What are your thoughts on Edelgard? *SPOILERS*

[CyberNinja]

Just now, Crysta said:

Sounds fun and normal and a situation everyone would react rationally towards.

Basically your profile pic is the only well adjusted figure among them. Should be running these people through a trauma center not a military school.

[Crysta]

4 minutes ago, CyberNinja said:

Basically your profile pic is the only well adjusted figure among them. Should be running these people through a trauma center not a military school.

Fantasy therapy for pampered royal brats, for the sake of the people they'll inevitably rule over.

[CyberNinja]

Incidentally and this is a complete digression but, I was playing around in the events and if you click the white Heron cup, it will have the three lords as the default dancers and no matter which route picked for the event, Edelgard consistently wins.

 

That's right, Edelgard is best waifu lord, the faculty have spoken, wrap it up we're going home.

[Troykv]

1 hour ago, CyberNinja said:

Incidentally and this is a complete digression but, I was playing around in the events and if you click the white Heron cup, it will have the three lords as the default dancers and no matter which route picked for the event, Edelgard consistently wins.

 

That's right, Edelgard is best waifu lord, the faculty have spoken, wrap it up we're going home.

Edelgard's charm stat it's the best

Well, that is actually Rhea's, but she is the Pope

Edited August 20, 2019 by Troykv

[goodperson707]

5 minutes ago, Troykv said:

Edelgard's charm stat it's the best

Well, that is actually Rhea's, but she is the Pope

Wow huge dig to Sothis who is

According to the main site Byleth does have a higher maximum though.  

[wissenschaft]

2 hours ago, CyberNinja said:

Incidentally and this is a complete digression but, I was playing around in the events and if you click the white Heron cup, it will have the three lords as the default dancers and no matter which route picked for the event, Edelgard consistently wins.

 

That's right, Edelgard is best waifu lord, the faculty have spoken, wrap it up we're going home.

I wish you could like posts. lol Best Waifu confirmed.

[MessengerIris]

7 hours ago, CyberNinja said:

The way Edelgard's rout is handled is either you agree with her and join or see her as misguided and ultimately will be forced to kill one another. For this reason if you side with her you're as lacking in information as she is and can only conclude the Rhea is insane and essentially enslaved humanity (note: this is incorrect) and thus this will color your perspective on Edelgard who does rely less on the Agarthians in this route (which is the only conclusion I can come to unless the knights are really that much of a force multiplier) You the player are thus not going to see more of the questionable things she does but the game doesn't portray the others (barring Rhea) as any less heroic than normal, Dimitry is arguably his most sane and heroic, Claude is in over his head, and the church switches between trying to make you see reason and seeing you as the antichrist. We don't learn about the truth of nemisis so we simply seem him as a tragic freedom fighter and Edelgard as taking up his mantle, in truth we simply finish the genocide he started.

Ultimately I think it fits, Edelgard doesn't see herself as a villain, Dimitry doesn't care and simply wants revenge, Claude is just desperate to survive the world burning around him (Edelgard: your death is not in vain, Claude: we're all desperate, aren't we? Dimitry: Kill every last one of them!) These stances influence how they take their loss, Edelgard sees a total failure and just wants death/suicide by cop, Dimitry wants to fight to the last and gets his gruesome end, Claude just cuts his losses and flees if he can.

For this reason I consider Edelgard justified, she wants to restore an empire that she believes was split to weaken humanity to be slaves to the dragons, she thinks she is saving humanity from its greatest threat and that the lesser threat (or longer term, if you wish) can be removed after. However I don't consider her actions correct, as her ultimate goals are based on misinformation, in this sense she is simply wrong, her actions and goal horrid. It's why I get annoyed when people lie or misinform on the forums in arguments pro or against her.

 

Basically Edelgard thinks she's the protagonist of this:

 

I only called out the fact that you labelled Edelgard detractors as “dishonest hypocrites” which I feel like is an unfair generalization. 

