MessengerIris

1. She is not the most hated girl in FE. She is the most controversial, just like Camillia. 2. Female Byleth is not more well-beloved, as shown in CYL. Despite having the personality of wet cardboard, Female Byleth is mainly popular because she is so shippable with the lords. Despite having the same lines/story role, Male Byleth is nowhere near Female Byleth’s “popularity”, so it’s just not about their characterization. 3. You are entitled to like who you like, just as other people can dislike who they want. Don’t let others get to you. While I personally have a lot of issues with her, there are plenty who like her. Everyone’s preferences can be justified; the difference in people’s reception of Edelgard is dependent on their values and worldview. Going into the specifics of her actions just opens a can of worms that will inevitably lead you to be more stressed. If you really want to know, just look up the millions of posts about hating/loving Edelgard. Examples of debates: Does her actions reflect ones of a revolutionary or those of a tyrant? Does her fight ultimately reflect a fight for human freedom or militaristic conquest and rule? Did the ends justify the means in her war? Could she have done more to avoid the war? Was she justified to side with the indisputable villains of the game (TWSITD), whilst her primary target in the CF campaign is someone who can either been seen as a victim of circumstance or a perpetuator of societal stagnancy (Rhea)? Was her dreams of meritocracy good or just a gateway to nepotism? Despite what some fans/haters will debate until their faces are blue - all of these debates are open to contention, and there is no one right answer. Besides, there are 4 different endings - some people will see her war as a means to an end, whereas others will look at the other endings and argue it as avoidable. Edelgard’s portrayal in CF isn’t even like that of the other routes either; she acts differently with Byleth around. You aren’t wrong to like her, just like others aren’t wrong to dislike/disagree with her.

My favorite support in the GBA era was Joshua/Natasha, especially if you follow Eirika route. Other good supports are: Ephraim/Tana or L'Arachel or Tana/Cormag, and Colm/Neimi (if you are for the childhood lovers).

A good way to get around this problem (and speed up a route), is to make an extra save for BE, right before the route split (end of Chapter 11). That way, you can put Church route on the backburner (by restarting and following this extra save), if you ever decide that you are up for it. It saves you the tedium of having to go through chapter 1-11 yet again for BE. Regardless of which path you decide to follow in BE, make sure to always talk to Edelgard and go to that special event (Ch 11 explore). As long as you go to this event, you will activate the ability to choose between the route split.

I didn’t really follow pre-release information so what I knew going in was limited to just the lords. Most of my change in opinion happened after I saw the supports and story roles. Black Eagles (least favorite house): Went up: Ferdinand, Dorothea Went down: Bernadetta, Lindhart, Caspar, Petra, Hubert, Edelgard, Jeritza Edelgard: I thought she was going to be my favorite female lead yet. Now, she is probably the worst lord in the series for me (barring avatars). Alas, such a tumultuous relationship with her - her writing was just everywhere between the routes. In retrospect, I enjoyed her tragic villain portrayal in AM the most, despite how “evil” she is supposed to be. In combination with her controversial reception, both from the detractors and the fans, just the mention of her puts me off. Blue Lions (favorite house) Went up: Dimitri, Felix, Sylvain, Ashe, Mercedes, Annette, Ingrid, Gilbert Went down: Dedue I had low hopes for this house. Only reason I even picked it first was because I loved lance users. Surprisingly turned out to be my favorite. None of the characters really “went down” to be honest, it came down to availability more than anything. Dimitri: Favorite lord in the series. Found his trauma to be the most relatable (sense of loss and guilt). Even if his “redemption” is abrupt, I liked how he doesn’t really ever try to justify and excuse himself to be righteous or good. Golden Deer (meh) Went up: Marianne, Hilda, Lorenz Went down: Claude, Lysithea No opinion before or after: Leonie, Ignatz, Raphael [This house had a lot of duds for me] Claude: Such a pity, a bunch of wasted potential. Thought he would be the most engaging lord - felt like the greatest “scheme” he pulled on me was pulling the wool over my eyes before release. His route wasn’t bad; but his story engagement was minimal. His strongest trait, before and after TS, was his personality; but take that away and I don’t know much about him. I really wish IS either scraped Claude or made him have his own struggles, rather than shoehorn him into Church 2.0. Church (meh. They just weren’t around a lot during the part 1 story.) Went up: Rhea, Alois, Seteth, Hanneman Went down: Flayn No opinion before or after: Catherine, Shamir, Manuela, Cyril, Jeralt Rock bottom: Byleth [garbage tier. There was nothing good about this character. Only reason they existed was to pander to the player. Actively hurt the story growth of all the lords by taking away the spotlight that should’ve been rightfully theirs, and replacing it with someone whose story presence is worse than a cardboard box.] Rhea: Surprisingly deep. Probably one of the best written and consistent characters in the series. I’m not going to say she was justified or excuse her actions, but I found her growth and reflection to be very meaningful. She was a deeply flawed person. Towards the end, she saw the error in her ways and owned up to it (whether that be revamping the church or sacrificial death), rather than giving excuse after excuse to Seteth.

