Jump to content

Is Edelgard responsible for *Spoiler's* death


Recommended Posts

1 hour ago, dragonlordsd said:

Well, as you said, a LOT of it is interpretation, which is why it's worth discussing. I can't DEFINITELY say you're wrong, as there isn't explicit dialogue one way or the other, so both view points can be valid.

That said, I think it might be a good idea for you to take a step back and reexamine your own interpretation/reading of the game.

No offense, just, there's a lot of subjective points in your counterpoint, and sarcastic dismissal doesn't really help you seem like the reasonable one.

Honestly, I'm just half-throwing my hands in air in there at half you and half me. But yeah, you're right I should have been more patient. I apologize to you two.
But don't exagerate what I said, I said a part of it was up to interpretation. 😛
 

22 minutes ago, Tenzen12 said:

It was you who said Edie has no control over Kronya, remember? You can make only one of two contradicting excuses. Either Kronya can't be negotiated (in which case she is no different than wild animal), or she is reasonable ally, (in which case you can't say she has nothing to do with Edelgard.)

Anyway once you pick one we continue in discussion.

... Huh, I get it, that's one of the reasons I hate comparisons sometimes.

Well obviously, Kronya is crazy, she is part of TWDID, it is shown that the alliance in uneasy, and they clearly does things behind Eldegard/Flame Emperor's back, with her showing anger at it. (Visibly, she need them that much I guess ?)

Hah, I do see your point now. I still disagree somewhat, but I see it. It's basically the same line, but with a different conclusion.
I just added if she wanted to kill him or not, and that kind of clouded me I suppose.

Edited by B.Leu
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 170
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

This is a classic case of “no, but technically yes” and also serves to highlight one of the many questionable moves Edelgard has made on her road to the end. Throughout her route, it is pretty clear that she had a tenuous control over TWSITD at best and at its worst, the shadow conflict would spill over into the actual war, even on her route with severe collateral damage, like at Remire or at the Fortress City. The aftermath of the Battle of the Ruined Chapel is yet another example of the consequences of her choice to side with TWSITD, causing the deaths of multiple students and of someone that is really important to someone who (in her own route at least) is incredibly important to her. El’s speech at the end of that chapter felt just as much as a speech to herself as it was to Byleth, asking herself what is she going to do about this rouge group that she is forced to depend upon for support but at the same time is working counter to her goals. 

Spoiler

Aren’t they the same group that experimented on her as a child and causes the death of most of her family? I suppose another topic for discussion in a different thread could be about why El is so desperate for support that she would willingly side with the group that tortured her.

As an aside, I’m still mad that the shadow war is hand-waved away in the epilogue for her route, what with how heavily they hyped the war up.

So is Edelgard to blame? She is in the sense that she is permitting TWSITD to operate with a high degree of autonomy, collateral damage be damned. She may not directly order or even sanctioned the group to carry out their experiments but the blood they shed technically goes on her hands as well. Is she personally to blame? Ultimately that depends on how Byleth (and by extension, the player) views El’s actions, if they feel fault lies with TWSITD alone or if they feel the one who unleashed this shadow group is responsible. 

Like for many things about Edelgard, I feel like everyone’s (including my own) opinion will be slanted based on which route you played first. I played her route first, and I find myself often leaping to a (hopefully nuanced and non-rambling) defense of her actions or acknowledgement of her questionable yet not completely unreasonable choices. For those who played other routes, I see the opposite. I’m glad we can have conversations like this as opposed to the ones we had post-Fates.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

"how to explai nthis:

What's interesting is that she immediately tries to kill you afterwards. Remember that speech she gave you immediately afterwards, about how you have to move forward and stuff? Looking back, the only reason she did that was so that she could convince you to ignore Rhea's warnings and go after Solon, so that he would be able to kill you in the forest. If you had just stayed in your room moping, you wouldn't have heard about him. I loved how even Hubert wasn't aware it was a trap. When she's like, "Oh, by the way guys, this is a trap." Hubert is totally caught off guard. He's like, "wait, what?"

And this plan almost worked. Unfortunately for her, you went all super sayain and broke out, but she nearly got you... well, sort of killed."

 

how to explain the above?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

At one point, doesn’t Edelgard imply that, by allying with TWSITD she is helping (or at least trying to) curb their worse impulses.  As in, TWISTD would be plotting/scheming/killing fathers anyways, but that by allying with them, she could help to curb some of their worst impulses (or at least in her view).  In the end, it leads to the question of just who was using who, but I think that this viewpoint plays into part of what helps Edelgard sleep at night (when she is ‘t having nightmares about her family anyways).  

