#mgphotogirl

[randomnameless]

Do you think Edelgard perceives herself as a victim? I’ve been thinking and I can’t decide myself, on one hand she clearly hates the idea of people being victims or helpless, and constantly reframes the victims of the war as “necessary sacrifices” instead of, y’know, tragic causalities of a war she started. She plays up her sad backstory to try to get Byleth to join with her in WC, but then she does all these things to concentrate as much power as possible on herself. On the other (other) hand, she pushes the culpability of the war on everyone except herself, and has trouble taking accountability. She’s obsessed with controlling everything but she doesn’t want to be blamed for the problems she’s created. What do you think?

Oh!

(sorry for replying one literal month later lol)

I find Supreme Leader hard to write because of this, but in a way, I believe that yes, she does.

However, for all the flak Faerghus gets for "ToXiC mAsCuLiNiTy" and "Chivalry BaD", there's something very toxic with the way some Adrestian victims (often women... blame the writers I guess?) deal with their abuse.

I'm not going to spend a lot of time on Doro because I already typed a lot about her, but while she still sees herself as a victim from what she endured and suffered in her childhood, she adopted the toxic mindset of "this suffering is a thing of the past and I grew from that/beyond that to become the person I am now" - which we can also see in Manu who suffered from, roughly, the same traumas.

Petra also follows this pattern, being a hostage and treated like shit, but she grow "beyond" her status of a victim to become the strong person she projects and believes she is - it's only out of House that she realises more accutely her status within the Empire, the reality of her situation and, in Houses, refuses vassalage to Adrestia to make her country independent without having to "ask the Emperor".

It's the same pattern : "I was a victim" but "I became strong" so "I am not a victim anymore, this is something of the past".

Applied to Supreme Leader...

Well, trying to ignore the Agarthans and her dad's own infuence on her character (which is kind of hard, since the games try their hardest to make Agarthans responsible for everything BaD and we're not clear on how much they had an influence on her), I think Supreme Leader believes she was a "victim" of abuse.

But - through further abuse and surviving said abuse - she became strong* enough to "not be a victim anymore".

Which is why her line of "if the weak remain weak it's their fault" feels like it echoes part of her mindset : she was a victim but became strong enough, maybe by hardening her own feelings to become "strong", so she is not the same helpless "victim" she once was.

If she managed to do that, then everyone can do the same.

As for the "necessary sacrifices", since early 2019 someone theorised that "the people" she pretends the fight for as seen as some general "concept", much like the "greater good". So if some people are sacrificed, it's for her ideals - the goal and aim of her newfound strength - , and it piles on her drive, she must realise them otherwise those people would have died (and she would have suffered) for nothing.

However, despite acknowledging her past self as a victim, and because she's now "strong", she's not above using her past trauma (but actually, still present! Remember the rat scene?) to reach her goals, because, at her core, Supreme Leader is soemone who is very determined. Maybe it's her only drive to grow beyond the trauma, or her own illusions, or a mix of everything, but AM made it clear, Supreme Leader is not above, well, using herself if it means seeing her goals come to fruition : unlike Lobotogard from AG, AM!Supreme Leader willingly transforms in Hegemongard.

This is the cost she's willing to pay, so while the memes about Lord Farqaad were on spot, I still think that Supreme Leader is ultimately willing to sacrifice** herself for her goal (but only when there's no other way to ensure her future will come to fruition, and in a way, I guess she thought she would survive the Hegemon transformation, jury's out on what she meant to do in AM's finale, but imo, she still tried, even beaten and battered as she was, to claim Dimi's head).

Ultimately I think everything's a bit muddled by the fact that, as @fantasyinvader pointed out, Supreme Leader is a liar and knows the importance of maintening good PR.

She lies and manipulates the truth to reach her goals (which again, is a red flag when CF claims to want to restore the "distorted history" of Fodlan!) and for all the flak I give them, the devs managed to scrap enough material to give us a peek in Adrestia's mindset (or at least its top nobles), they're not people who self reflect, they are salty because they aren't ruling the world anymore, and they feel like they are better than the rest of Fodlan.