If you have little patience, maybe remove yourself from the situation instead of acting like white knight and adding more fuel to the certain characters fans (whether that be Edelgard or Dimitri or Rhea or whatever) can be overbearing rhetoric that is becoming prevalent? It’s not the end of the world if people do not agree, and it’s not your job to “educate” others either...(which is what your post come off sounding).

Holy. Regardless of whether you agree or disagree with the sentiments being shared, there is clearly a better way of expressing it besides coming off so condescending and dismissive about other people’s takes on the events. Telling people to share their idea so you can tell them how wrong they are...And then calling all these people ignorant and not enlightened enough to share your views. I think it’s time for me to leave. It’s not even worth the discussion when it devolves into discussing with people with this sort of attitude.

From my understanding, OP and my qualm is more to do with TWSITD's involvement in Edelgard's backstory, moreso than her actual backstory. I think her backstory of torture is actually quite well done and puts her actions in a lot of context. But because TWSITD is such a badly written ultimate villain, it makes a lot of Edelgard's action seem misdirected against the church (since most people will end up falling on the argument that the church upholds some the crest/nobility system, which again, is open to interpretation. I personally don't think the church is great but some of Edelgard's blame is overexaggerated.). If Edelgard's backstory was more closely tied to her end goal (removal of the nobility/Crests), then it wouldn't seem so contradicatory and confusing. Like I mentioned before, write out TWSITD completely. Now it becomes: Imperial nobility wants a unified Fodlan -> Insurrection of the Seven -> abducts Edelgard and siblings to create superpowered Emperor to achieve that goal -> Edelgard hates Crests and nobility. Now, rather than TWSITD is watching my every move so I must go remove the church?? logic, it would just be "lemme appease the Imperial nobles with conquest but use their resources to unify Fodlan screw them over by removing their power." Also, a lot of the CF endings should reflect more of a meritocratic society (yes, societies don't change overnight but seriously felt a lot of things didn't even change at the end of CF when people like Bernadetta/Caspar inherent their respective titles and positions).

I think Nemesis's motivation and backstory could have benefit a little bit from combining with TWSITD's backstory. Like maybe he too was a human who wants to push the limits of humanity and innovation to extend beyond the reliance of God's control. A lot of people in our own history started questioning religion once science and innovative thought was on the rise. It didn't have to be "one day humans wanted to rebel." Rhea could still be for Sothis because she saw what happens when innovation leads to genocide, and as result, clings onto the hope that religion is salvation. That setup seems like an idea that stems a lot from the debate between about humanity's willpower vs relying on holy intervention. But seriously, you don’t need some “hidden bad guy” to be responsible for literally all the bad stuff that happens in feudalistic society when a lot of that stuff can be pinned moreso on humanity’s and the social system’s inherent flaws. People can all make crappy and selfish decisions, all on their own accord, and removing TWSITD would allow ALL the protagonists to do that, instead of “TWSITD’s controlling and watching everything I do so let’s just go along with it.” TWSITD just felt like IS got cold feet on Edelgard and realized many people wouldn’t like a ruthless waifu. Maybe I am one of the few, but I wish she was less of a contraindication and stuck to her guns like she does in BL (where she admittedly continues her bloody path despite Arundel being out of the picture because she was so driven on unifying and creating a “better” Church-less world).

Eh, how important is questionable. Tragedy of Duscur/Kingdom -> It was orchestrated by the Kingdom nobility with a little shove from TWSITD. If we wrote TWSITD them out, the nobility can commit that tragedy all by themselves. It would reinforce the narrative that the nobility system is corrupt and needs to be removed. Rhea -> Write out TWSITD and just leave Nemesis. What does that leave us? A guy, who like Edelgard, thinks that we don't need Gods and that humans should reign supreme. Not that farfetched of an idea. It would reinforce the idea that humanity's greed for power and control can lead them to do terrible things like genocide. Rhea could still make those concessions to keep the false peace between humans vs Nabateans, out of respect for her mother. Rhea's fanaticism with her mother and maintaining this false peace doesn't really need TWSITD - it would just highlight the idea that people with the best of intentions can be led astray. Empire -> Feudalism is already a corrupt system. You can have the Empire's nobility pulling the strings with pushing for Crests and the Insurrection of the Seven, solely for the sake of power/prestige/money/influence (because it's not like it hasn't happened before in history), without Arundel shoving his way into Empire politics. It would also put into perspective the idea of centralized power vs being led by a group of corrupt nobles. I feel like without TWSITD, the game itself would benefit from a more introspective examination at what can go wrong in feudalistic societies and the result of people's selfishness/arrogance. Maybe it is just me, but right now, it feels like "oh yeah a lot of bad things happen because some big bad is in the shadow pulling the strings, but jokes on you, they're taken care of in 2 chapters in VW and in the epilogue of CF."

Dimitri does mourn Sylvain in CF chapter 17 map. Idk, the narrative decisions between Dimitri/Sylvain are so weird - like childhood friends by a lot interconnected history, yet only B support? Their support chain itself is silly and fun but doesn't seem as deep as Dimitri's supports with Ingrid/Felix/Dedue (which are all introspective about the Duscur tragedy or about the way the kingdom's chivalry philosophy is upheld to an unhealthy degree), despite Sylvain's clear disdain for crests/nobility.

