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#so the fact that edelgard can be the hero of her own story partially because of her being numb to her emotions means a lot to me
furry-emblem · 3 years
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I think another reason Edelgard is a contentious character is how impersonal her train of thought is. Dmitri is the polar opposite where his motives are purely personal and he has to learn to factor non-personal motives into his decision making, Claude's motives of making Fodlan a more open an accepting society stem from prejudice he faces, and Edelgard's goal of removing the Church and Crests has very little to do with what the Agarthans did to her.
This difference also extends to how they treat their allies when facing them in combat. She's the only house leader to not visibly mourn the deaths of her comrads. And those differences extends to her enemies. Dmitri shows little respect for his foes, Claude rarely mentions anything about them, while Edelgard makes a point to say that she sees them as lost potential rather than evil.
Edelgard just interacts with the world on an impersonal level, and it's hard for her to express emotion, and the relatively lack of personal reactions from Edelgard caused by her inability to feel on a moment to moment basis can definitely turn people off and make them assume she doesn't care.
The reason Edelgard can't feel emotions properly is because of the trauma she endured from TWSITD. Multiple lines of dialogue state that she the experience fundamentally changed her, specifically "The Edelgard who cried died a long time ago" and "The girl you knew died a long time ago." The death imagery in both of those statements is extremely interesting, especially considering how poor her memory from before the experiments are. Like a part of her quite literally died. But that's more speculation than canon fact.
It's more in Edelgard's supports that her inability to feel her own emotions is apparent. In her C support with Byleth, she talks about the death of her siblings and her being experimented on, but an interesting part of that support is how little the event looks like it bothers her, especially compared to Dmitri with the Tragedy of Duscur. It's not that she isn't traumatized by the event; she was just having nightmares about it and it caused her significant memory loss. But she can't feel that pain in that moment. In Bernadetta's B support, Edelgard tries to get her to talk to her without having a panic attack from the experience. She's able to be annoyed, but she doesn't seem to feel remorse for scaring her (like Hubert does) or concern for Bernie, she's just focused on trying to find a solution to the communication problem. Her relation with everyone else is more or less the same. Even with Hubert, she's concerned for him, but sees that concern as something to fix more than anything else. She fails to communicate that she values Ferdinand as a close friend until one of their late supports. None of this is out of malice or self-centeredness, she just can't feel these emotions or form intimate connections because of it.
And that contributes to why Edelgard is a big-picture thinker. It's really interesting how Edelgard chooses to work with the Agarthans to deal with the Church before taking them on, because Edelgard doesn't see her personal desires as important. This can also be seen when she turns herself into the Hegemon beast. It's ok to do potentially permanent damage to herself because her needs aren't as important as her ideals. At least, to her.
And this clashes in an interesting way with how personal the story of Three Houses is. You're literally pinning loved ones against each other. Three Houses is a game where everyone is personally motivated by something and that determines their actions, everyone except Edelgard.
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kendrixtermina · 4 years
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Follow up to the last post about the beauty in the multiple routes storytelling: This is more about the house leaders and retainers than the recruitables, but another thing that I love about it is how the characters can get both canonical good and bad endings. 
Whenever a famous show ends there’s a lot of complaining about both good and bad endings and arguing for the virtues of both, and I think that alone shows that both have their merits and that part of what makes a story or characters compelling is having the capacity for both: Happy stories are satisfying because you see all the things that weigh them down and wish to see them triumph anyway especially if you emphasize with their struggles, and tragedies are supposed to make you wonder what they could have done different, and to cry for the potential for good that was there. Both seeing the characters be happy, and seeing the drama play out to its full, dark explosive conclusion give you different kinds of catharsis. 
There’s a sort of... completeness in seeing how they act like when they win or lose. Or something in between, as Edelgard and Claude can be said to score partial wins in some of the routes.
