#you can't tell me ionius just fucks and doesn't get babies on the ladies he seduced

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It's funny that the “dead siblings” aspect of Edelgard's backstory manages to, in spite of how under-developed and under-written it is, be so wildly contradictory that the only way for it to make any sense with the rest of what we know about her past is to assume that she made all that up in order to gain sympathy points from Byleth; it's almost certainly not what the writers intended, and i don't doubt for a second that Hopes contradicts that theory somewhere, but whatever makes Fódlan make more sense.

Apparently in Nopes they don't know they died or it's just a "rumour"?

Then what, they were all hiding or partying very far away, when their sister became Emperor, over Hans 2's claim? Seriously?

I don't really understand the obsession the devs had with making Adrestia a muddled mumbo jumbo -

we are told Ionius tried to centralise power on itself, the lolcalisation tried to erase it but we're in 2023 : Ionius wanted to get rid of the consort kin system, women feel like they can't inherit a thing, the Emperor (at least the one during the Southern Church incident) takes very badly any "revolts" and get rid heirs he doesn't like, personally appoints people, Ionius erased Hyrm (to the last blood descendant!) and sent his army and funky mages to Ordelia - outside of Adrestia!

Some nobles like to hear young women "sing" and if they can't pay for "singing lessons" they will pay for young men instead.

Adrestian Nobles, unlike their northern barbarian counterparts, stay holed up in their capital, and rarely return to their duchies/lands/territories.

The devs, from this, tried to paint a land where corruption is rampant, a sort of epitome of decadence complete with ASOIAF's "if you need to say you're the king chances are no one thinks you are the king" with Ionius's bids to centralise power on himself, in a nutshell : this Adrestia is rotten, the decadent version of the one sang about in praises or mentionned in old legends.

And yet, even if they describe the land as completely bonkers and everyone more or less is in for their own hide... Adrestian Nobles, the very same ones we're told hired Doro to hear her song, cannot be depicted too badly, because, hey, we're working with them.

Sure, we don't hear Leopold and Waldemar went to the brothel - i mean to the Opera - to hear popular young songstresses sing. But Leopold'n'Waldemar were depicted as corrupt nobles, only in for their money or own gain as the reason why they sided with Aegir to get rid of Ionius, and from what we know of Leopold, he wasn't picking roses and daisies in Brigid too.

And yet, because they magically became allies of Supreme Leader, all the issues that could be laid at the feet of Imperial Nobles, especially theirs as the most important nobles of them all, are... absent.

No one ever asks Leopold'n'Waldemar were are the other imperial children, or why they betrayed Ionius. No mention of Leopold, the Minister of War and a seasoned fighter, having personally trained Hans 2 or maybe acknowledging his talents as a warrior - or lack of compared to Supreme Leader's, no, nothing.

Asking Leopold why Caspar isn't his heir, even if he doesn't have a crest, since he shown great abilities to fight? No, never.

In the end, we see those crap nobles, but we never tell anything or do anything with them. Ionius was yeeted away in Nopes (maybe because including Ionius in the story, who was betrayed by Leopold'n'Waldemar, wouldn't have worked with the idea of making them Supreme Leader's allies) and Aegir is never given any voice to the chapter, or when he is, it's to be a living retcon - he wanted to take part, just like Leopold'n'Waldemar, in Supreme Leader's MAGA war, when he rebelled against Ionius who centralised power on himself? To MAGA? - because nothing should "taint" our vision of the heroine.

FE16 already teased Supreme Leader's version of the Insurrection being horse dung when Hanneman told Hubert he doesn't know what Vestra Sr rebelled, and how Vestra Sr rebelled because there was something, rather, someone, more important to him than eons of loyalty to the Hresvelg family.

Is it the same "reason" that made Arundel, when he was still Volkhard, put his niece to safety - in the kingdom !!! - with her mother, before being Slithered.

Those clues, complete with the Ferdie paralogue in SS - of course unavailable in CF - reveal that while Ludwig is a piece of slime, he isn't the piece of slime depicted by Supreme Leader (that'd be her Uncle) ; hell, all of Ludwig's actions (both in that paralogue and the experiments on the Hresvelg kids) were done by Thales, with Ludwig as his scapegoat.

So why? What is the truth behind the Insurrection, and behind Ludwig's role?

Is Adrestia deliberately "opaque" to make "the world look deeper" than it is, or because it's supposed to imply Mole People slithering around made the thing "way too complicated"?

Or is it because the more we learn about Adrestia - and what led to Ionius being deposed - the more we realise Supreme Leader's words are, at best, misguided, at worst, straight out lies?

But in the process of "muddling" everything, coherence and consistency was sacrificed, Hans 2 disappeared and the plot dgaf - heck people don't know what happened to the other imperial children, and no one every bats an eye at this, especially since the Emperor was not the first, nor the second in line (and Supreme Leader isn't supposed to be like Ashnard who might fed people who ask those questions to Rajaion, or just straight out tell them the truth before laughing).

I still believe they exist, but since Jugdral, the FE series had issues writing "missing royal siblings" having any signification to the plot - bar being a late hour "Falchion with legs" - even if I HC that Julia isn't killed when her unit dies in the 2nd gen because the Imperial Army recognises her and captures her to return her to Arvis (they rescue her from those Isaachian barbarians!)

And yet, again, compared to Glen, Hans 2's absence stings, and it's, again, an example of coherence and logic being sacrificed for the sake of parasocial relationships.

It sucks.