I don’t see many people applauding Dimitri for being a revenge driven murderer, who coincidentally had an unintentional “good goal” of liberating his Kingdom and ending the war. His fans like him INSPITE of his murderous rampage, which I think is a little different than how Edelgard fans approach these discussions (most times it devolves into “well she HAD to, it was the only way” and “she was justified because the ends were good”). Everyone in the game makes Dimitri out to be wrong from the get go. Even Byleth disapproves of how he is acting. Dimitri’s downfall to madness is there to make him sympathetic, but nowhere does the game suggest that “this is justified and ok behavior.” Maybe it was just me, but no where in his route did I feel like “man, you know what? He had it rough, I can get behind these murders. I mean, it does work towards liberating the Kingdom.” 

Instead, it showed that Dimitri TRIED to find out who was behind the Tragedy (he was suspecting Arundel all along) and lost his sense of reason during a traumatic reveal. Additionally, his recovery had nothing to do with the finding out who was behind the Tragedy itself. He came upon to the realization that there was a bigger issue at hand with Rodrigue’s death. 

Meanwhile, you literally do not entertain the idea that Edelgard is wrong in her route - you just had to take her word for it. She doesn’t hesitate nearly as much because she thinks what she is doing IS justified, when clearly a lot of information is missing to you. People compare her to Napoleon and others, which I think is inaccurate. When you look at conquerers and dictators, you look AT THE WHOLE PICTURE and then RETROACTIVELY assess whether they ultimately achieved good or bad. No one analyzes it as “oh in NAPOLEON’S or HITLER’S POV...” Because you can’t actually tell what is good OR bad if you only looked at a biased opinion - that’s my point with Edelgard, you can’t just use a limited and biased POV to argue morality and justification for actions. No one disagrees with her intentions but her means can come across controversial because, no matter what her past is, a sympathetic past does not give you a pass on questionable actions (as seen in Dimitri’s route). Even on her own route, we are missing too much information to thoroughly assess whether (1) was it really the ONLY option (as she presents it as) (2) what other means did she try beforehand (3) was this information even reliable.

She might be justified from HER perspective...but there are a lot of OTHER perspectives, often less biased (GD), compared to hers, and that’s why I have an issue with what she does (as do a lot of her critics). She comes off as stubbornly self righteous in knowing what needs to be done, and then shoves it down everyone else’s throat (since everyone just reacts to her proactive decision). She doesn’t gain the same level of insightfulness on her route, all that really happens is that I worked towards achieving her dream. Just imagine this, if both Dimitri and Edelgard could go back in time, at the end of their routes, how would they have done things differently? I think Edelgard would regret not doing things BETTER, but would ultimately still think war was what was needed. 

She reminds me a lot of Thanos tbh, just without this level of fan support. MCU Thanos, too, experienced a tragedy (destruction of his homeland because of overpopulation). Both had a noble goal and felt the need to take an unpopular decisive actions. Both think they are doing the right thing, and from our perspective, we do not see them try to find less drastic alternatives. Yet, Thanos is not nearly as well-defended. Not many go around trying to say “Thanos was in the right since he had a good reason/past for wanting a good end goal.” If anything, the audience takes on the BL perspective (not as revenge crazed as Dimitri), since our heroes are defending against an aggressor and we are made to sympathize with the tragic fallout of the aggressors’ actions.  

That being said, I think people need to chill with these discussions. People can like who they like but they should stop trying to drag down other characters to elevate their own. I think everyone in this game is morally gray - just because so-and-so is bad, doesn’t automatically make Edelgard/others in the right. There is nothing wrong with liking characters that are controversial, not everyone has to be “justified” in their actions. The whole point of the game is about showing how perspectives in war really alter the lines between what is ultimately “right.”

Edited August 20, 2019 by MessengerIris

[Landmaster]

9 hours ago, CyberNinja said:

You know, except all the movie cutscenes showing the contrary I have at my fingertips in the extras, have you considered that its poor form to be openly dishonest when we have every unlocked conversation and cutscene on tap in our switches? She literally begs the protag to execute her so that no one will have a banner to fight under so that everyone will stop killing each other. She absolutely hates the slaughter but is willing to take this path regardless, compared to Dimitry who won't deny enjoying starting a massacre in Felix's C support. I'll finish my BL route before reaching judgement, but Edelgard haters seem like dishonest Hypocrites to say the least.

