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Just how popular is Edelgard?


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As of the midterm results for CYL4, Edelgard is #1 among the heroines.  This is surprising to me, as I thought for sure her popularity had waned considerably in favor of Dimitri once more details of Three Houses's story became known.  Don't get me wrong, I'm glad one of my Armored Axe waifus is doing so well, but I'm still a bit confused.

Edited by Von Ithipathachai
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Just because Dimitri is topping her in some polls doesn't mean her popularity has waned any. She's a well-written character and does well in an antagonist role, and people love their waifu villains. Besides, with the female side generally having more competition than the male, it's possible she had more votes funneled into her by people who thought their male favorite was in good standing and wanted to give Edelgard that boost.

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I'd say Edelgard is still consistently a very popular character. She just happens to have a lot of detractors and while I don't agree she's nuanced enough that there is room for a negative interpretation. 

Besides just about every female winner have had their detractors. Celica for being a dummy, Camilla for being Camilla and Michy had a hatedom in the past before Corrin came around to show everyone how much worse she could have been. Even Lyn and Lucina who are practically mainstream have some critics because they've become a bit too mainstream. 

Edited by Etrurian emperor
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The trouble with popularity polls is that not every fan is going to see them. And if there's multiple polls, and different fans vote in different polls, you'll get wildly different results between them. For example, I've seen MANY "favorite Ninja Turtle" polls over the years, and every time, the turtle in the lead is different from the last poll (about the only consistent thing was that they were all roughly even, varying by only 1-2%).

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The Lords from the last new game topped the polls, so I don't think it's any surprise the same happened with Three Houses. Especially with it being separated between boys and girls and Edelgard being the sole girl. A lot of long time favorites are out of the picture by now too. Also oh right, choose your legends is around this time of year isn't it?

inb4 "Edelgard isn't actually the villain"

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Keep in mind Edeglard still has consistently placed high (or placed first) in the female category of all those polls, even if it appears her popularity has waned and her character is rather controversial in the fanbase. Also it still is entirely possible she's less popular than Dimitri, we won't know until the official numbers are released when the voting ends. All that matters for CYL right now is her popularity in comparison to the female competition.

Finally, another thing to note is that CYL has far greater visibility and a greater impact than any other character poll done before. This means more passionate responses and likely different sects of the population that might be more pro-Edelgard contributing to this poll that weren't voting in the previous ones.

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I think the 'divide' between Edelgard and Dimitri is overblown, specifically on these forums. Everyone likes to be team 'one or the other'. Though personally I think the true popularity/rivalry gap is between Rhea and Edelgard, who I think are at the heart of most 'discussions', because they truly are two sides of the same coin.

Edelgard and Dimitri are put in competition as their stories are so revolved around each other (well I guess Dimitri is revolved around Edelgard, rather than the opposite way around), but I never once for a moment thought Edelgard wasn't extremely popular. I just think you can't bring up Edelgard without someone wanting to compare her to Dimitri or say she's the villain and not one of the lords. Haha.

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inb4 Marth almost wins but loses anyway a third year in a row

There was a meme I saw a while ago (that I can't find for the life of me, my apologies) that shows Squidward in front of his closet of clocks, with the text 'Edelgard' over Squidward, and then each of the clocks being a different alt. I honestly think that it perfectly describes just how popular Edelgard is.

But dang, poor Claude though. I get that Edelgard and Dimitri are the ones with the rivalry and Claude is just kinda.... there, but throw him a bone...

Spoiler

Or Failnaught, seeing as how that's made of bones....

Edit: I found the meme I was talking about.

 

Edited by indigoasis
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Edelgard's popularity in this CYL and in general was to be expected. This video from Mekkah pretty much explained why she's popular: 

Spoiler

 

 

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I think the whole Edelgard vs. Dimitri rivalry is gets over exaggerated honestly, I see more Edelgard vs. Rhea post almost daily if anything but I think more people now just like both characters or can at least appreciate them. Polls are also kinda eh when it comes to results, just because so many of them come out at once and they aim at different demographics (Famitsu polls are aimed at Japan). CYL is the most reliable poll (still not perfect imo because of the 7 votes and how you can potential make multiple accounts, and also how winners of CYL aren't included in the next CYL) just because it targets audiences from both the east and the west and puts them against other popular characters from other games to give a better picture on character popularity.

Interim results can also change pretty drastically, like how Marth was #2 in CYL3 but gets beaten by Eliwood in the end. It's also relatively early for Interim Results just because we had like 2.5 days worth of results for it to be considered interim.