Claude wants peaceful foreign relations and to keep the Alliance from being destroyed - he gets that in Azure Moon and Crimson Flower. (he can die in the last one, but if he lives it’s arguably a complete victory) Edelgard wants Rhea and the Agarthans neutralized - that happens in Silver Snow and Verdant Wind, it even happens in part because of the intel she and Hubert have collected, though they perish in the process - but it’s precisely because they’re willing to do that and sacrifice their all that it’s so satisfying to “finally” let them survive it in CF and make it so they don’t have to give it all. 
Of course in Dimitri’s case seeing that he is so doomed and always dies so miserably and tragically makes it all the more satisfying when you get to save him for once and make it so all the goodness in his heart doesnt go to waste. 
Likewise, Claude handling himself so well in the other routes adds a lot to his appeal, in fact it was my CF playthrough that really made me like him, in part because his heroism comes out of nowhere if you havent played VW. I found it just as jarring as Dimitri turning up as this grizzled avenger rly, young Claude is a goofy gremlin if you only know him from afar, older Claude is this skilled politician and an absolute hero. 
When they lose it’s distinctly a logical results of their consistent shortcommings:
Claude either has a risky gamble blow up in his face and cost him everything (SS if you assume he’s dead, CF if you kill him) or plays too defensively and ends up bailing (if he lives) because of his cynism and not really thinking he can win, and because the alliance was only ever a sidegig/ means to an end for him, and no one trusts him because they don’t know his deal (the gronder fiasco in AM and Edelgard’s preemptive strike in CF) 
Dimitri is done in by his exaggerated sense of obligation (”The Dead must have their tribute!”) but also his myopic overfocus on the present and his immediate emotions (he’s doesn’t consider if he can win or that he’s dragging the whole Kingdom down with him into his kamikaze stunt, never gets rid of his black and white thinking, which keeps him from trying to compromise but also makes him see himself as irredeemable)
Edelgard squandered her credibility and antagonized even potential allies with her shady alliance and uncompromising methods, no one believes her, everyone assumes she’s evil and bands together to get her, she ends up fighting everyone at once which is impossible even if you're the strongest person with the biggest army.  Since she wants to avoid being helpless at all cost and has basically given up on a normal life outside of The Cause, she chooses to go down fighting to avoid capture, even when Dimitri and Claude both offer quarter. 
But when they win, you really see their soft humanity come to light in beautiful ways, all the stuff that goes to waste and never gets a chance if they lose:
When Dimitri actually considers what he wants to do rather than what he feels obliged to do, all he actually wants to make peace with everyone and help the poor and downtrodden [Mural where he plays with little orphans]
Claude’s secret ambition is something as benign as world peace. Once he becomes less cynical he proves to be a dreamy, contemplative romantic underneath, all poetic and philosophical [Mural of a peace treaty being signed between multiple nations]
Edelgard is atually extremely altruistic, never wanted power for its own sake and actually always wished for an ordinary life. Once society is suitably unfucked she pulls a Cincinnatus. [Mural with rejoicing liberated peasants]
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jtavington · 4 years
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Some notes on yet another Silver Snow AU
Working title: The Plaguemaster
Immediately prior to the battle for Enbarr, Byleth reads about how the church has suppressed technology, including medical technology. She has thrown alive into her new identity as a healer, so she's lost faith in the church so that she no longer knows which side is right. Having to kill Hubert further breaks her.
Edelgard is injured by friendly fire before she and Byleth can engage. She begins to spasm and have trouble breathing, etc. Byleth can't find it in herself to finish her off and warps her away. She manages to stabilize her with Dorothea's help, but Edelgard is partially paralyzed. The Imperial defenses collapse. They keep Edelgard's survival a secret.
Seteth goes off in search of Rhea. He still wants to make Byleth Queen, which terrifies Byleth. She doesn't want to be part of this anymore. She doesn't know what she does want except for El to live. Edelgard can't really speak, and tries to beg for death. Byleth pleads with her to live, which darkly amuses Edelgard. Byleth explains that she misses the girl who promised to reform the world and wonders what might have happened if she had chosen differently. Please, let her try to find out. Dorothea overhears this and asks to come with them. They flee, leaving the Sword of the Creator behind.