 

That said, you’d think there would be more of a reckoning once Byleth finds out about this, although him being a nearly silent protagonist somewhat gets in the way of this.  Then again, you could argue the Church path is basically said reaction (The choice is literally “I must kill Edelgard”).  

 

Also, really good points about Edelgard potentially helping lure Byleth to his death.  Or perhaps  she wanted to use the opportunity to liquidate her former allies in TWSITD who had outlived their usefulness, not realizing they had the power to stand up the the Sword of the Creator.  

Edited by DystopianAlphaOmega
Link to comment
Share on other sites

The responsibility also falls on her as by continuing to ally herself with those garbage people she time and time again lets them get away with their misdeeds. After all the shit they do she still wants to be their ally. Her desperation for her ambitions make me really like her as a villain and I consider her to be one of the best if not the best villains in recent years for FE. But do I like her as a person and do I sympathize with her goals/motives? Absolutely fucking no.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

To modern legal thinking, Edelgard is pretty clearly at least an accessory to murder when it comes to Jeralt. Kronya isn't exactly good at hiding her bloodlust, I doubt Edelgard couldn't have forseen her being a danger to the students and staff when she helped her infiltrate the place.

Remember that if you agree to be a the getaway driver for a jewel heist where your co-conspirators are just planning to use guns to scare people, and they end up shooting someone who tries to be a hero, you're on the hook even if you never set eyes on the person killed and never set foot in the building in your life.

And that's not mentioning all the students that were undoubtedly killed during the incident with the beasts leading up to Kronya's cold-blooded murder of Jeralt.

She's responsible enough that there's little chance she wouldn't die in prison after a modern court was done with her, and that's before all of the other shady stuff Those got up to on her watch.

Basically her only defense would be trying to make the case that Rhea is so terrible that her own actions were necessary to stop much greater evils, which... does seem to be what she actually believes, but it's a toss-up at best whether she'd find a jury she could convince.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, Kunan said:

To modern legal thinking, Edelgard is pretty clearly at least an accessory to murder when it comes to Jeralt. Kronya isn't exactly good at hiding her bloodlust, I doubt Edelgard couldn't have forseen her being a danger to the students and staff when she helped her infiltrate the place.

Remember that if you agree to be a the getaway driver for a jewel heist where your co-conspirators are just planning to use guns to scare people, and they end up shooting someone who tries to be a hero, you're on the hook even if you never set eyes on the person killed and never set foot in the building in your life.

And that's not mentioning all the students that were undoubtedly killed during the incident with the beasts leading up to Kronya's cold-blooded murder of Jeralt.

She's responsible enough that there's little chance she wouldn't die in prison after a modern court was done with her, and that's before all of the other shady stuff Those got up to on her watch.

Basically her only defense would be trying to make the case that Rhea is so terrible that her own actions were necessary to stop much greater evils, which... does seem to be what she actually believes, but it's a toss-up at best whether she'd find a jury she could convince.

Come to think of it...

Spoiler

Did Edelgard really even accomplish anything as the Flame Emperor? The most I've seen is that she got more Beasts to use as weapons. Other than that it looks like she shot herself in the foot multiple times.

To start with:

  • Her actions indirectly caused Dmitri to snap which would lead her to having an opponent willing to fight to the very last man. Even if she could beat him, his stubborness would cause a needless amount of bloodshed as well as loss of resources she could've used in some other part in the war. There's a good possibility that he'd at least be a bit easier to handle had she kept her association with TWSITD more discreet or downplayed her involvement with them.
  • Her hand in turning her fellow students into Beasts would've been a morale and public relations nightmare in a more realistic setting. Considering the Church of Seiros and two other countries would be involved directly or indirectly, there'd be no covering up what she did or her relations to TWSITD. I'm actually surprised there weren't any inssurections during her campaign since she's attacking a heavily established religion and two other countries.
  • She possibly and permanently alienates Byleth. TWSITD caused Jeralt's death with Edelgard indirectly aiding them. The only thing she has that'd point to her not approving of their actions is her own words, and with all the other things we see her approve of beforehand it holds very little water, especially to someone who'd thing you're the accomplice to their father's murder.

I get allying with them was a gambit but I don't think it really paid off all that well.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Cyan1456 said:

Come to think of it...

  Hide contents

Did Edelgard really even accomplish anything as the Flame Emperor? The most I've seen is that she got more Beasts to use as weapons. Other than that it looks like she shot herself in the foot multiple times.