I don't see anything hypocritical that I've said. Edelgard asking Byleth to kill her does not erase that she started the massacre in the first place. She literally set the killing into motion herself and admitted that she is perfectly fine sacrificing innocents or civilians for her ambitions. 

And Dimitri, at no point, acts as though his actions are justified. He like never denied that he is a wretch for all of the people he's killed over the 5 years he's sought revenge. So I really don't see how that's relevant. 

[Troykv]

3 hours ago, goodperson707 said:

Wow huge dig to Sothis who is

According to the main site Byleth does have a higher maximum though.  

That is probably because of Tea Parties (?)

____

Personally I think Edelgard it's in a position where if she was right or wrong it doesn't really matter that much, because she only really had three options to go for... and none of them were particularly good.

Spoiler

1.- She plays with TWSITD's intentions to fight the Church and takes the opportunity to achieve her dream... and eventually destroy them (or make someone else destroy them).

2.- She runs away from Adrestia, and ends up living as a hermit (and living the rest of her life developing more kinds of horrible mental problems because of her PTSD).

3.- She dies trying anything else.

 

Option 2 and 3 also have the potential side-effect of the TWSITD trying to create another (another) Nemesis; or Arundel taking a different approach to defeating the church from the shadows... Who knows which timeline would have actually created a worse world in the long run...

 

Edited August 20, 2019 by Troykv

[goodperson707]

37 minutes ago, Troykv said:

That is probably because of Tea Parties (?)

____

Personally I think Edelgard it's in a position where if she was right or wrong it doesn't really matter that much, because she only really had three options to go for... and none of them were particularly good.

  Hide contents

1.- She plays with TWSITD's intentions to fight the Church and takes the opportunity to achieve her dream... and eventually destroy them (or make someone else destroy them).

2.- She runs away from Adrestia, and ends up living as a hermit (and living the rest of her life developing more kinds of horrible mental problems because of her PTSD).

3.- She dies trying anything else.

 

Option 2 and 3 also have the potential side-effect of the TWSITD trying to create another (another) Nemesis; or Arundel taking a different approach to defeating the church from the shadows... Who knows which timeline would have actually created a worse world in the long run...

 

Yeah it's probably the tea parties. I really only brought up Bleyth's max to further the strikethough gag and mention that it's Sothis not the pope who has the highest charm (as well as mag lck and res)

 

As for Edelgards options, I do think there are some potential longshots that could end up a bit better for her and she could try to partially mitigate the TWSITD issue with information on them, but yeah I don't think the prospects are great for her. (And with her belief that she's responsible for the Empire I really can't see her avoiding mental issues related to that with other options) 

[Timlugia]

Recently replayed Edelgard’s path and noticed some interesting details from her questions during tutorials:

- one time she asks what should we do if Rhea surrenders. The options were strip her power, make church an institution under empire or kill her in an ambush. Edelgard wants the third option

 

Another question was about what do you think about the legend that Sothis came as a star, while “scientists states lights takes million to reach us” (I was quite shock by how advanced their astronomy was, maybe prewar knowledge?) The answer she agrees was that goddess was a lie.

[Holder of the Heel]

6 hours ago, MessengerIris said:

I only called out the fact that you labelled Edelgard detractors as “dishonest hypocrites” which I feel like is an unfair generalization. 

I don’t see many people applauding Dimitri for being a revenge driven murderer, who coincidentally had an unintentional “good goal” of liberating his Kingdom and ending the war. His fans like him INSPITE of his murderous rampage, which I think is a little different than how Edelgard fans approach these discussions (most times it devolves into “well she HAD to, it was the only way” and “she was justified because the ends were good”). Everyone in the game makes Dimitri out to be wrong from the get go. Even Byleth disapproves of how he is acting. Dimitri’s downfall to madness is there to make him sympathetic, but nowhere does the game suggest that “this is justified and ok behavior.” Maybe it was just me, but no where in his route did I feel like “man, you know what? He had it rough, I can get behind these murders. I mean, it does work towards liberating the Kingdom.” 

Instead, it showed that Dimitri TRIED to find out who was behind the Tragedy (he was suspecting Arundel all along) and lost his sense of reason during a traumatic reveal. Additionally, his recovery had nothing to do with the finding out who was behind the Tragedy itself. He came upon to the realization that there was a bigger issue at hand with Rodrigue’s death. 