Also helps that Edelgard is a lord in Fire Emblem's most successful game and is also a waifu (before someone @'s me on waifuism not existing, if it truly didn't exist we would've had better female representation in Fire Emblem games by now and not have young/busty/skinny/thicc females for western appeal, and young-looking/short/cute/innocent females for eastern appeal. IS is aware that people like waifus so female characters are almost always designed in a similar way, which is smart of them).

Edited by Lunarly
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I don't know how popular Edelgard is, but I can think of good reasons why she would be (in no particular order):

  • She's one of the game's lords.
  • She's an interesting character with quite a bit of depth.
  • She's this game's Hardin/Rudolf/Arvis/Zephiel/etc., while also being playable in one of the routes. 
  • Waifu material: though she's probably not the most popular Three Houses character in that regard, she's probably top 10 at least
  • She's a paragon character; well-written paragons tend to be fairly popular: Superman, Captain America, Ike, Ned Stark, etc. 
  • Because of the game's multiple-route nature, she can be a number of things to different people: to some, she's great as an anti-villain, while to others, she's more memorable as a supporting character. 
3 hours ago, Etrurian emperor said:

I'd say Edelgard is still consistently a very popular character. She just happens to have a lot of detractors and while I don't agree she's nuanced enough that there is room for a negative interpretation. 

Besides just about every female winner have had their detractors. Celica for being a dummy, Camilla for being Camilla and Michy had a hatedom in the past before Corrin came around to show everyone how much worse she could have been. Even Lyn and Lucina who are practically mainstream have some critics because they've become a bit too mainstream. 

I think it's funny how, in the past, female FE lords have had detractors whose complaints usually amounted to the character being overshadowed (Lyn, Erika, Micaiah, Celica) by one or more of the other male lords, and now that we have a female lord who doesn't get overshadowed but instead has arguably greater presence than the male lords, detractors complain because they think she's evil. 

 

I agree that she's nuanced enough, but a negative interpretation isn't necessarily a bad thing; depending on what you mean by negative. One really good character-writing tip I once heard was that one should strive for their characters to be: dimensional, fascinating, compelling and/or believable, and things like, "likeable", "relatable", and "sympathetic", while not inherently bad, are not what you should strive for, as they are often misused. 

How this relates to Edelgard is that, even someone who thinks "Edelgard evil, Rhea good" or vice-versa can still like either character if they're sufficiently dimensional, fascinating, compelling and/or believable. I personally think that Edelgard is certainly fascinating, and she's plenty compelling due to her conviction. Dimensional and Believable less so, but certainly she's dimensional and believable enough. 

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3 hours ago, SageOfAnys said:

Finally, another thing to note is that CYL has far greater visibility and a greater impact than any other character poll done before. This means more passionate responses and likely different sects of the population that might be more pro-Edelgard contributing to this poll that weren't voting in the previous ones.

This, all the previous polls and in game data were based on Three Houses players only,  but CYL is open to all FE/FEH players.

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It's always bothered me how people took those Dream poll results a little too seriously. Believe it or not, Dimitri and most of the BL males are what someone would call "otome" bait, being characters in otome games. They are designed to be liked by the female audience. Those Dream poll results had a gender ratio where the males were very much outnumbered by the females. So obviously, Dimitri was going to top those polls.

But that does not mean that those polls reflect the overall fanbase. 

The Voting Gauntlet actually proved how there is very much a difference in regards to that. 

And this Choose Your Legends is no different. In fact, Edelgard being the top just proves how many people love her.

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1 hour ago, Axel987 said:

I'm surprised she isn't generally considered the most popular character, considering how she's basically the game's most prominent character to the point where even the game's credit song is sang by and about her.

 

That's where a bit of her detractors come in. Some people argue that the game trys to make her too sympathetic despite her actions. Yes she has a lot of prominence and the theme song but some people also just don't like being steered towards one specific direction and accuse the game of being biased.

 

Edited by mrwanton
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1 minute ago, mrwanton said:

That's where a bit of her detractors come in. Some people argue that the game trys to make her too sympathetic despite her actions. Yes she has a lot of prominence and the theme song but some people also just don't like being steered towards one specific direction and accuse the game of being biased.

 

I honestly only felt the -undue- bias in Verdant Wind.

In Azure Moon, she's the main antagonist and an important part of Dimitri's backstory. The focus makes sense and being made to empathise with her as a result works since the story is largely being viewed through his lens/perspective of things. In Crimson Flower she's literally the main protagonist and in Silver Snow she's your former student.

In Verdant Wind, Edelgard really means nothing to you or Claude aside from just another former classmate. You barely ever talk to her, she's barely relevant to Claude's character outside of starting the war. It's really the only case of the game trying to make you -like- or feel bad for her when it's kinda, completely unwarranted. At best she's a climax boss for that arc.

Outside of that it feels pretty well deserved really.

