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What are your thoughts on Edelgard? *SPOILERS*


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To the "racism (isnt it actually like specism) of edelgard" against dragonkins. Do you guys no some quotes to support that idea? The only thing I remember is the speech before the last battle, where she states that she wants to destroy Rhea and the "children of the godess" and one in the middle where she says something along the lines that only humans should rule over human realms.

But in both she seems to not even realize the possibillity that there might be manaketes unrelated (at least philosophical) to Rhea. Would be quite interesting to know how manaketes would be treated in the "new golden empire" at the end of CF .... unfortunately there arent so many we know of alive.

 

 

4 hours ago, Eltoshen said:

If anybody can look at that scene of Rhea sentencing church members to death and think that's a normal justifiable thing to do, I'd call the cops on them.

In a medieval scenario that was a normal justifiable thing to do. Any other power in fodlan would probably act the same when someone is captured while trying to kill their leader.

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12 minutes ago, Nihilem said:

In a medieval scenario that was a normal justifiable thing to do. Any other power in fodlan would probably act the same when someone is captured while trying to kill their leader.

 

See the other answer to that problem in the post just before yours. The students are Fodlan's people, both from its elite and in some cases its lower classes. Strangely enough, approbation to Rhea's behavior is... scarce,  when indeed, you'd expect more acceptance of it in a medieval scenario. It does seem to hint that the way Rhea is going with this problem isn't that 'standard' if the students are disturbed by it.

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7 minutes ago, Hardric62 said:

 

See the other answer to that problem in the post just before yours. The students are Fodlan's people, both from its elite and in some cases its lower classes. Strangely enough, approbation to Rhea's behavior is... scarce,  when indeed, you'd expect more acceptance of it in a medieval scenario. It does seem to hint that the way Rhea is going with this problem isn't that 'standard' if the students are disturbed by it.

That, and also, I just don't find that to be a good argument to begin with. There's a difference between questioning if it was acceptable at the time and thinking that it's justifiable as a normal human being playing the game.

Like sure, you can argue that it is a common trope for executions to occur in a medieval game but another to act like it's a justifiably moral thing for a character to do.

Edited by Eltoshen
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I felt as if a lot of people exaggerate the means at which she goes to accomplish her goal, yes it sucks that she starts a war but she also tries to minimize as many kills as possible. I don't believe she is a goddess but her haters really blow-up how much evil and pain and suffering she does when civilians are completely untargeted and she didn't even introduce a draft.

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On 9/3/2019 at 12:33 PM, Nihilem said:

In a medieval scenario that was a normal justifiable thing to do. Any other power in fodlan would probably act the same when someone is captured while trying to kill their leader.

We're largely applying our own morals to this, and I see no problem with doing so. Fire Emblem isn't a game which is set in, or intended for, a medieval audience. It's a game set in a fantasy realm and intended to be played by people in the year 2019, with their morals. Executing your captives without a trial is something we see as bad, and the writers very much wanted us to see this as bad.

And if you're going to say "Rhea's actions are fine, that's how medieval society was" then we should end any and all talk of racism right now because by medieval standards any race-related comments in this game are positively benign. EDIT: To be clear, I'm 100% not proposing we actually do this.

Edited by Dark Holy Elf
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On 9/3/2019 at 3:52 PM, Hardric62 said:

It does seem to hint that the way Rhea is going with this problem isn't that 'standard' if the students are disturbed by it.

The issue is that the students still believe that the Western Church members were never out to kill Rhea in the first place, even though we have seen proof (that was eventually confirmed).

3 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

We're largely applying our own morals to this, and I see no problem with doing so.

I disagree. All Fire Emblem games are based off medieval times, and thus, their act of justice is based off of said times (Chrom's personal group killing bandits, killing pirates in other games, etc.). No reason to see Three Houses as any different.

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5 hours ago, MrPerson0 said:

The issue is that the students still believe that the Western Church members were never out to kill Rhea in the first place, even though we have seen proof (that was eventually confirmed). 

 

Thing, is, like you said, and as I think, it is a medieval society, with much more death permeating the society, and medieval-like laws were often a bit more trigger-happy with death penalties than today (heck, for all the black legend it has today, the Inquisition was actually something criminals prefered to face because it was actually less trigger-happy on that subject and reintroducing in western judicial system concepts like 'The accusation has to prove its allegations' and 'Witnesses who have a direct gain to see a culprit condamned, according to the culprit himself, are to be dismissed while collecting proofs'), the very fact these executions were often turned into a form of 'spectacle', and the decision of executing the survivors still leave them shocked.

