#And I mean both the general fe continuity and Fodlan's itself !

[emblemxeno]

In general, I think a lot of people in the current FE community oversell how negative the term ‘villain’ is.

Villain is an umbrella term. By definition it villain itself means, “Character whose evil/morally wrong actions cause conflict in the plot.” That’s it.

Under the umbrella of villain there are many specific types, from greedy monarchs to possessed victims to traitors and many, many more. (In linguistics, this relationship between umbrella terms and what’s under them is known as Hyponymy vs. Hypernymy)

This includes Sympathetic Villains, which is what Edelgard is. She has fairly nice intentions, like abolishing the Crest system and (eventually) getting rid of the Slithers.

But her actions are ultimately that of a villain. She cooperates with the Slithers, letting them kidnap and experiment on people and lends them a serial killer to help. She declares war on the Church of Seiros and tries to conquer and assimilate Faerghus and the Alliance. She continues to lie to both followers and foes alike, and incites conflict, coups and rebellions across Fodlan. Looking deeper into her actions (as well as lines better translated from Japanese) you can see that she wants to put the world back how she wants.

And I wouldn’t say any of this if I really didn’t have a point to make, said point being that this isn’t the first time in the series we’ve had villains like Edelgard, whose more sympathetic but still morally reprehensible actions contrast with that of the truly irredeemable evil villains.

This is the same case for many other villains in FE. Arvis is a Traitor turned Sympathetic Villain over the course of the Jugdral saga. Other sympathetic villains include Ishtar or Eldigan, alongside Anti Villains like Travant. Hell, you can make a case for Julius being not truly evil as he’s a victim of possession and was a truly nice kid before that. They contrast with the true evil of the Loptr Church and Loptous himself. But they’re still all villains at the end of the day.

Same with Lyon being a sympathetic victim of possession vs the true evil of Riev and Fomortiis. But Lyon’s actions in using the Dark Stone and forbidden arts still make him one of the main villains of FE8. Same with Idunn’s sympathetic portrayal of a mindless beast who had her soul removed in contrast to Zephiel’s fall from grace into being a despotic tyrant in FE6.

It’s the same case with Edelgard’s portrayal as a villain to contrast the Slithers. It’s deliberate, following the same beats that plenty of FE plots have done in the past.

And yes, this remains the case on Crimson Flower. She is effectively a Villain Protagonist on that route as she’s the lead character but her motivations and actions remain similar to other routes.

Anyway, that’s my spiel for today.

#fire emblem #fire emblem three houses #fe3h #edelgard critical #storytelling #writing