Edelgard sucks.....a lot.

[stusano124]

So I have beaten the game on all the four paths and I got to say, Edelgard sucks. Both as a character and as a villain she proves to be unlikeable. I feel like a lot of people like her just because she is a female when they might abhor an identical character is the genders were reversed. Anyone, I will try to organize my grievances against her as best as I can.  

Edelgard wants war on the church for no good reason!

Let's address something that many people bring up "Oh she is trying to destroy the theocracy, she is so progressive and ahead of her time"  To which I say, BULLSHIT. Fodland is not a THEOCRACY, we are shown very well what the political landscape of the continent looks like, and from were am standing, it looks like none of the existing powers are ruled by the church. Were exactly is this so-called theocracy people keep mentioning? 

Moving on, it seems Edelgard mainly hates the church because of crests. However, we know that crests and relics were not created by the church or the goddess. They were made from the desecrated corpses of the goddess and her children. Keep in mind, Reah a.k.a Seiros, KNOWS this. Every single day, for over a thousand years, she has had to live with a constant reminder that her mom and her siblings were slaughtered and desecrated to create crests. NO ONE and I mean NO ONE should hate crests more than Reah herself. However, what does she do? she creates an utterly benign organization to care and Shepard humanity.  What does Edelgard do? she sides with a shady organization that SHE KNOWS IS UP TO NO GOOD, to bring death and destruction upon the church just to sate her selfish desires. Make no mistake, they are SELFISH desires, which brings me onto my second point. 

Edelgard is utterly selfish, egotistical and frankly dictatorial. 

So Edelgard hates crests, Edelgard has a tragic childhood. Guess what sweetheart, GET. IN. LINE. Every other character has a tragic back story and a good reason to hate crests. The world sucks and we are all just trying to live in it and become better people. That is the problem with Edelgard, she thinks SHE IS THE BETTER PERSON. She believes that she alone knows what is best for the Fodland. Sure there are people that hate crests like Sylvain, Mariane, and Lysithea but there are also people that love crests like Lorens, Linhardt, and Hanneman. There are people that disagree with the church but there are also those that love the church (best girl Mercedes) However, to Edelgard all those that don't agree with her can go die in a ditch, better yet, she will put them there herself.  

In pursuit of her ideals, Edelgard shipped over diplomacy, negociation or social reform and went straight for war, military domination and dictatorship. In pursuit of her ideals, she sanctioned experimentation on innocents, the destruction of innocent villages, furthered the goals of a blatantly evil organization, started a war that claimed untold numbers of people.

Honestly, the Hight of Hypocricy happens after Edelgard kills Dimitry.  She says, "If only you were born in a time of peace, you might have been a good ruler"  (or something like that, I don't remember the exact Quote) Am sitting here thinking, YOU WERE ALL BORN IN A TIME OF PEACE, YOU CREATED THE WAR, YOU INSTIGATED NEARLY EVERY VIOLENT EVENT THAT HAS TRANSPIRED IN THIS GAME.

Ok, this concludes my tirade. After reading all that I have set forth, ask yourself whether Edelgard likable or not, because from were am standing, she is just a dictator wrapped in a pretty face.  

 

[Etrurian emperor]

1 hour ago, stusano124 said:

I feel like a lot of people like her just because she is a female when they might abhor an identical character is the genders were reversed

Given the popularity of Arvis I kinda doubt that. 

[Hauke]

1 hour ago, stusano124 said:

Edelgard is utterly selfish, egotistical and frankly dictatorial.  

She is nothing of that. She want's a new goverment were positions are given out by talent. She even steps down on her own after completing what she had done and gave her title away to a worthy successor. She doesn't want to rule dictatorial. She want's to introduce a government where everyone can participate and the most talented people can get the fitting position in government, regardless of crest, status or money. How is this selfish, egoistical and dictatorial?

Also it's not about 'loving crests'. Even Hanneman and LInhardt do agree that crests can cause trouble, did you read their supports with Lysithea? Crests are a bad thing in the society. Or do you nsay we should still be ruled by nobility just because they are born nobles?

Also she DESTROYs those who slither in the dark because she hates them. She doesn't tolerate their actions because they are allies. She tolerates their actions because she can't do anything against them. How should she stop them without them nuking the capital? She has no choice.

Edited September 12, 2019 by Hauke

[Crysta]

I take the opposite mindset: that people in general are a lot more intolerant of female characters being harsh and evil, but I don't think I can get into that without bringing in a bunch of stuff unrelated to Fire Emblem.

People like bad guys. They particularly like anti-heroes and anti-villains.

[Strullemia]

I'm kind of sick of debating El's actions because it's so tiring so I'm not even gonna bother with the rest of your post but this particular point always really bothers me because it's so untrue in the FE Fandom and I hate when people even try to use this in the FE Fandom from all places.

1 hour ago, stusano124 said:

I feel like a lot of people like her just because she is a female when they might abhor an identical character is the genders were reversed. Anyone, I will try to organize my grievances against her as best as I can.  

No. Arvis, the character that mostly resembles her gets far less overall hate and even gets the "luxury" of getting jolly memes that minimize have his evil actions.

I find this comment especially annoying because female lords tend to get it way harsher than male lords and I have no doubt in my mind that if the genders in 3H were reversed that the popularity of the lords would have been different.

[SatsumaFSoysoy]

I disagree that Edelgard's motivations are selfish. She herself did suffer from Crests, yes, but, as you have said, so have many other people. Her ideal world is where no one has to suffer from the evils that the Crest-based society that has developed in Fodlan, as well as overhaul the nobility system so that people who are simply born into power but lack merit of their own lose standing. People like Lysithea and Edelgard herself would no longer exist; there wouldn't be people like Sylvain or Hanneman's little sister (Hanneman likes Crests, but hates Crest-based society), desired and exploited for only their bloodline. And as Crests are no longer what determines your status, people like Caspar and Miklan wouldn't be passed over despite their talents and merits. Her own life is likely a major motivator for her goal, of course, but ultimately I don't believe her vision is in any way selfish.