And remember, these are not random prisoners, but people that the students fought with intention to kill, and people who tried to kill them while profanating a sacred site. And the execution of these survivors still unerve them. That doesn't exactly paint the picture of these executions as they happened as something 'normal' for Fodlan.

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Bear in mind that to a large extent our students are just naive, sheltered kids, many of whom were born into privilege. Their values are not necessarily reflective of those of Fodlan society in general.

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4 minutes ago, Humanoid said:

Bear in mind that to a large extent our students are just naive, sheltered kids, many of whom were born into privilege.

 

*Look at the supports, the general background...*

Let's call this point debatable at best.

Besides, it's also a question of culture and society. I expect the average citizen of Fodlan would be far more familiar with death and the idea of killing people for their crimes, since that would be pretty much their norm.

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Bit of a digression but I thought of something funny

Someone did a comparison of how similar Edelgard is to Rhea. Considered them perfect foils in a way.

In Seteth's supports with Bernadetta you learn that Saint Indech was dreadfully shy and quite skilled with fine detail work... like Bernadetta... who bears his Crest.

In Lindhart's supports with Flayn he describes many of the traits of Cethlean (who is Flayn) he also has many of these traits... and bears Flayn's crest.

So someone noticed how similar Edelgard is to Seiros

Sorry what crest does Edelgard naturally bear?

Oh right! Rhea's crest,

Food for thought.

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19 hours ago, Humanoid said:

Bear in mind that to a large extent our students are just naive, sheltered kids, many of whom were born into privilege. Their values are not necessarily reflective of those of Fodlan society in general.

This, we really lack of true commoners that represents majority of the society in the general, we have at best Cyril but he's heavily pro-Rhea and most people just dismissed his opinion hence.

We heard about Edlegard and Dimitri argued about high politics about society, or the crests, but do we really know what the people wanted?

How much do crests actually affect regular citizens? What percentile of population actually bear crests? How are average people react to war? Do they feel a war was justified? How are public opinions different in each nations?

 

There are so many similar questions, but we rarely get to ask common citizens or soldiers about their opinions.

Edited by Timlugia
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6 hours ago, CyberNinja said:

Bit of a digression but I thought of something funny

Someone did a comparison of how similar Edelgard is to Rhea. Considered them perfect foils in a way.

In Seteth's supports with Bernadetta you learn that Saint Indech was dreadfully shy and quite skilled with fine detail work... like Bernadetta... who bears his Crest.

In Lindhart's supports with Flayn he describes many of the traits of Cethlean (who is Flayn) he also has many of these traits... and bears Flayn's crest.

So someone noticed how similar Edelgard is to Seiros

Sorry what crest does Edelgard naturally bear?

Oh right! Rhea's crest,

Food for thought.

That's actually a really good point.

And Ferdinand, who bears the Crest of Cichol, actually has a lot of similarities with Seteth in terms of personality.

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On 9/6/2019 at 9:11 PM, CyberNinja said:

Bit of a digression but I thought of something funny

Someone did a comparison of how similar Edelgard is to Rhea. Considered them perfect foils in a way.

In Seteth's supports with Bernadetta you learn that Saint Indech was dreadfully shy and quite skilled with fine detail work... like Bernadetta... who bears his Crest.

In Lindhart's supports with Flayn he describes many of the traits of Cethlean (who is Flayn) he also has many of these traits... and bears Flayn's crest.

So someone noticed how similar Edelgard is to Seiros

Sorry what crest does Edelgard naturally bear?

Oh right! Rhea's crest,

Food for thought.

They clearly wanted you to notice this. Edelgard uses the Sword of Seiros on routes other than Crimson Flower, and the choreography of the scene with her clashing blades with the avatar in Silver Snow loosely mirrors the intro cutscene between Seiros and Nemesis- with Edelgard filling the role of Serios.

 

What Rhea does in the final map of Crimson Flower also very directly mirrors one of Edelgard’s actions (involving Bernadetta if you didn’t recruit her) in Azure Moon, Not!CF Edelgard is given several lines of dialogue that directly mirror some of Rhea’s, and a lot more I am still noticing as I am playing through the last two routes of the game for me, Verdant Wind and Silver Snow.

 

The game has a very clear message; Edelgard, at her worst, becomes like Rhea. The game does NOT treat Rhea as a favorable comparison. It treats her essentially as a lunatic on many occasions. Even her support line makes her out to be creepy and possibly unstable, particularly the A support where she obsesses and fawns over the avatar like a doll.