To start with:

  • Her actions indirectly caused Dmitri to snap which would lead her to having an opponent willing to fight to the very last man. Even if she could beat him, his stubborness would cause a needless amount of bloodshed as well as loss of resources she could've used in some other part in the war. There's a good possibility that he'd at least be a bit easier to handle had she kept her association with TWSITD more discreet or downplayed her involvement with them.
  • Her hand in turning her fellow students into Beasts would've been a morale and public relations nightmare in a more realistic setting. Considering the Church of Seiros and two other countries would be involved directly or indirectly, there'd be no covering up what she did or her relations to TWSITD. I'm actually surprised there weren't any inssurections during her campaign since she's attacking a heavily established religion and two other countries.
  • She possibly and permanently alienates Byleth. TWSITD caused Jeralt's death with Edelgard indirectly aiding them. The only thing she has that'd point to her not approving of their actions is her own words, and with all the other things we see her approve of beforehand it holds very little water, especially to someone who'd thing you're the accomplice to their father's murder.

I get allying with them was a gambit but I don't think it really paid off all that well.

 

Spoiler

It's as they say, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 8/5/2019 at 1:37 AM, redlight said:

The responsibility also falls on her as by continuing to ally herself with those garbage people she time and time again lets them get away with their misdeeds. After all the shit they do she still wants to be their ally. Her desperation for her ambitions make me really like her as a villain and I consider her to be one of the best if not the best villains in recent years for FE. But do I like her as a person and do I sympathize with her goals/motives? Absolutely fucking no.

She reveals in her supports that THEY had puppet strings in the empire and her family. Not the other way around.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 8/4/2019 at 10:53 AM, Chocolate Kitty said:
Spoiler

The Flame Emperor even states that they were opposed to the killing of innocents (ironic though since Edel eventually became blinded by her goals and plunged an entire continent into a bloody 5-year war where many innocents were definitely killed). 

 

Also ironic since the flame emperor was the one who hired the bandits to kill Dimitri and Claude (and other nobles) in the very beginning of the game, who were all innocent at the time (which TWSitD likely had nothing to do with).

Nonetheless, while she is not directly responsible, she is the one who technically helped the killer start the experiment in the first place. I doubt that if Edelgard refused to accept her into her house, the incident would have happened.

Edited by MrPerson0
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just saying, isn’t the whole Jeralt death a bigger plan as bait to kill Byleth?

The plan was to kill Jeralt, so Byleth would chase her into the forest on the ruin, then Solon could banish Byleth to the darkness.

 

So in short, Byleth was the true target, not Jeralt. Edelgard knew this but didn’t do anything. One could even argue that she encourages Byleth to go after Kroyna. She either willingly to kill Byleth, or that she doesn’t care if Byleth dies as part of plan. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, Timlugia said:

The plan was to kill Jeralt, so Byleth would chase her into the forest on the ruin, then Solon could banish Byleth to the darkness.

Completely forgot about that being linked to Jeralt's death. Guess Edelgard technically was a part of this seeing that she didn't even try to stop or tell Byleth what the plan was.

Edited by MrPerson0
Link to comment
Share on other sites

The only way I can justify siding with Edelgard is taking Byelth to honestly mean he wants to get rid of crests as much as Edelgard. And for him to be as coldly calculating as Edelgard. Which given his muted emotions is certainly possible.

Seriously, who is to say Byleth's morality is any better than Edelgards. If its not then its Empress Waifu time!

Edited by wissenschaft
Link to comment
Share on other sites

8 hours ago, Timlugia said:

Just saying, isn’t the whole Jeralt death a bigger plan as bait to kill Byleth?

The plan was to kill Jeralt, so Byleth would chase her into the forest on the ruin, then Solon could banish Byleth to the darkness.

 

So in short, Byleth was the true target, not Jeralt. Edelgard knew this but didn’t do anything. One could even argue that she encourages Byleth to go after Kroyna. She either willingly to kill Byleth, or that she doesn’t care if Byleth dies as part of plan. 

Oh shit. Yeah, that makes sense.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

8 hours ago, Timlugia said:

Just saying, isn’t the whole Jeralt death a bigger plan as bait to kill Byleth?

The plan was to kill Jeralt, so Byleth would chase her into the forest on the ruin, then Solon could banish Byleth to the darkness.

 

So in short, Byleth was the true target, not Jeralt. Edelgard knew this but didn’t do anything. One could even argue that she encourages Byleth to go after Kroyna. She either willingly to kill Byleth, or that she doesn’t care if Byleth dies as part of plan. 