Dorothea fences the Imperial jewels to Yuri who invites himself along so he can extend his criminal empire and because the people of the Alliance are in desperate straits.
Derdriu is teeming with refugees from every corner of Fodlan. After Claude's disappearance, it passed into the hands of Count Gloucester, though Margrave Edmund also has his eye on the city. Gloucester is looking for a way to raze several slum districts and attract displaced nobles and merchants. There's a great deal of tension between foreigners and natives as they compete for limited work and its the merchants and artisans who truly run the city.
El and Byleth's forged identities are as Elise and Maria von Ochs, a married couple distantly related to the late baron.
El gradually recovers the power of speech and limited mobility but it's obvious that she'll never fight again. She blows up at Byleth for praising her for doing a small thing. Byleth is cruel leaving her alive like this, knowing that her dream will never be fulfilled. Did she want to gloat over her victory? She won't be a trophy or a charity case to soothe Byleth's guilt. Dorothea in turn blows up at her. Does she imagine that she's the first person to be wounded in a war or to have lost people? Of course they were confused about who they should follow. She was working with the people who murdered Jeralt. So stop whining and actually do something to build a new world. She may not be the Emperor anymore, but she's still fabulously rich. She can do much without lifting a blade.
Count Gloucester's retainer pays a visit, having heard of the mysterious and wealthy new arrivals. El and Byleth play the married couple for him. He almost recognizes them but the Emperor was never so feeble. He mentions a cloth merchant in desperate straits because of his work with the Empire. He backed the wrong horse and he lost. So did Gloucester, but nobility always rises. El recognizes that name as someone who loaned the Empire a considerable amount of money. She tells Byleth that she intends to purchase his business as a means of settling the debt—and to give the former Imperials working for him a means to rise. She apologizes to Byleth
(note to self, manufacturer uses the putting out system. Make sure to get the details right)
Byleth, meanwhile, is haunted by the war, and just wants to get away from violence. She takes to wandering the streets at night and on one such occasion uses her powers to heal a desperately injured man. This brings her to the attention of [Saint Timotheus] who runs a clinic cells himself, or tries to but is now very old. He suggests Byleth help him and she accepts.
Edelgard knows next to nothing about how to run a business, but discovers that her charisma hasn't left her. Yuri helps her out, in exchange for (genuinely harmless) help in his Robin Hood schemes. She provides employment to those in the worst parts of the city.
The von Ochs become well-known for their charity. They do entertain polite society, but Byleth keeps finding excuses to avoid Gloucester's invitations because she's afraid Lorenz will recognize them.
There's a young firebrand calling for the abolition of the nobility and throwing out the foreigners. She sounds a bit like Edelgard.
Gloucester is happy to use the pretext to raze those slums, where many of El's workers live. There's no option but to invite him and several other leading people to a dinner party. Byleth is in a panic, because she's not really a dinner party sort of person and what if they're recognized. El tells her to calm down. She'll be brilliant. For the first time, things truly thaw between them. El sets warring factions against each other and Byleth concocts some story about the site being holy, which [Timotheus] manages to corroborate with Lorenz's help. Lorenz reveals he did in fact recognize Byleth, but clearly Byleth must have her reasons for keeping quiet and he owes her for sparing him at Myrrdin. Just be careful.
El continues to be frustrated by her feebleness. Byleth tells her that she should be proud of what she's done. But it's still so far from what she promised and if she failed, that means she's a monster. She's dishonored everyone who died for her. Byleth asks her if she still wants to die. She says no, even though she thinks she should want that. Byleth's own happiness is undeserved after her time as an unthinking killing machine. Even during the war, she fought for what she was told to rather than some active choice. They decide to steal happiness and Byleth helps her walk in nature for the first time.