 

As someone who’s delved into FE translations extensively, what also caught my eye is the fact many small bits of Rhea’s dialogue are similar to or perhaps even identical to Eremiya’s (I’ve been meaning to check the Japanese text of the specific lines in Three Houses once I finish the game completely to see if they’re just similar or identical in the Japanese version), particularly keywords shared between them such as people becoming “worthless garbage” when they step out of line. You know, the crazy Bishop who groomed kids to become killers, which is something at least alluded to by some of the “first kill” comments in chapter 2 when your class goes after the bandits, such as Dorothea’s.

 

Rhea is, at the very best, morally gray, and the game does not mince words with this by demonizing Not!CF Edelgard using comparisons to Rhea.

Edited by Hero of the Fire Emblems
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57 minutes ago, Hero of the Fire Emblems said:

They clearly wanted you to notice this. Edelgard uses the Sword of Seiros on routes other than Crimson Flower, and the choreography of the scene with her clashing blades with the avatar in Silver Snow loosely mirrors the intro cutscene between Seiros and Nemesis- with Edelgard filling the role of Serios.

 

What Rhea does in the final map of Crimson Flower also very directly mirrors one of Edelgard’s actions (involving Bernadetta if you didn’t recruit her) in Azure Moon, Not!CF Edelgard is given several lines of dialogue that directly mirror some of Rhea’s, and a lot more I am still noticing as I am playing through the last two routes of the game for me, Verdant Wind and Silver Snow.

 

The game has a very clear message; Edelgard, at her worst, becomes like Rhea. The game does NOT treat Rhea as a favorable comparison. It treats her essentially as a lunatic on many occasions. Even her support line makes her out to be creepy and possibly unstable, particularly the A support where she obsesses and fawns over the avatar like a doll.

 

As someone who’s delved into FE translations extensively, what also caught my eye is the fact many small bits of Rhea’s dialogue are similar to or perhaps even identical to Eremiya’s (I’ve been meaning to check the Japanese text of the specific lines in Three Houses once I finish the game completely to see if they’re just similar or identical in the Japanese version), particularly keywords shared between them such as people becoming “worthless garbage” when they step out of line. You know, the crazy Bishop who groomed kids to become killers, which is something at least alluded to by some of the “first kill” comments in chapter 2 when your class goes after the bandits, such as Dorothea’s.

 

Rhea is, at the very best, morally gray, and the game does not mince words with this by demonizing Not!CF Edelgard using comparisons to Rhea.

I gave up assuming things were obvious several discussions on the plot ago... appreciate the furthering of this line of topic though.

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4 hours ago, Hero of the Fire Emblems said:

They clearly wanted you to notice this. Edelgard uses the Sword of Seiros on routes other than Crimson Flower, and the choreography of the scene with her clashing blades with the avatar in Silver Snow loosely mirrors the intro cutscene between Seiros and Nemesis- with Edelgard filling the role of Serios.

 

What Rhea does in the final map of Crimson Flower also very directly mirrors one of Edelgard’s actions (involving Bernadetta if you didn’t recruit her) in Azure Moon, Not!CF Edelgard is given several lines of dialogue that directly mirror some of Rhea’s, and a lot more I am still noticing as I am playing through the last two routes of the game for me, Verdant Wind and Silver Snow.

 

The game has a very clear message; Edelgard, at her worst, becomes like Rhea. The game does NOT treat Rhea as a favorable comparison. It treats her essentially as a lunatic on many occasions. Even her support line makes her out to be creepy and possibly unstable, particularly the A support where she obsesses and fawns over the avatar like a doll.

 

As someone who’s delved into FE translations extensively, what also caught my eye is the fact many small bits of Rhea’s dialogue are similar to or perhaps even identical to Eremiya’s (I’ve been meaning to check the Japanese text of the specific lines in Three Houses once I finish the game completely to see if they’re just similar or identical in the Japanese version), particularly keywords shared between them such as people becoming “worthless garbage” when they step out of line. You know, the crazy Bishop who groomed kids to become killers, which is something at least alluded to by some of the “first kill” comments in chapter 2 when your class goes after the bandits, such as Dorothea’s.

 

Rhea is, at the very best, morally gray, and the game does not mince words with this by demonizing Not!CF Edelgard using comparisons to Rhea.

Where outside of CF is Rhea presented as a lunatic? She's mental scared for sure but she never harmed anyone who didn't try to kill her? Creepy and being insane are not the same. In fact she's far more reasonable then they present Edelgard. Who refuses to talk to anyone else or accept comprises of anyone but the empire controlling the continent. Like I love Edelgard as a character but she is presented as extreme as hell compared to anyone else in the story.

