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Tenzen12

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    What are your thoughts on Edelgard? *SPOILERS*

    in Fire Emblem: Three Houses

    Posted · Edited by Tenzen12

    That's nonsense. Moral authority doesn't equal political power, even if it might go hand to hand. Rhea and Church simply doesn't excercise enough of power to considered rulers. It doesn't interfere with inner policies of any nation nor it operate without their consent.  They provide support when requested and they get certain privileges in return. Ultimatelly it's give and take and always were.

    Having means to rule isn't same as actually rulling. 

    What are your thoughts on Edelgard? *SPOILERS*

    in Fire Emblem: Three Houses

    Posted · Edited by Tenzen12

    She literally invaded aliance and Kingdom AFTER destroying church and capturing it's supreme leader. Edelgard is strong nationalist and never aknowledged Kingdom and Aliance as legitmate nations. She is pure breed conqueror.

    Also feudalism served it's purpose until we came with better system. Just because it's inferior to democracy doesn't mean it's terrible system. It's certainly more stable then for example communism.

     

    34 minutes ago, Tarul said:

    Oh, I definitely agree. When your objective is to open the lands and let cultures communicate, you have to be willing to listen, discuss and hear the otherside. Between his virtues and Claude's general dislike of war (his reactions to the deaths and sacrifices of his friends), it's very likely that Claude would prefer to whip out his silver tongue over the bottle of poison.

    But the bottle of poison is there!

    I think we, as a community, don't give Rhea enough flack for creating the entire situation. I mean, she invented an organized religion devoted to herself and her mom, and then regularly ordained the establishment/operation of all nation-states within Fodlan. All racism and general hatred of counter-thought can be associated with her policies. Furthermore, it's shown that she's more concerned with how the nations follow the Church's doctrines than their treatment of civilians. She has no problem with the Empire taxing its subjects to death, but has a problem when minor lords start displaying hostility towards the Church (which she reacts to with HELLA FORCE)

    That's lot of pretty strong assumptions here. As far as we could see Rhea doesn't really care how much people follow doctrine, as long as they doesn't start killing other people. And ChoS protect civilians on regular basis, what they do NOT, is strong arming soverign nations to do their bidding because for one, Church simply doesn't have enough influence to do so. Church can't interfere with inner policies of other countries (which is also reason why there is no point destroying it for sake of potential reforms).

    To be honest I am  also getting somohow tired of always making equation between open rebelion/terrorism and voicing discontent. No matter how you slice it, raising army and marching to kill pope (or anyone on that matter is legit reason for authorities defend  owneself and everyone else who would get caught in it.

    What are your thoughts on Edelgard? *SPOILERS*

    in Fire Emblem: Three Houses

    Posted

    1 hour ago, Hardric62 said:

     

    I like that sort of answers. More for the discussion though, I think beyond the 'reclaim parts of the empire' rhethoric (something all empires in stories shared in one way or another, no ruler is supposed to like seeing their territory shrink, no matter how justified this shrinkage was (stressing so people don't mistake that as an empires apology), there are other 'pragmatic' reasons for the conquest:

    -She wants to break the power of Crests and nobility everywhere. After all, there is no real changing Fodlan's social order if nothing is done about the other half of the continent's situation. Some revolutions saw that as 'spreading the revolution'. Something to be discussed though.

    -And something more cold-blooded and pragmatic: Generally, both to enforce the statu quo favoring them and out of fear from 'contagion' and the point I raised above, foreign nations have a tendancy to support counter-revolutionary moves against such drastic revolutions as the one professed by Edlegard (French Revolution comes to mind. Heck, you can have an example from the XXth centuries after WW1, when European, and even american, countries offered some support to the Whites in the Russian Civil War). And the Church too, especially when the social order being attacked is the one the Church has been built around and been enforcing for a millenium. And Rhea has consistently showed ruthlessness and willingness to utterly crush threats to her rule, a trait she shares with Edelgard. My opinion is that Edelgard goes for war both for the first point, and beause she knows that the sort of radical changes she is speaking for will provoke hostile reactions from outside, leading her to decide 'Welp, they will want war with me for the changes I'm bringing anyways. Might just as well take the forst shot while I can'.

    - PS: Her father's fate is also something she must consider as a testament of 'Soft way? Yup, never going to happen.'

     

     

    Yup, the Agarthans played a major part in creating the mess, but they are only one of the actors. They aren't telling nobles to sire as many bastards as posssible for one more Crest-bearing child, to think of their profit first in front of reforms... They still choose of indulging that whole mess, even if other play a great part in creating it.