The reason she wants Rhea gone is because she knows she has been lying, is the Immaculate One, and is the root of the society she's trying to destroy. The problem is, of course, that she believes in that goal so much that she would take any means necessary, which means starting a war, something I agree is self-centered. The status quo was a fragile peace, and Crest-based society and nobility system were causing all three countries to stagnate, but there were still many people whose lives went from normal to chaotic because of her, and the way she justifies the means through the end is morally questionable. She uses this same logic to justify her alliance to TWS; she disagrees with 90% of the things they do and hating their guts, and she is not responsible and does not condone the experimentation they do at all. She allies with them for power just to achieve the end, accepting the morally wrong means.

The Church of Seiros is mostly benign because of the religion spreading a message of peace etc., but to say Rhea is good because she started the Church is just forgetting why she started the Church. Obviously Rhea has suffered a lot with her mother killed and her people being slaughtered and turned into Crest stones. But after winning the war against Nemesis, her sole goal was to find a way to revive Sothis. To achieve this, she rewrote history and created a religion out of the lies she told, so that she could maintain power over the continent while also having a way to disguise herself by faking her death. The lies she told ultimately led to the Crest-based society that has caused a good chunk of the cast and their ancestors to suffer, and she also performed her own experiments by creating vessels for the sole purpose of reviving her mother. Rhea has done many selfless actions and clearly has kindness in her heart, but she also has her own selfish agenda that she has changed the entire continent behind the scenes for.

I see both Edelgard and Rhea as morally grey characters that perform questionable and selfish actions for their own goals, and whoever you sympathize with more or agree with more is up for debate, which is a big part of why I enjoy the two of them as characters, despite not actually liking everything about them. I personally am a bit more sympathetic towards Edelgard because while both women will screw other people for their goals, Edelgard's goal is the more selfless one.

[Druplesnubb]

2 hours ago, stusano124 said:

Sure there are people that hate crests like Sylvain, Mariane, and Lysithea but there are also people that love crests like Lorens, Linhardt, and Hanneman.

What even is this? The crests have created an unequal feudal society and leads to people being treated like livestock for power plays, but there are people who like studying crests and also aristocrats who like that hey were born with power and privileges over everyone else so it's cool? The heck?

[Ertrick36]

Does this count as one of those "blog posts" that the mods usually take down?  I'm not sure...

I do know that this is yet another one of many debate prompts for Edelgard... and a notably annoying one, at that.  WHY do you HAVE to have ALL CAPS at RANDOM POINTS of your post?  Just use italics and bold, my dude.

Also...

43 minutes ago, Crysta said:

I take the opposite mindset: that people in general are a lot more intolerant of female characters being harsh and evil, but I don't think I can get into that without bringing in a bunch of stuff unrelated to Fire Emblem.

People like bad guys. They particularly like anti-heroes and anti-villains.

16 minutes ago, Hekselka said:

No. Arvis, the character that mostly resembles her gets far less overall hate and even gets the "luxury" of getting jolly memes that minimize have his evil actions.

I find this comment especially annoying because female lords tend to get it way harsher than male lords and I have no doubt in my mind that if the genders in 3H were reversed that the popularity of the lords would have been different.

These people see this trite among the fans for what it is.

Deep down, it's always about how much of an appealing waifu a female character is.  If they aren't exactly what every man wants, there's bound to be controversy... which is why every popular female character in the series is controversial, while the popular male characters barely have any controversy.

Lyn and Lucina?  They're obviously wooden characters people only like because waifus and one's a Marth cosplayer or whatever, while the hot-headed Hector is a badass bro and Marth has such a great coming of age story.  Camilla and Tharja?  Slutty women without an ounce of depth to them, yet Niles is a man with the depth of a bottomless pit.  Celica and Micaiah?  They make mistakes because they're dumb, but Xander makes mistakes because he's the very picture of the imperfect lord who recognizes the injustices in the world, and also all the story stuff is irrelevant because that's an entirely different character from supports!Xander because the writers were disjointed or some crap.

8 minutes ago, Druplesnubb said:

What even is this? The crests have created an unequal feudal society and leads to people being treated like livestock for power plays, but there are people who like studying crests and also aristocrats who like that hey were born with power and privileges over everyone else so it's cool? The heck?

You see, it's wrong to fight for what you believe is right because there are other people who believe you're wrong.  You gotta instead respect their opinions and have civil discussions with the other side, without resorting to breaking laws and conventions.

Now let me tell you about why the Jim Crow laws are still around and women don't get to vote in America.  Oh wait...

[MessengerIris]

 

39 minutes ago, Ertrick36 said:

Lyn and Lucina?  They're obviously wooden characters people only like because waifus and one's a Marth cosplayer or whatever, while the hot-headed Hector is a badass bro and Marth has such a great coming of age story.  Camilla and Tharja?  Slutty women without an ounce of depth to them, yet Niles is a man with the depth of a bottomless pit.  Celica and Micaiah?  They make mistakes because they're dumb, but Xander makes mistakes because he's the very picture of the imperfect lord who recognizes the injustices in the world, and also all the story stuff is irrelevant because that's an entirely different character from supports!Xander because the writers were disjointed or some crap.

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. 

Edited September 12, 2019 by MessengerIris

[Parrhesia]

43 minutes ago, Ertrick36 said:

Does this count as one of those "blog posts" that the mods usually take down?  I'm not sure...

Close enough.