What are your thoughts on Edelgard? *SPOILERS*

[SRPG Tryhard]

Just how far will you guys take the story of a video game?

[MoralityGames]

35 minutes ago, Flere210 said:

War is not worse than slavery or widespread extreme poverty, that's why the American civil war and French revolution are justfied for example. 

The problem is that every single instance of "crest opression" we see in Foodlan is annedoctical and does not seems to influence the majority of the population:

-Edelgard and her sibling, plus an unspecified numbers of commoners(wich is TWSITD fault and not of Rhea or the Nobility

-Lysithea(see above)

-Sylvain and his brother

-Bernadetta and her commoner friend

-Mercedes, her mother, and most probably her brother

-Ingrid

-Marianne and likely the whole beast crest family.

-Haneman and his sister

Now count how many people dies in a single chapter, battalions included. 

The game does not give us often the perspective of common people, but they don't seems to live in poverty most of the time. There is a bit more instances of noble oppressing commoners, for example the Ferdinand/Lysithea paralogue but those are unrelated to crests, and any corrupt politician could have done the same. 

 

Also call me a cinic, but imonthe world will always be run by bullies and murderers no matter what, one of the reason being that you have to became a bully and a murderer to combat them.

It's not really imaginable that it doesn't affect them because we're talking about the order of society in totality. If I as a commoner have to petition my local lord or king for a charter to conduct my trade and get denied because the lord has decided to grant a monopoly to his third son's wife's brother from the local leading gentry family (and I'm from a poorer lineage of commoners), then the feudal system affects me. Odds are, I'll be aware enough of local politics and the social standing of various families to not even bother to try to apply for the charter. This overall lacks of competitiveness and favoritism from on high is part of where the stagnant and non-progressive nature of feudal, medieval society comes from -- why we get new phone models every year in 2019 but technology stays unchanged in feudal England for hundreds of years. 

If you mean most people are comfortable with unequal and unfair status and don't actively rock the boat (like the commoner boy who befriended Bernadetta tried to do) because they don't want to get on the bad sides of nobles or people with Crests, you'd probably be right. Most of them would probably say the status quo is preferable to war, too. I'm pretty sure Dmitri bases most of his ideology on the idea that people in Fodlan are basically comfortable with the status quo and that an improved version of the status quo would resolve most active grievances.  

Point is that the worst effect of the Crest system is that it doesn't give ordinary people an opportunity to grow or live up to their potential; the right to grow or live up to a greater destiny is generally reserved for the nobility and for people with Crests, which a modernist like Edelgard sees less as signs of divine favor from the Goddess and more as examples of macabre science/technology being used by cavemen to oppress each other. 

This doesn't seem like a problem to someone like Rhea (because humans living up to their potential = Nemesis and TWSITD), but does Rhea have a right to decide that for everyone, forever? 

 

 

Edited October 23, 2019 by MoralityGames

[Sitruk]

On 8/4/2019 at 11:32 AM, Tenzen12 said:

She is pretty good villain. I am not completely sure if best, but certainly one with most screen time to be flashed out, which certainly help.

That said she is basically Zephiel 2.0.

I agree with this, but she has more of a reason to want this than Zephiel, not saying that Zephidel doesn’t have them, it’s just that Edelgard’s reasons are logical to me, especially having played Crimson Flower first.

[Sitruk]

On 8/4/2019 at 12:29 PM, Armagon said:

So i've only played the Crimson Flower route and while i have heard about Edelgard being more villainous in other routes, i think there's a reason for that, which i'll get into later. First of all though, i'm definitely going to echo the fact that she's a very well written character. I haven't seen her in the villain role yet but when she's the protagonist, he's one of the series best Lords, if not the best. Her motivations make sense and she has this sort of villain protagonist vibe where she believes she's doing the right thing and shows you why she thinks she's doing the right thing but it may not actually be the right thing. It's all a matter of perspective, which, if Crimson Flower is any precedent, is what this game's about. No one's truly right or wrong, no one's truly good or evil (no, Those Who Slither in the Dark don't count).

On the subject of Edelgard being more villainous in other routes, i think that has to do with Byleth not being there. Again, i haven't played the other routes but i'm gonna make a comparison to Walhart here. I don't remember who said it in Awakening but it's said that Walhart was the kind of person Alm could've become if he didn't have a compassionate person at his side (Celica). In all routes but Crimson Flower, Edelgard is the Walhart. But in Crimson Flower, Edelgard has her Celica in the form of Byleth, and as such, she is Alm. Now of course, Edelgard and Alm, as well as Byleth and Celica have distinct personalities but you get the point here.

I've been seeing a lot of this on Twitter, particularly from people who started with the Blue Lions. People who utterly despise Edelgard because of her actions in other routes and refuse to see her route and that kind of upsets me because the point of the game is to see everyone's perspective.

On your point about Byleth’s effect on her progression, she states multiple times throughout the path that if Byleth hadn’t sided with her, she would have shut her emotions away completely, becoming just like some of our other Villains, Zephidel and Hardin, whereas with Byleth around, she can trust someone who isn’t Hubert, which allows her to have an actual emotional support system, which is why (I’m guessing here, only finished Crimson Flower), she is so different between stories.