Meanwhile, you literally do not entertain the idea that Edelgard is wrong in her route - you just had to take her word for it. She doesn’t hesitate nearly as much because she thinks what she is doing IS justified, when clearly a lot of information is missing to you. People compare her to Napoleon and others, which I think is inaccurate. When you look at conquerers and dictators, you look AT THE WHOLE PICTURE and then RETROACTIVELY assess whether they ultimately achieved good or bad. No one analyzes it as “oh in NAPOLEON’S or HITLER’S POV...” Because you can’t actually tell what is good OR bad if you only looked at a biased opinion - that’s my point with Edelgard, you can’t just use a limited and biased POV to argue morality and justification for actions. No one disagrees with her intentions but her means can come across controversial because, no matter what her past is, a sympathetic past does not give you a pass on questionable actions (as seen in Dimitri’s route). Even on her own route, we are missing too much information to thoroughly assess whether (1) was it really the ONLY option (as she presents it as) (2) what other means did she try beforehand (3) was this information even reliable.

She might be justified from HER perspective...but there are a lot of OTHER perspectives, often less biased (GD), compared to hers, and that’s why I have an issue with what she does (as do a lot of her critics). She comes off as stubbornly self righteous in knowing what needs to be done, and then shoves it down everyone else’s throat (since everyone just reacts to her proactive decision). She doesn’t gain the same level of insightfulness on her route, all that really happens is that I worked towards achieving her dream. Just imagine this, if both Dimitri and Edelgard could go back in time, at the end of their routes, how would they have done things differently? I think Edelgard would regret not doing things BETTER, but would ultimately still think war was what was needed. 

She reminds me a lot of Thanos tbh, just without this level of fan support. MCU Thanos, too, experienced a tragedy (destruction of his homeland because of overpopulation). Both had a noble goal and felt the need to take an unpopular decisive actions. Both think they are doing the right thing, and from our perspective, we do not see them try to find less drastic alternatives. Yet, Thanos is not nearly as well-defended. Not many go around trying to say “Thanos was in the right since he had a good reason/past for wanting a good end goal.” If anything, the audience takes on the BL perspective (not as revenge crazed as Dimitri), since our heroes are defending against an aggressor and we are made to sympathize with the tragic fallout of the aggressors’ actions.  

That being said, I think people need to chill with these discussions. People can like who they like but they should stop trying to drag down other characters to elevate their own. I think everyone in this game is morally gray - just because so-and-so is bad, doesn’t automatically make Edelgard/others in the right. There is nothing wrong with liking characters that are controversial, not everyone has to be “justified” in their actions. The whole point of the game is about showing how perspectives in war really alter the lines between what is ultimately “right.”

Really well put post.

In Crimson Flower we are a tag-along, here to just serve Edelgard in her ambition; what she wants is what she ultimately gets. Imagine if that was what Azure Moon was about. "Yeah, let's go to Enbarr and forget those in the Kingdom! Killing Edelgard is all that matters! Stop complaining everyone!" We don't just feed his hubris, we help try to find another way to move forward. Both have trauma and act based on an idea of what should be done, but only Dimitri is corrected. Which is strange because there is dialogue to suggest that Edelgard thinks Byleth prevents her heart from being hardened completely, if I recall correctly? It was as if they intended to do that in the course of that story, but they were in such a rush with the route they forgot.

Not that they really HAVE to treat both the same, because part of the appeal of Crimson Flower is that you get to play as the RPG expansionist empire that crushes the "heroes" to create their new world. But it inadvertently treats her and the story on a lower level of consideration for the sake of that. They could have done the same with Dimitri, and that would prevent there being a whiplash in terms of him trying to recover to his peaceful self, but it'd also really remove the investment in him as a person and remove the impact that the change brings.

[CyberNinja]

7 hours ago, Landmaster said:

I don't see anything hypocritical that I've said. Edelgard asking Byleth to kill her does not erase that she started the massacre in the first place. She literally set the killing into motion herself and admitted that she is perfectly fine sacrificing innocents or civilians for her ambitions. 