I’ll give my 2 cents. I think the backstory is fine the way it is. It is ok for villains to have flaws like arrogance and ignorance, even if it sounds nonsensical from the other perspective - ultimately these flaws make her a relatable and flawed human. To her, what she does makes sense and allows her to justify the actions she does. I just think it gets ridiculous when people start arguing that she is some sort of savior because “well what she does makes sense from her mind and as a result, all her opponents are therefore wrong and should just roll over to allow her actions and conquest.” As if there isn’t an other side to her conquest. And then those same individuals will bend themselves backwards to make every other opponent (whether it be Claude/Dimitri/Rhea/etc) out looking like some sort of “bigger villain” who Edelgard had to put down/conquer/some nonsense like that. I think the game was a good reflection of how multifaceted war is because ultimately everyone thinks their cause is just and worthy of sacrifice. She is ruthless and Machiavellian in her actions, but not sadistic. Besides, nothing wrong with liking an aggressor. I do think it is unfortunate that her character is diminished because she is too closely associated with the clearly irredeemable villains with insufficient story presence to make them as scary/powerful as she frames them to be, and those villains barely have any context to make their actions understandable (beyond death to dragons and evil for the sake of evil). If anything, I think I would rather write out the entire TWSITD plotline and have her motivation stem more directly from the nobility (ie the nobility tortured and experimented on her siblings etc). That way, there is a more direct correlation to her end goal, and CF would stop being "I am helpless against TWSITD's control and as a result must partner with them" and make her seem more like a conquerer with accountability and the agency to make morally questionable decisions for what she believes is a better society. I just often find people who defend Edelgard's actions as heroic and necessary often build TWSITD's threat and storytelling to be better than it actually is, which is quite barebone and open to interpretation.

I’ll just point out that the difference with Edelgard vs Arvis is that unlike Arvis (who is clearly portrayed as the antagonist for the entire duration of the game), Edelgard is portrayed as the “in the right” protagonist for 1/4 routes and the clear antagonist in 3/4. It’s obvious she would be more controversial. I don’t see many fans saying “Arvis was right/justified to cause the chaos he did, screw the real protagonists of FE4/5.” (maybe I am wrong on this, who knows). As for the female lords being generally more controversial, I do agree they get more flack, but it’s not as simple as saying it’s due to their gender. As an actual girl, I think I am more fair to the female lords (I love Celica, Micaiah and am ambivalent to “bros” like Marth and Hector). Eliwood gets a lot of flack for being “boring” like Lyn/Lucina does (not as much). Xander is basically indefensible by a lot of the fandom based on his actions in the story. I don’t recall ever seeing anyone defend how stupid he acts in Conquest. He’s only seen as “good” because of his supports, but storywise, he gets a lot of hate, like the other female lords, for what they do in their respective stories. Micaiah and Celica don’t have the quantity of supports like Xander does to flesh them out. Also, Micaiah is up against “established” and well-loved heroes, supporting the “villain” country from the previous game, I think the odds were stacked against her to begin with (female or not). Camilla/Tharja are polarizing, but they are clearly very popular for their sex appeal - IS did a really poor job writing those types of characters by reducing the majority of the supports/story involvement as being avatar-obsessed, moreso than how Niles acts. (a failing of the self-insert system catering towards a male-dominant demographic imo). Long story short, while females are judged more harshly, I think a good portion is due to how IS writes them, moreso than their female gender. I actually disagree with the sentiment that Edelgard gets MORE hate for being a female conquerer. I think if Dimitri/Edelgard’s roles were reversed, everyone would be jumping on the Edelgard train, and Dimitri would get so much hate.

Agreed. All of the endings require suspension of belief, Edelgard’s probably requires the most, solely because a meritocratic society is good in theory...never been done in reality. It’s pretty much comparable to how communism plays out in theory vs in practice. Both systems downplay the effect of humanity’s selfishness. It’s a “naive” government system because it often doesn’t account for (1) who determines what is considered “meritable” qualities (2) people with money/influence/connections can more easily get “merit” (i.e. paying for access to education). (3) some people are just born at a disadvantage, solely based on luck. No matter how much they try, they cannot rise up because of biological/societal/economic limitations placed on them. If anything, those people are probably more victimized with her new system of motivating the weak to become strong through merit. While the other ends aren’t much more realistic, at least those government systems/transitions in power have historically occurred (probably not as easily or quickly as the endings make it sound), whereas Edelgard’s idealistic society has never actually been implemented in reality...either now or historically.

What’s your favourite map type or objective? (FOW, Desert, Protect Civilians, Seize, Rout, Defense, etc.) And which exact map of that type? Include the games you’ve played. Favourite Type: Defense Favourite Map: Blood Contract in RD Games played: FE6-now

I don’t agree with or condone any of it. Just putting it into context. There are people like that all over the world on the internet, even in Western countries. However, I do think Edelgard’s actions is a touchy subject for a much bigger reason beyond just homophobia/sexism for Koreans.