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On 9/7/2019 at 3:11 AM, CyberNinja said:

Bit of a digression but I thought of something funny

Someone did a comparison of how similar Edelgard is to Rhea. Considered them perfect foils in a way.

In Seteth's supports with Bernadetta you learn that Saint Indech was dreadfully shy and quite skilled with fine detail work... like Bernadetta... who bears his Crest.

In Lindhart's supports with Flayn he describes many of the traits of Cethlean (who is Flayn) he also has many of these traits... and bears Flayn's crest.

So someone noticed how similar Edelgard is to Seiros

Sorry what crest does Edelgard naturally bear?

Oh right! Rhea's crest,

Food for thought.

Yeah that's a really great detail in the writing !
Also terrifying, because that means that people who have crest can possibly gains the personality of the original person, from one or two quirks to disturbingly very similar.
(Incest in FE was not enough, now we have plausible selfcest ! Behold ! After TH super pseudo-incest we now have TH super-pseudo selfcest !)

Imagine what Rhea would have done if Byleth did became Sothis, but Rhea decided that it wasn't enough Sothis, or it wasn't he Sothis.
Maybe the Sothis we have isn't even the real Sothis.

I genuinely love both Rhea and Edelgard, how similar they are, and precisely because of their flaws, but 'dislike' Rhea more because of her madness, cruelty, and the disturbing implications of her actions.
Some people believe that Cathering's loyalty... eh, rather fanaticism, toward Rhea is suspiscious, I even briefly read it in Tvtropes, before it was deleted, that 'she might have been another experiment'. Meh, not enough evidence.

But it's possible, or accidental, Rhea's blood does weird things to people.


Edelgard also have problem that bother me, and makes me love her even more, it seems like she is less interested in saving the world, making it better, and more interested in her doing it, she have to do it, in her way and only her. She won't listen to anything else.
Again, kind of like Rhea. And it probably because of their past traumatism. Or megalomania. Or both. 😛

They're really cool characters. So many ways to interpret them.

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16 hours ago, Julian Solo said:

Where outside of CF is Rhea presented as a lunatic? She's mental scared for sure but she never harmed anyone who didn't try to kill her? Creepy and being insane are not the same. In fact she's far more reasonable then they present Edelgard. Who refuses to talk to anyone else or accept comprises of anyone but the empire controlling the continent. Like I love Edelgard as a character but she is presented as extreme as hell compared to anyone else in the story.

Bro, both of them are and were more sane than Dimitri for a majority of the game, so let's just leave it at that.

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On 9/7/2019 at 3:11 AM, CyberNinja said:

Bit of a digression but I thought of something funny

Someone did a comparison of how similar Edelgard is to Rhea. Considered them perfect foils in a way.

In Seteth's supports with Bernadetta you learn that Saint Indech was dreadfully shy and quite skilled with fine detail work... like Bernadetta... who bears his Crest.

In Lindhart's supports with Flayn he describes many of the traits of Cethlean (who is Flayn) he also has many of these traits... and bears Flayn's crest.

So someone noticed how similar Edelgard is to Seiros

Sorry what crest does Edelgard naturally bear?

Oh right! Rhea's crest,

Food for thought.

I now finished Blue Lions routes. And in the A support with Hanneman he actuals states that there is a theory that the crests will influence your likings etc. While ofc it also may be the other way around meaning that you only get a crest because you have a similiar personality as the original crest bearer. Meaning that when going through similiar life situations they will act the same. That would explain why onl a hand full of kids each generation have a crest.

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3 hours ago, Nihilem said:

I now finished Blue Lions routes. And in the A support with Hanneman he actuals states that there is a theory that the crests will influence your likings etc. While ofc it also may be the other way around meaning that you only get a crest because you have a similiar personality as the original crest bearer. Meaning that when going through similiar life situations they will act the same. That would explain why onl a hand full of kids each generation have a crest.

I remember this support. I thought it was hilarious because Hanneman mentioned that crest bearers may be influenced to like sweets and I was thinking 'And what exactly does that make Felix?'

That being said, I don't think that you'd get a crest because you have a similar personality. Crests are something you're born with; how in the world would the crest know what your personality is going to be at that point in time?

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5 hours ago, Eltoshen said:

Bro, both of them are and were more sane than Dimitri for a majority of the game, so let's just leave it at that.