And Dimitri, at no point, acts as though his actions are justified. He like never denied that he is a wretch for all of the people he's killed over the 5 years he's sought revenge. So I really don't see how that's relevant. 

Its the fact that I can confirm that many posts about Edelgard have been outright lies (which I can confirm by checking the events in the extras menu) when its really not necessary to do so to make a case against her. I'm simply annoyed at the dishonest nature that the conversation has taken for some members of this board. As I am starting on BL and have finished GD and CF I can confirm when I'm being lied to about two routes but likely won't notice if someone says something incorrect or dishonest about the church or Blue lions route, so at the moment I find myself antagonistic towards many first time BL players because they are the ones I can tell either haven't done CF or GD, or are simply being dishonest.

[Hardric62]

5 hours ago, Timlugia said:

 

- one time she asks what should we do if Rhea surrenders. The options were strip her power, make church an institution under empire or kill her in an ambush. Edelgard wants the third option 

 

Strange, I saw soluces and LPs which were all telling that the 'strip her of her power' option is the right one. I'll admit that I cannot be 100% sure since I didn't got this question myself, but since the rest of that giude help me to get in a position where pretty much everyone was recruited by Chapter 7 without a hitch, I'm inclined to believe this.

[CyberNinja]

8 minutes ago, Hardric62 said:

 

Strange, I saw soluces and LPs which were all telling that the 'strip her of her power' option is the right one. I'll admit that I cannot be 100% sure since I didn't got this question myself, but since the rest of that giude help me to get in a position where pretty much everyone was recruited by Chapter 7 without a hitch, I'm inclined to believe this.

Just checked a guide, best answer is...

Spoiler

I know this is highly unlikely, but on the off chance that Rhea surrenders to my terms, what should I do? I would appreciate your thoughts on the matter…

• Strip her of her power so she can’t interfere in politics.

Killing her is probably the 25 pt answer.

[MessengerIris]

1 hour ago, CyberNinja said:

Its the fact that I can confirm that many posts about Edelgard have been outright lies (which I can confirm by checking the events in the extras menu) when its really not necessary to do so to make a case against her. I'm simply annoyed at the dishonest nature that the conversation has taken for some members of this board. As I am starting on BL and have finished GD and CF I can confirm when I'm being lied to about two routes but likely won't notice if someone says something incorrect or dishonest about the church or Blue lions route, so at the moment I find myself antagonistic towards many first time BL players because they are the ones I can tell either haven't done CF or GD, or are simply being dishonest.

I think the point of “Edelgard feeling no remorse” was just a misunderstanding (I wasn’t the one to say it). 

From my opinion, Edelgard does not feel remorse, but rather REGRET. 

She feels regret over the necessary evil that is war like 

(1) killing innocent/ignorant people in the cross-fire of her goal

(2) not eliminating the resistance faster and dragging the war out

(3) not avoiding it to begin with by hiring better assassins. 

However, if she could go back in time and do it all over again, does she still think the war was the right decision? I personally think so, even as she is begging for death in the other routes. That’s where I think the distinction between remorse (deep guilt that you did the wrong thing) vs. simply regret over how it went about. 

[CyberNinja]

2 minutes ago, MessengerIris said:

I think the point of “Edelgard feeling no remorse” was just a misunderstanding (I wasn’t the one to say it). 

From my opinion, Edelgard does not feel remorse, but rather REGRET. 

She feels regret over the necessary evil that is war like 

(1) killing innocent/ignorant people in the cross-fire of her goal

(2) not eliminating the resistance faster and dragging the war out

(3) not avoiding it to begin with by hiring better assassins. 

However, if she could go back in time and do it all over again, does she still think the war was the right decision? I personally think so, even as she is begging for death in the other routes. That’s where I think the distinction between remorse (deep guilt that you did the wrong thing) vs. simply regret over how it went about. 

I'd accept that explanation.

[MrPerson0]

2 hours ago, CyberNinja said:

Its the fact that I can confirm that many posts about Edelgard have been outright lies

Agreed. People try to defend Edelgard by saying she takes no pleasure in killing innocents, but she is the one who hired the bandits to kill Dimitri, Claude, and other students at the camp at the beginning of the game (nothing indicates that Hubert or TWSitD had anything to do with this), which is consistent in all paths, and in the GD path, she didn't even evacuate the city of Enbarr, effectively using the citizens as meat shields.