The clinic begins to see what appear to be food poisoning cases, but over time they develop symptoms similar to Edelgard's. Even Byleth and Timotheus' magic doesn't work as well as it should. Agarthan? El says that it's possible. But the city authorities refuse to hear of the idea.
The disease spreads to the general population. Byleth is exhausted trying to help as people die. It seems to be the end of the world, perhaps divine judgment. She and Timotheus might be able to develop an antitoxin, but to get the information they need would require an autopsy. They perform the first one. A local priest hears about it and condemns them. Maybe one of them is the infiltrator?
The young firebrand blames both Adrestia and Gloucester and rioting begins. But the poor are not going to mindlessly be destroyed and prepare to fight back. El, broken as she is, rallies some former soldiers and bribes away some mercenaries to keep the peace. Gloucester is ready to burn the entire city down but Lorenz intervenes. Gloucester confesses that he allowed the plague to be spread in the poor quarters, but it was never supposed to hit people who mattered. Lorenz is disgusted.
Byleth successfully creates the antitoxin and is hailed as a hero.
The merchants and such like that El have rallied decide that just as the Alliance decided they needed neither King nor Emperor, Derdriu needs neither duke nor count and declare it a free city.
This brings them to the attention of Seteth and a very feeble Rhea. They travel to Derdriu and recognize El and Byleth at once. Rhea is aghast, and for a moment her old rage bubbles. Byleth says that she's choosing El. Not the Flame Emperor, but the woman who saved to the city. She tells them that they wanted to make Byleth into a new Sothis. And if she truly is the Goddess, then she decrees that humans be allowed to make their own mistakes. Rhea has learned some humility and agrees—after punching El.
El loses her wedding ring during the chaos of the riots. Byleth replaces it with Sitri's and asks for permission to court her own wife.
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furry-emblem · 3 years
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You know what, after talking about how biases and stuff mess with 3H discourse, I'm going to go over my biases and personal experiences with each major faction leader because I feel like it. I don’t really want people arguing with me on these, but I would like to hear other people describing their experiences with these characters because that’s always interesting to read about. I'm listing the characters in order of how much I liked them.
Byleth
Also known as erotica, keyboard smash, Sothis, another keyboard smash, BoobBoob, and Boobama. I really dislike them. I’ve never been particularly fond of silent or self-insert protagonists. At best, they signal to me that the game isn’t going to bother with its story or character writing (and that’s fine when that’s the case), while at worst, it’s the writers taking the most important character in the story and then throwing their hands up and saying “we don’t need to write this one.” Byleth feels like the ladder and it’s to the detriment of pretty much everyone around them. Like, even considering that silent protagonists are supposed to be characters that the player projects onto, Byleth doesn’t do a good job at this because there’s enough canonical descriptions of them that you can’t really roleplay, but there’s so little going on that they don’t stand on their own two feet. So it’s like having a piece of cardboard dictate the fate of the country. They also primarily function as a wall for characters to exposition dump their backstories onto, which isn’t very interesting to watch. Like, 3H would have been better off without Byleth in it. 0/10.