Only in GD where Dimitri is completely incoherent for no consistent reason. Yeah but Edelgards own mental insanity is shockingly over looked. She starts a world war without enough resources to finish it. Causing it to be prolonged for five years. Claude and Dimitri both find her completely extreme. Only is CF Rhea considered more, so it's why Claude sides with Rhea and Dimitri over her in every other route. 

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3 hours ago, Julian Solo said:

Only in GD where Dimitri is completely incoherent for no consistent reason. Yeah but Edelgards own mental insanity is shockingly over looked. She starts a world war without enough resources to finish it. Causing it to be prolonged for five years. Claude and Dimitri both find her completely extreme. Only is CF Rhea considered more, so it's why Claude sides with Rhea and Dimitri over her in every other route. 

If Byleth died at any point before the timeskip, Edelgard wins. In every one where she isn't the main lord, she enables a civil war in both the Alliance (subtle) and Kingdom (open) only in Crimson Flower when she doesn't make use of her more questionable resources does she struggle to take the continent, but in that case she has the avatar of the goddess on her side and is guaranteed a win anyway.

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7 minutes ago, CyberNinja said:

If Byleth died at any point before the timeskip, Edelgard wins. In every one where she isn't the main lord, she enables a civil war in both the Alliance (subtle) and Kingdom (open) only in Crimson Flower when she doesn't make use of her more questionable resources does she struggle to take the continent, but in that case she has the avatar of the goddess on her side and is guaranteed a win anyway.

It's litterally said in Silver Snow she stretched her resources to thin after capturing Rhea. The Alliance is actively neutral in the war because Lorenz dad supports the empire and several lords are religious and hate Claude. If where talking hypothetical scenarios. Claude could ask Lorenz to have his dad support him like Lorenz mentions in his recruitment dialgue. Plus ask for aid from Amalyria with Judith and the empires done for. Even with the knights and Byleth gone in the other routes not hers she is stuck. The game does everything it can from keeping Cluade the quote "ultimate tactician" occupied with obstacles he can easily overcome if pushed. Heck they even nerf him further in Silver Snow by

giving the knights of Daphne to the church and Edelgard still almost gets killed by him with a crazed Dimitri on the field.

If people in the Kingdom are resisting her and that place is a diaster post time skip I don't see how she had any chance of actually winning. 

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The early war declaration is dictated by circumstance, the whole thing seems rushed because it is. The abdication, the political purges, the somewhat bumbling attempts to halt the ritual - all likely only happened as a direct response to the Byleth incident. If that had not happened, it's easy to imagine the events being far more spread out instead of being compressed into the space of 2-3 months. The entire timeline of the conflict could have been moved back by years.

The point here is that the smart move is the minimise your chances of losing, even if it makes winning more costly. For all she knew, Rhea succeeding in her ritual may have resulted in a guaranteed loss. It's a similar logic to the persistent question why she doesn't try to get Claude on her side before the sneak attack. Even if Claude was odds-on to agree, the outcome if he refused would have been disastrous - the entire element of surprise would have been lost and it's not hard to see the situation spiral into guaranteed defeat as a result.

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21 minutes ago, Humanoid said:

The early war declaration is dictated by circumstance, the whole thing seems rushed because it is. The abdication, the political purges, the somewhat bumbling attempts to halt the ritual - all likely only happened as a direct response to the Byleth incident. If that had not happened, it's easy to imagine the events being far more spread out instead of being compressed into the space of 2-3 months. The entire timeline of the conflict could have been moved back by years.

The point here is that the smart move is the minimise your chances of losing, even if it makes winning more costly. For all she knew, Rhea succeeding in her ritual may have resulted in a guaranteed loss. It's a similar logic to the persistent question why she doesn't try to get Claude on her side before the sneak attack. Even if Claude was odds-on to agree, the outcome if he refused would have been disastrous - the entire element of surprise would have been lost and it's not hard to see the situation spiral into guaranteed defeat as a result.

Umm she waits till after the ritual fails to even try. Then was more interest in the crest stones and lost a general. She gives away the element of surprise herself only got lucky it took the knights to long to get back to defend the monastery.

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4 minutes ago, Julian Solo said:

Umm she waits till after the ritual fails to even try. Then was more interest in the crest stones and lost a general. She gives away the element of surprise herself only got lucky it took the knights to long to get back to defend the monastery.

It's why I say it's a bit bumbling. Sometimes things don't go to plan, especially if you're rushing. Could have simply been too slow instead of intentionally waiting. Dramatically failing by just a few moments is a well established fiction trope after all. 😛

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