Put everything in the mixer, and you indeed have Supreme Leader (but also her court, especially Ferdie in SB who dares to say, as he is invading and trouncing people who don't really like and accept the idea of being invaded, that the fear those people feel are only in their mind, or something like that? Like, dude, you're rolling over their people and country, of course they'll fear and hate you!) giving her weird rhetoric lines (why are people opposing me if they are going to die?), victim blaming (something Treehouse swallowed like honey, if their lolcalisation is anything to go by, remember, it's Rhea's fault for not offering her head on a platter that is the reason why the War continues in CF!) and so on.

IDK if the devs wanted to bank that much on the Dany parallel with her "if I look back i am lost", but again, I don't know if her drive to make a "better Fodlan" is motivated by her trauma, Adrestian revanchism, Ionius telling her dumb things or Agarthans agarthaning, but her goal and vision are everything to Supreme Leader.

So she will do anythign to see them realised, even if it means sacrificing her people, starting a war, tweaking "the truth" or using her own trauma to motivate and recruit powerful people who might assist her with her goals.

To reply to your question, IMO she sees herself as someone who had once been a victim, but won't let that stop her from reaching her goals, even if it means creating thousands of "hers" in the process, because, in her mind, reaching her goal is more important than anything else.

*I know, she refutes Dimitri's claim that she is "strong" or laughs at it, but imo, it was more in the sense of "I was weak and became strong" so everyone can "become" strong.

**I don't think she wanted to throw away her life, but more something in the lines of "putting my life on the line" or sacrificing her precious (and to see how precious it is, just play CF lol) humanity.

[randomnameless]

I would like to posit an insane design theory that some of the Agarthan culture is based on images of Sumerian art. The masks that their Demonic Beasts wear remind me a lot of those classic Sumerian/Babylonian friezes of the men with the super long, straight beards. I've never seen anyone talk about it but I always felt like they look super similar.

Ooh!

Yep, those masks really give off this design!

Too bad the devs instead picked the "sci-fi" route with dubstep and cyrillic writing instead, which makes the masks' design kind of lonely, but yeah, I really liked how those masks were a throwback to this era and this aesthetic.

In general, FE Fodlan took inspiration and picked "aesthetics" from several real life sources, which is kind of why I'm so bummed they didn't do anything else with it lol

or created Almyra, but that's a discussion for another post

[randomnameless]

I noticed in "Lady of Hresvelg" that there's a heavy use of EDM beats, which normally wouldn't be weird since it's a pop song for a modern video game. But since only the Mole People have EDM to indicate when they're hanging around in the soundtrack, the use of it in Edelgard's song stands out to me as a little bit of extra soundtrack foreshadowing.

Oh!

That's nice!

My musical ear is shit so thanks for finding this out lol, but it's nice that in her opening song, we already have clues that she's associated with the Agarthans!

[randomnameless]

I figured the Nabateans have red blood in both forms (and the green blood is a censorship thing) because if the Relics were a product of Zanado, then the Nabateans would have been killed in dragon form because those bones are too big to be human. Also did Nemesis drink Sothis' blood or is that fanon?

Oh!

Crests are acquired by, uh, getting a blood transfusion from a Nabatean, or ingesting it (iirc Balthus mentions in his support how some people in his village drink something weird and then some of them have crests!).

I think @deathbirby studied the, uh, anatomy and designs of the relics better than I ever did lol, but even if they were killed in human form, the relics (or at least Sothis's sword) seems to be too large to be a human sized spinal cord, but again, if it's supposed to be the spinal cord of something that is rougly around the Immaculate One's size, it's too small!

And yet, some parts, like Fraldarius's shield are definitely not from, uh, human anatomy - so it was most likely crafted from a nabatean in bestial form?

Let's just say, just like the One Ring in LotR, the relics can change size depending on who uses them because "magic".

But I also share your version on "blood color", Nabatean blood, even in bestial form, makes more sense to be red than green!