). She tells Rhea that she never betrayed her or Sothis because she never believed in them in the first place... but also tells Dimitri that among those who have clung to their faith in the goddess, lost their souls, and lived without purpose, she could be "counted among those who have died that way as well." Which is pretty contradictory lol, she's lying in one of these scenarios.

So basically, she knows that Nabatean blood and their Crest Stones can grant power to humans (if one, uh, has no morals to speak of), she knows that Relics are man-made, and she believes there is some sort of being with some sort of godly-adjacent powers that Rhea and Byleth are connected to by blood. It's unclear whether she knows the exact details of the Nabatean genocide and the full truth of Relics' origins, but she does know that Nabateans are of some kind of value to TWS (enough to know she can use a Nabatean to keep them in line with her wants). Her beliefs are fairly unclear when it comes to actual faith, as she either lied to Rhea's face about never believing in her and Sothis or she lied to Dimitri's face about ever having faith in the goddess.

It's kinda hard to piece everything together because it's spread out, not focused on much, and/or actively contradicting itself, so I don't blame you for not getting it lol