I don't think she knew this at all. When you wake up and side with you she quite happy about it. I believe that twsind put this plan into play without fully informing Edelgard. Just as Edelgard views twsind as a future enemey, they may well see her as a future enemy as well.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

9 hours ago, Timlugia said:

Just saying, isn’t the whole Jeralt death a bigger plan as bait to kill Byleth?

The plan was to kill Jeralt, so Byleth would chase her into the forest on the ruin, then Solon could banish Byleth to the darkness.

 

So in short, Byleth was the true target, not Jeralt. Edelgard knew this but didn’t do anything. One could even argue that she encourages Byleth to go after Kroyna. She either willingly to kill Byleth, or that she doesn’t care if Byleth dies as part of plan. 

She seemed very surprised for someone who knew what was about to happen.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I dont think that Edelgard planned to kill Byleth in the forest. It would make no sense to tell him that this might be a trap if it is HER trap. I think it is more likely that she saw an opportunity to get rid of some of the TWSITD and maybe for Byleth to get revenge ... so that he closes that chapter of his life ... so that it doesnt came up when it is revealed that she was in league with his father killers ....

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Probably not. Edelgard seems more like an accidental associate than someone with a direct hand in the event. Its important to know that even if the flame faction and those who slither are aware of each other and have ties between them they aren't part of the same faction. Edelgard likely isn't aware of all they do and vice versa. Given the strained conversation after the event it seems likely that Edelgard didn't know and definitely wasn't happy about it. 

Edelgard lacks a motive to get involved in Gerald's murder. If anything she might have seen the potential in recruiting a legendary warrior who dislikes Rhea and who makes several snide comments to the nobility she wants to abolish. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

She smuggled Kronya into monastery. They worked together until that very event. 

Also I don't think Jeralt dislike Rhea. At least with jap voicing he seems have doubts but still respect her and willing work with her. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

23 minutes ago, Tenzen12 said:

She smuggled Kronya into monastery. They worked together until that very event. 

Also I don't think Jeralt dislike Rhea. At least with jap voicing he seems have doubts but still respect her and willing work with her. 

Actually after Remir village level, seeing Byleth smile to his students, Jeralt would say that he changed his mind that he now believes they shouldn't leave monastery at the first place.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You all seem to be forgetting a very important thing here. Edelgard does not control TWSIND, they control her. They are the ones who experimented on edelgard and killed all her siblings. They are the ones who used Duke aegir to strip edelgard's father of most of his power. Edelgard isnt even the emporer at the time of jeralt's murder. So if TWSIND control the emporer, and she is only the crown princess, what makes you think they would let edelgard know anything regarding their motives? They are the ones who dictate every move and edelgard has been trying to break free of their control. She expresses disdain for their methods multiple times, genuine adoration for byleth, even asks for their aid after remire village, everything that she does and says contradicts the notion that she would want to kill jeralt or play an active, knowing role in trying to trap byleth in that alternate dimension. Realistically, she saw byleth's strength and believed that they would be capable of killing solon and kronya, severely weakening TWSIND and setting them up to finally destroying them for good (and freeing herself and her people from their control). By the end of her route she finally has enough power to defeat them and that's literally what the character epilogue focus on if you go her route. Blaming everything on her when shes just a pawn trying to break free is way too harsh.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

She's partially responsible IMO. Whether Byleth forgives her for this or not is up to the player, based on the choice made in chapter 11 (and the choice to S-rank her). I think it's very much a valid choice either way, which is part of what makes this game great.

On 8/10/2019 at 9:25 AM, Tenzen12 said:

Also I don't think Jeralt dislike Rhea.

Jeralt describes Rhea as "terrifying" and repeatedly tells Byleth to be careful of her.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Quote

genuine adoration for byleth, even asks for their aid after remire village, 

Funny, she straight up calling you a lier if you agree to help her after Remire. She also orders her general to kill you if you attempt to resist in the Holt Tomb.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I agree with the people who say "yes and no", because that's basically what it boils down to. She didn't strike Jeralt down herself, maybe she didn't even mean for that to happen (because even in other routes - except perhaps Blue Lions - it's pretty clear Edelgard's feelings for Byleth go farther than a simple teacher-student connection), but ultimately, she was the one who allowed Kronya into the monastery, she (probably) knew that Solon masqueraded as Tomas, and I have a theory that her uncle, Lord Arundel, is actually Thales in disguise. As @Kunan aptly put it: she was an accessory to murder from a modern legal standpoint.

 

Edited by DragonFlames
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

 Share

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...