     

    She doesn't want a 'friendly place for nobility', she wants to abolish it because she deems the system utterly rotten, too much for a less radical reform (and the way her father, or the reform-inclined father of Dimitri ended up can be seen as incentives towards radicalization). And generally, when the ruling class of a society is completely rotten and misbehaving, the lower classes do have a tendancy to pay the tab, quite heavily... There is to be a reason she managed to get near-monolithic support from the Empire's population despite openly declaring war on her continent's supreme moral authority, at a time when such authority would have been seen as just as important, nah superior, to hers (See the conflict between Holy Roman Emperors and Popes during the Middle Ages). People say 'No smoke without fire', I say 'No fire without fuel'. She couldn't have garnered the support to make such a move if there wasn't enough rot in the system to make people consider following her.

    Nobility and Crest system is not inherently bad, it was established for reasons and it's reason mostly (or even completely) unrelated to church doctrine. Nobility protect commoners, that's why cast systems exist in first place and lot of nobles of Fodlan did not forget about it. Except empire there is no nation "rotten to core" and yes its because TWSITD corrupted it and took complete control over it. This also serve as "fuel". 

    And it's pretty obvious she's not gonna abolish nobility anyway. She didn't turned Empire into democracy, she handed it to her sucessor eventually, which means it's still autocratic nation, and it's obvious Linhardt and Caspar fathers as well as any other nobles who supported her will stay in power. 

    Fodlan society in general has its flaws and it that would be nice if they got fixed, but it's nothing that would require armed intervention (from nation that has it actually worst.) as again only one who suffer because it are nobles and  they have it in their job description. 

     

     

     

    What are your thoughts on Edelgard? *SPOILERS*

    in Fire Emblem: Three Houses

    Posted

    Yes, there is something rotten in Fodlan it's called Those Who Slither in Darkness.  They caused unbalance in Kingdom  and are source of all Imperial scheming. 

    As for Crest itself, nobles make only small fragment of population. They are one with privileges and riches (generally speaking) so it also come with some detriment. I don't think there is need change whole society just to make it more friendly place for nobility, especially if prize is paid by commoners.

    Aliance is more or less fine as it is. Could be better, could be worse. 

    As for propaganda, I don't have any problem with it, actually I approve it even, but it certainly belong among "questionable" methods so it can't be said Eldegard does not do anything questionable on her route. 

     

    What are your thoughts on Edelgard? *SPOILERS*

    in Fire Emblem: Three Houses

    Posted · Edited by Tenzen12

    She is revolutionary indeed. Thing is she wants rebuilt what she think is bad society and she is hardly objective on that matter. 

    She also does plenty questionable thing in own route. Just because Edie lead small strike force personally does not make beasts used by her army main force dissappear. Not to mention she attacked neutral country and used fake news demonise her enemies. 

    So far, what route would you call canon? (OBVIOUS SUPREME SPOILERS)

    in Fire Emblem: Three Houses

    Posted · Edited by Tenzen12

    56 minutes ago, timon said:

    What? The fact that a mad criminal redeems himself doesn't make him good, what about the people he tortured chasing revenge? Even worse, revenge on someone who has nothing to do with what he's trying to avenge? He wants to "stop the cycle of the strong trampling the weak" and yet he does exactly that, except he doesn't even have a good reason for it.

    Sure, from a character development point it's very nice, but the story as a whole feels like playing villain to me.

    Edelgard doesn't admit to be wrong, because she really isn't, at least not in her goals. Her goals are right. What is wrong are her methods (even then, in Crimson Flower she doesn't really do anything questionable), but she does admit to this, stating multiple times that she would do things differently if she could.

    Her biggest problem is that she doesn't see that she COULD do things differently, at least slightly, and that's a problem shared with Dimitri himself. Those two trust only themselves and their ways without ever looking for alternatives, that's their big flaw. Which is also why Claude feels so refreshing, he always wants the full picture before acting.

    If nothing else he goal of Fodlan conquest is very not good, especially as in 3/4 she could just destroy church, kill Rhea and be done with it without invading her neighbours.

    And it's miraculous she apparently somehow managed get good end. That said even if she did make Fodlan better place it was in spite  of her actions during story rather then because of it. Her methods weren't just wrong morally, they were wrong on practical level which make it actually much worse.

    In the end both Di and El acted terribly, without good reason (even if Edie believed otherwise), and only one of them got better.

