Viscardus posted:

I think you make some good points here, but I fundamentally disagree with your assessment of Edelgard. She has flaws, of course, and there are certainly valid criticisms to be made about her plans, but I would argue very strongly that she is fundamentally a morally better person than anyone else in the story. If that sounds like an absurd claim, I suspect it's because of a drastic difference in how we think about morality. I'm reminded of Mark Twain's quote about the two "Reigns of Terror"; people are taught to recoil in horror at aggressive violence, but we are likewise taught to be complacent about systemic violence. Unlike everyone else in Fódlan, Edelgard really does see "that unspeakably bitter and awful Terror which none of us has been taught to see in its vastness or pity as it deserves". You act like Edelgard is motivated by her pain, but that's a fundamental difference between her and Dimitri or Rhea. If Edelgard were merely motivated by her pain, she would simply work against Those Who Slither and leave the Church alone. But she is not (primarily) motivated by her pain; more than any other character she is motivated fundamentally by her ideals. She knows that the Church is built on lies and oppression, and that the nobility is the same, and she wants to fix it.

The best way to think of Edelgard, frankly, is as a revolutionary. It's counter-intuitive because she's an emperor, of course, and because on a surface level she evokes aggressive, self-aggrandizing rulers that are so common not only in Fire Emblem games but in fiction more generally. But she does call herself a revolutionary at one point, and that is fundamentally the best metaphor for what she's doing: she is using temporarily violence to end a system of permanent violence. She doesn't care about her own power except insofar as it allows her to fix the world; her greatest desire is to finally have the ability to give it all up and live peacefully. But she is so strongly motivated by her own moral compass that she simply wouldn't be able to live with herself if she did that. And yes, she is willing to sacrifice people along the way for the greater good (although on the Black Eagle route, at least, she is consistently shown as being hyper-aware of the human cost of what she's doing, and never does anything lightly). It's very easy to see any reference to the greater good as an excuse, of course, but personally I think that the attitude that political change should never be remotely violent is a little naive. I don't want to veer too far into real-life politics, so I'll leave it at that, but in the end I feel like anyone who thinks that Edelgard is automatically the bad guy because she started the war should really think about the implications of delegitimizing all political violence.

But of course even then, it depends on agreeing that what Edelgard wants is right. And this is the part I find even more interesting, frankly, because it really gets into the great contradiction at the heart of so much fantasy fiction, not least of all pretty much every previous Fire Emblem game. The fact of the matter is that regardless of what you think of her methods, everyone should be able to agree that Edelgard's goals are far, far better than those of anyone else in the game, because she has a far more modern moral compass than anyone else in the story. In a series built on inherited powers and superior noble bloodlines, she recognizes how awful that is. She sees the absolute horror inherent in feudalism, in state religion, in quasi-eugenic breeding programs. All of these are things that should horrify any decent person in real life, and yet we accept them in stories and games in large part because it's fun to put ourselves in the position of the destined lord or the chosen one or whatever else. And to be clear, that's okay in and of itself, but when confronted with a story that actually challenges those things, it's kind of horrifying to me that so many people think that fighting to preserve all that is morally righteous as long as you're nominally on the defensive. Fundamentally, all of the other routes are fighting to preserve a broken world that none of us would be willing to accept in real life (unless maybe we were lucky enough to be the ones in power - and even then we'd be lovely people for doing so). Sure, all of the other routes nominally end with things improving, and Claude, Dimitri, and even Rhea can turn into decent enough people with Byleth's help. But none of them fix what is fundamentally broken; many of the characters reject nobility and the crest system personally, but only Edelgard is willing to try to destroy it entirely.

I think it's telling that in the other three routes Byleth keeps Sothis's power and ends up as the ruler of Fódlan, the Church, or both. You get to be the big special hero - the most important person in the world - forever. But if you help Edelgard, you are rejecting that. Byleth stops being some destined chosen one and reverts into a regular mortal. You don't rule over anything, even if you marry Edelgard, because she only stays emperor as long as she needs to to complete her goals. You're still a hero, of course, but because of what you do, not who you are. It's honestly amazingly refreshing, and to me it is unambiguously the best ending (even despite feeling like it was cut a bit short).

So yeah, that's basically my take on Edelgard. I genuinely think that she is the morally best person in the game, and for that matter she's probably one of my favourite video game characters ever (for more reasons than just that, of course, though a large part of it is how much it makes her stand out).

Harrow posted:

That said I'd much rather see, like, Edelgard in Smash. An axe-using female lord would be a way more interesting addition than Fire Emblem Sword-User #8.

Blaziken386 posted:

real quick question: currently fighting The Flame Emperor. Should I be trying to spare Metodey?

Harrow posted:

Man, this whole Edelgard conversation really bums me out, because it's so obvious what they wanted to do with her character and her route but just... couldn't, for one reason or another. Resources, time, any number of factors.

Still better than Conquest, at least.

SyntheticPolygon posted:

She did some things wrong but they are part of why she rules.

Endorph posted:

i suppose it is bad that she doesnt explicitly turn to the camera and go 'also gay marriage is legal now,' but at least its implicit. rhea is the stereotypical closeted homophobe, dimitri is the violent bigot, and claude is the centrist 'gay rights can wait' type. it is only through edelgard's definitive and decisive leadership that the lgbt community can be liberated, as proven by the eagles' plethora of gay romance options compared to the other houses.

SyntheticPolygon posted:

Dimitri is clearly closeted too. He's just not into teachers.

Endorph posted:

dimitri's relationship with his sexuality is complex enough to make him one of the deepest fire emblem characters

Endorph posted:

dimitri's relationship with his sexuality is complex enough to make him one of the deepest fire emblem characters

Skippy McPants posted:

It's the same for the Black Eagles. Most of the well-adjusted people are in the Deers, but even they have their share of woes.

Eimi posted:

https://twitter.com/Fawnduu/status/1156393348506234880

Arkeus posted:

It's actually pretty neat that Edelgard (and Dorothea) are one of the only ones who end up being gay for non-byleth characters depending on their supports. Are there any others?

Space Cadet Omoly posted:

Arkeus posted:

It's actually pretty neat that Edelgard (and Dorothea) are one of the only ones who end up being gay for non-byleth characters depending on their supports. Are there any others?

Jeffrey of YOSPOS posted:

Man I like Bernadette a lot but oof her stats. Level 12 with 9 strength? Her magic caught up.

Arkeus posted:

It's actually pretty neat that Edelgard (and Dorothea) are one of the only ones who end up being gay for non-byleth characters depending on their supports. Are there any others?

Judge Tesla posted:

It's like a goddamn FBI document in here with all the black bars, also I think a golden route where everyone lives and the world is in perfect harmomy yay, would be real stupid, like the absolute worst, this is what happens when you have the Dynasty Warriors devs make a game, conquest and war and people being stomped all over.

I like the fact that Edelgard and Dimitri aren't sparkling superheroes who just need to beat that gosh darned evil cult and everything's saved, the fact that people in this very thread are melting down over this proves its working as intended.

THE AWESOME GHOST posted:

Apparently you can also recruit almost everyone but the house leaders and have the other houses be like, 2 people each (I don't know who isn't recruitable)

ChaosArgate posted:

Its the house leaders and their second in command who are generally unpoachable. I say generally because it is possible to poach Hilda if you’re not following Edelgard. So basically, the only truly unpoachable ones are Edelgard, Hubert, Dimitri, Dedue and Claude.