[CyberNinja]

1 minute ago, MrPerson0 said:

Agreed. People try to defend Edelgard by saying she takes no pleasure in killing innocents, but she is the one who hired the bandits to kill Dimitri, Claude, and other students at the camp at the beginning of the game (nothing indicates that Hubert or TWSitD had anything to do with this), which is consistent in all paths, and in the GD path, she didn't even evacuate the city of Enbarr, effectively using the citizens as meat shields.

For the former it beats you over the head she personally hired them, and in the latter she did indeed force an assault by keeping the civilians in the city, I won't deny that. I hope you're actually in agreement and not trying to make a gotcha here.

[MessengerIris]

6 minutes ago, MrPerson0 said:

Agreed. People try to defend Edelgard by saying she takes no pleasure in killing innocents, but she is the one who hired the bandits to kill Dimitri, Claude, and other students at the camp at the beginning of the game (nothing indicates that Hubert or TWSitD had anything to do with this), which is consistent in all paths, and in the GD path, she didn't even evacuate the city of Enbarr, effectively using the citizens as meat shields.

Don’t think she takes pleasure in it.

She just justifies it by saying it is a necessary evil of war, like she does towards most other morally questionable thing she does in the game. 

(This attitude is the main reason I have a problem with her, because I fundamentally do not agree that any of this was “necessary” as she so puts it, but she is stubborn and has tunnel vision) 

Edited August 20, 2019 by MessengerIris

[MrPerson0]

1 minute ago, CyberNinja said:

For the former it beats you over the head she personally hired them, and in the latter she did indeed force an assault by keeping the civilians in the city, I won't deny that. I hope you're actually in agreement and not trying to make a gotcha here.

I'm in agreement that both sides have been spreading misinformation, knowingly or not. I don't think this will get weeded out until full transcripts are available of all paths, and this will likely take a while.

Edited August 20, 2019 by MrPerson0

[CyberNinja]

1 minute ago, MessengerIris said:

Don’t think she takes pleasure in it.

She just justifies it by saying it is a necessary evil of war, like she does towards most other morally questionable thing she does in the game. 

If she'd succeeded house Riegen would not have an heir and the alliance would not have been able to come together in a united front, Ordelia and Gloucester would have joined with the empire, the kingdom would have fallen into complete anarchy and Rowe would have rejoined the empire as they do in most routes. The war would have been over in the first year or so.

[MessengerIris]

5 minutes ago, CyberNinja said:

If she'd succeeded house Riegen would not have an heir and the alliance would not have been able to come together in a united front, Ordelia and Gloucester would have joined with the empire, the kingdom would have fallen into complete anarchy and Rowe would have rejoined the empire as they do in most routes. The war would have been over in the first year or so.

Oh, I don’t disagree that she wanted to end the war ASAP. 

I just didn’t agree with her notion that all of this had to be done in the first place (= war is the one and only solution, as per her eyes), that why all of her war acts are seen as morally questionable, but this is my opinion, I’m not passing it off like a fact. 

 

Edited August 20, 2019 by MessengerIris

[CyberNinja]

Just now, MessengerIris said:

Oh, I don’t disagree that she wanted to end the war ASAP. 

I just didn’t agree with her notion that all of this had to be done in the first place (= war is the one and only solution, as per her eyes), but this is my opinion, I’m not passing it off like a fact. 

 

Basically my contention with others is that they simplify it to her being evil. This is false, she's ruthless, not a sadist.

[MessengerIris]

Just now, CyberNinja said:

Basically my contention with others is that they simplify it to her being evil. This is false, she's ruthless, not a sadist.

Agreed. I think no one is truly “muhahaha evil” in this game. It is too reductive to view any of them as that. They were all selfish to a degree, but they all think they were “right.” But just because they think they were right, it doesn’t make it morally right in the grand context of things. 

Whether their actions were the right course of action and justifiable? I think that’s where the point of contention comes from. No one gets as many people defending their actions as Edelgard does.