     

    Is Edelgard responsible for *Spoiler's* death

    in Fire Emblem: Three Houses

    Posted

    He also tell him he "should have return to monastery much sooner."  and it's pretty obvious he has no problem to return among ranks of her Knights. Yes he is still wsrry of her for obvious reasons, but that's all to it. Quote you used is also twenty years old and Jeralt wasn't at best place at that time. 

    I assume you are using English audio, right? You might want reconsider that. 

    Did the japanese/english VA change how you perceive certain characters?

    in Fire Emblem: Three Houses

    Posted

    20 minutes ago, Cadros said:

    Played with Japanese voiceover.

    Ignatz was the most drastic difference between the Japanese and English voices to me. I was so taken aback when I first heard his English voice I did a double take to make sure that the it wasn't someone self-dubbing as a joke.

    I prefer the Japanese voice acting because I think a lot of the voices are overall more fitting to their character, or just plain better (Mercedes, Annette, Felix, Hubert to name a few). I also just think the Japanese voice acting sounds more... natural? Obviously not to a native English speaker in the sense that it's more natural to me personally, but it feels less like they're trying to voice act and more like the character is talking. The English voice acting is fine of course, though.

     

     

    I think this is pretty inaccurate. I would say Rhea very much felt like her voice was targeted towards being a motherly figure. Which, to me, felt accurate for her character. "Cute" never crossed my mind in the slightest when Rhea was talking.

     

    Yeah, I think dub made Rhea much more ... I guess more shady sounding

    In other hand while Jeralt voice is quite on spot, he use bit different rhetoric. Japanese Jeralt sounds  much more ok to return to knighthood not like he is on gunpoint, or something.

    What are your thoughts on Edelgard? *SPOILERS*

    in Fire Emblem: Three Houses

    Posted

    5 hours ago, matchalatte said:

    @Tenzen12 I thank you for your serious and well meaning response. I personally think some of your claims lack warrants or supporting arguments.

    I have already written perhaps way too much about the reasoning and motives behind Edelgard's choices and showed substantial amount of evidences in the game to tie up the reading. To say that all her action are driven by emotion is an unfair overstatement. Even a superficial reading of Edelgard would conclude that she is not only composed but calculating or even Machiavellian, in constrast with other major characters.

    I happen to know a thing or two about the subject of rationality. In theory of choice or game theory, rationality implies that decision maker always take the action/strategy in order to optimize his/her utility/objective, i.e, a rational decision maker always make the best choice for him/herself. You can be consistently wrong or consistently emotional or consistently confused and that does not make you rational (unless we go deeper into theory). Being emotional is definitely not a sign of rational decision making.

    If so, then Rhea has no right to order people to kill Edelgard, the legitimate ruler the empire which has its own sovereignty. I know this is a fantasy, but this is fantasy with some pretty meaty political themes and I still expect common sense (does anyone ever have the right to order people to kill a foreign leader?) to work just like every other player.

    You are contradicting yourself with the previous point: if Rhea is not the de facto ruler of Fodlan, then how can she be responsible for the peace of Fodlan?

    Also North Korea has been peaceful since the ceasefire, and if you travel to Pyongyang everything looks great. But surely it doesn't mean Kim is a good ruler? While this comparison is extreme, I did illustrate why the Church of Seiros has many (bad) features of an authoritarian regime. You have to try a better argument.

    Don't forget that her followers are the privileged class just like the party members of Pyongyang. I brought this up because in BL route Edelgard actually mentioned another aspect of her goal, which is to improve the economic/social condition of the common folks. Another contradicting fact is the amount of bandits, thieves, rebellions and dissents presented in the game all over the place. If anything, Rhea is actually facing a political crisis in Fodlan (she clearly failed to contain the threat of TWSITD during those hundreds of peaceful years)

    But these claims are completely unfounded. In fact, if you paid attention to Edelgard's support conversation, she has intimate and sincere relations with almost everyone in the Black Eagle group. Dorothea is a confidant and both Ferdinand and Petra look up to her as a role model. In particular, Hubie has confessed more than one time he is willing to sacrifice everything for her. 

    You can't just throw an allegation like that. At least loosely show me events, texts, or conversations in the game that support this interpretation. There is no evidence at all suggesting Edelgard did not make choice independently or out of her own will in BE, GD, and BL routes.

    OK I feel like we are going in circles and I am repeating a lot. If you think Rhea > Edelgard period, you are definitely entitled to that opinion and I am happy for you.