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8 minutes ago, Axel987 said:

I honestly only felt the -undue- bias in Verdant Wind.

In Azure Moon, she's the main antagonist and an important part of Dimitri's backstory. The focus makes sense and being made to empathise with her as a result works since the story is largely being viewed through his lens/perspective of things. In Crimson Flower she's literally the main protagonist and in Silver Snow she's your former student.

In Verdant Wind, Edelgard really means nothing to you or Claude aside from just another former classmate. You barely ever talk to her, she's barely relevant to Claude's character outside of starting the war. It's really the only case of the game trying to make you -like- or feel bad for her when it's kinda, completely unwarranted. At best she's a climax boss for that arc.

Outside of that it feels pretty well deserved really.

My order was VW/CF/BL.

I never really got a sense of Edelgard bias in VW. She's an opponent who simply has goals similar to Claude and that's really about it.  The overall war is more of a backdrop in VW because it's somewhat unrelated to Claude's ultimate goal. To me it's the route that presents Edelgard the most neutrally. Yeah there's the scene with Byleth and Edelgard's death but that's more cause of SS scene re-usage rather than any personal feelings. Claude and Edelgard don't really have a connection and for the most part I don't think the route really gives her anything too sympathetic to write home about.

BL on the other hand goes hard on the tragic element of facing Edelgard. I think it's the route that showcases her at her worse while simultaneously being the route that also attempts to sympathize with her the most while maintaining a antagonistic role. Her relationship with Dimitri is one of the main focuses of the route and she gets scenes that reflects this to an extent. 

Edited by mrwanton
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25 minutes ago, mrwanton said:

My order was VW/CF/BL.

I never really got a sense of Edelgard bias in VW. She's an opponent who simply has goals similar to Claude and that's really about it.  The overall war is more of a backdrop in VW because it's somewhat unrelated to Claude's ultimate goal. To me it's the route that presents Edelgard the most neutrally. Yeah there's the scene with Byleth and Edelgard's death but that's more cause of SS scene re-usage rather than any personal feelings. Claude and Edelgard don't really have a connection and for the most part I don't think the route really gives her anything too sympathetic to write home about.

BL on the other hand goes hard on the tragic element of facing Edelgard. I think it's the route that showcases her at her worse while simultaneously being the route that also attempts to sympathize with her the most while maintaining a antagonistic role. Her relationship with Dimitri is one of the main focuses of the route and she gets scenes that reflects this to an extent.

There's a few other instances; Byleth having two options that effectively say the same thing at one point "Is there no way we can walk the same path as Edelgard" and "I don't want to kill Edelgard.", her going "You're the one person I did not want to make an enemy of" despite never really interacting with her meaningfully + that cutscene. It just, doesn't really work for that route, there's no emotional connection there to warrant it. As someone who had just come off playing Blue Lions first and -did- empathise with her there, it felt cheap here.

 

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Agreed to an extent but I think due to Claude not really having a relationship with Edelgard I didn't feel it as strongly. Now, I do think having Byleth care about her on every route is a mistake but that's a different argument.

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I impression I got was that, in spite of the central gimmick of choosing your house, there must be some classes that everyone goes through at once. All three lords seem to have some level of rapport with every teacher, and if you don't take a class with a teacher, why bother befriending them?

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EH i think the popularity Bridge between Dimitri and Edelgard is pretty Slim. Outside of Korea they're the Number 1 and Number 2 most popular characters in almost every poll, including CYL 4 as it seems unless Claude has more votes, but i doubt it.

I'm not surprised at all by Edelgard. I am surprised by Lysithea, like i get she's probably the most popular student besides the Lords, but being above Female Byleth and Robin was really surprising. Ditto for Male Robin, i thought he would be in top 5.

People should just vote for Dalsin.

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It’s worth noting that this is a gacha game, in which female characters are always more popular than male characters. There are lot of people who plays FEH but didn’t play Three Houses, so they pick Edelgard solely due to the fact that she’s a hot girl. Waifu factor in a gacha game is a powerful thing, it’s why Edelgard did so well on the Voting Gauntlet.

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5 hours ago, Geenoble said:

I'm not surprised at all by Edelgard. I am surprised by Lysithea, like i get she's probably the most popular student besides the Lords, but being above Female Byleth and Robin was really surprising. Ditto for Male Robin, i thought he would be in top 5.

I wouldn't be too surprised about Lysithea being popular. She's as close to a loli that someone who's legal can get after the timeskip, she's a tsundere and a good unit while also having some special gimmicks like two crests. 

Loli's, tsundere's, good units and plot important characters are all popular so a combination of those would naturally be popular too. The only thing that might bring her down is that she's technically a Ricken but she tends to get a pass on that one. 

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