    - As I mentioned multpiple time before neither, removing crests, Church or Rhea is beneficial to her goal create better society, nor is her conquest especially as she might not have lifespam long enough both wage war and enforce reforms afrerwards. Whole war is her lashing out over her childhood trauma instead facing it head on. It's also very possible she is afraid of "Arundel" who rised her and that's why she rather look for something else direct her rage imho. She using calculaing logic for  goals she set base on emotions, that's why I can't consider her rational even she is composed calculating and Machiavellian. That's not mutually exlusive

    - Again definition alone makes Rhea not ruler, she authority , power and duty enforce it but it doesn't change definition. Church of Seiros is not completely diffrent from medieval catholic church when it come to influence, but even if pope could refuse king legitimacy or order war of cross, or he wouldn't be ruler either. In same hypothetical scenario Pope could in theory use his authority same way as Rhea did. Given situation in medieval Europe it wouldn't be good idea, but that option would still be ithere. This also reason why she can keep peace without being actual Ruler as having influence is not equal of having land nor subjects. Nor it means having direct control over sovereign countries. Killing Edelgard is not policially good move as she technically on top of Empire, but nor is letting her allive. Unfortunatelly there is no good third option.

    - It's true Rhea weren't able deal with TWSitD and that's indeed her greatest failure as pretty much this whole political crissis you mentioned is engineered by them, but again Church doesn't act as final authority. It use it's influence when then things get out hands, but leave handling internal affairs to people who are suppossed to handle it. It's not different then for example NATO stepping in Izrael-palestine conflict although given powerscalling it would be more like NATO stepping between hypothetical US-China conflict instead.

    - You sort of got me there, I never really considered Black Eagles as part of Edie followers, more like friends who stick with her because Byleth (who is one that should get leadership points here), but yes if Black Eagles decide side with her (which is not something she herself expected) then yes she got some loyal subordinates. 

    Ultimatelly I believe Eldegard is not good leader whatsover due her immaturity and lack of charisma. Church is too rigid to be able adapt to extreme cover terrorist tactics of TWSitD (Basically situation would probably contiune work relatively normally if TWSitD didn't start openly operate after seizing power in Empire, which is where ChoS stopped to be adequate as power balancer)  and it's probably better being reformed under Byleth afterward. Claude is most likely best when it come to actuall diplomacy even if he lack power. 

     

    What are your thoughts on Edelgard? *SPOILERS*

    in Fire Emblem: Three Houses

    Posted · Edited by Tenzen12

    Again

    1)Being composed and being rational are two different thing. Rhea might be angry but her choice is consistent with her path actions and what she sees as arci-bishop duty and it certainly warranted as everyone involved can testify. In other hand Edelgard might keep being compossed but pretty much all her action are driven by emotion allone without good reasoning behind it.

    2)Rhea isn't really ruler in first place. She is leader of massive organisation, but she doesn't have land nor subjects, although she has certain level of authority and power enforce it. 

    3)Comparing leading ability, I think Rhea once again win regardless as she actually were able keep peace for such long time, she has very loyal and competent followers and  even  who  aren't religious and church in general were able swiftly react to any vissible development. Edelgard followers are mostly opportunists that might turn against her when it's beneficial to them not to mention she would probably never be able consolidate her power in Empire if it wasn't handed to her by TWSitD.

    In all seriousness, Edie mostly  follow rails prepared for her beforehand and I am not even sure how much she is aware of that. There isn't lot of actual leadership involved. You can argue Rhea being uncompromising against direct opposition is wrong (just because it worked for so centuries, doesn't necessary means it's right method, I think I could get convinced about that), but I think when it come to comparing level of leadership, Edie should compete with post-timeskip Dimitri instead.

    What are your thoughts on Edelgard? *SPOILERS*

    in Fire Emblem: Three Houses

    Posted · Edited by Tenzen12

    24 minutes ago, matchalatte said:

    And you will be the judge. That's exactly why El's underhanded dealings were justified from a strategic perspective, precisely because she did them to achieve something.

    If you are a moralist, then end does not justify the means. If you are a realist, then end does justify the means.

    But El is not completely cold and efficient in routes other than BL.

    Well I certainly agree she is not cold and efficient and I also think she did terrible job from strategic perspective even if she tried achieve something as her actions can't reasonably  lead to desired goals from most part

    That said I don't see how is any that related our current conversation. Rhea might or may not act impulsively when ordered Eldegard death, but I don't think it put Edie into better light as pretty much whole her war is driven by emotions alone.

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