Rhea
I just haven't had the chance to see a lot of her stuff, so I think I'm missing some of the stuff that makes people like her (and I'd prefer to not have that spoiled for me). Haven't seen her supports or the Church Route, but she just hasn't left me with a good impression. I don't like how possessive she gets of Byleth. Like, it creeps me out a little. I'm also a bit disappointed that you never get to play as her. I want the pope to bitch slap people (except not my people). I remember her being an antagonist in CF felt kind of forced to me when I first played because her reactions felt a bit silly. The problem wasn't whether they were justified or not, the problem was lack of context given and the fact that she was saying stuff like "You will BURN in the PITS OF HELL" while standing perfectly still and making this face >:(. And I just couldn't take that seriously for whatever reason because it felt cheesy and I didn't really understand what was going on. It also soured any endearment Rhea showed towards Byleth to me on future routes because her actions in CF gave me the impression of her being obsessive and controlling of Byleth. Like, she acted entitled to their loyalty, expected them to be something they never asked for, and flipped the fuck out when they rejected. It reminded me a lot of some abuse I've gone through and it made me dislike the character. Now that I have more context on the character, I get why she reacted so suddenly and violently because CF kinda threw all of her triggers at her. It feels like she dug her grave in that route, but she dug it in a way that resembles a Greek Tragedy more than anything else. My second route was Claude's route, which thoroughly disappointed me in terms of its writing. When Rhea was exposition dumping her backstory, I was like "I'm boooored," so that really didn't help my opinion of the character. I also don't really like how she gets damsels in three out of four routes. I still don't actively like the character very much because she left a really sour taste in my mouth, but I understand that I'm missing information and that there are reasons to like her. I'm open to learning more about her, but she just really rubs me the wrong way.
Yuri
I never finished Cindered Shadows and I have no real opinion on Yuri. I thought he was a girl when I first saw him and I think he's fun to play as in gameplay, so I guess there's that. I don't really see myself replaying Cindered Shadows if I even finish it because it lacks a lot of the major things I liked from 3H.
Seteth
Does he even get to count? Like, he's not in charge and Rhea should've probably been the leader of Silver Snow. Haven't played that route yet. I like Seteth. He's got good dad energy and also he's my wife (specifically in Verdent Wind). He's got good vibes. Also, if you kill Flayn in Crimson Flower, his English voice acting when he's like "Flayn Noooo" gets to me. I still really like Seteth. A solid 8/10 for me.
Dmitri
I wasn't following Three Houses advertising at all, so I didn't know anything about anyone going in. I was originally just going to skip him entirely because he looked boring and had shitty hair. So I did his route last. Partially out if curiosity for the character, partially because I might as well do every major route since I'd already done Claude and Edelgard, partially to get to know some of the Blue Lions, and partially because some of Edelgard's backstory is only revealed in this route and I was curious about that. Dmitri's route definitely has the best writing out of any of the routes. I really like how personal the route is and how much it focuses on how one specific event impacted all of the characters in it. There are some big problems I have with the route and Dmitri, like how the game uses psychosis to represent Dmitri being murdery and how him changing his mind felt more like Byleth's decision than his own due to their conversation being pretty bad. But overall, he has the best writing. I'd strongly recommend playing through his route if you haven't just because the writing's rather good there. The reason why he's ranked below Claude and Edelgard, however, is pretty simple: I just don't vibe with him. Like, the hero archetype bores the hell out of me, even when it is subverted like it is here. I also just didn't relate to the character on really any level while I did with Claude and Edelgard. The amount of Edelgard slander in his name also annoys me, but I don't think it really impacts how much I like Dmitri. He's a well written character that I just don't vibe with. I also remember his death in Verdant Wind and being like “wtf was that??” Like, the writers killed him offscreen.. twice. In the same route.
Claude 
I really enjoyed Claude as a character. He left a good first impression on me and I almost picked him for my first playthrough because he’s hot and sassy. Two good traits for any character. I ended up picking Edelgard, though, and he left a good impression on me during CF. I like that he held the alliance together and had a contingency plan for if he lost that battle. When I played his route, I ended up going Hard Mode NG+ Casual and I stuck everyone on a dragon. I did find it funny that throughout the school phase, Claude learns bow stuff repeatedly, then in one of the last months, he went up to me and was like “hey, can you start teaching me in axe and flying?” Which he had nothing in either. Then timeskip happens and he comes waltzing in on a dragon. Claude is where all the good memes in the fandom go. That said, I really disliked his route because Claude felt like an afterthought in it (because he literally was). I don’t like that I got out of the route and it felt like I didn’t know as much more about the character going out than I did going in. Some of that is because I didn’t see a ton of his supports, which is where pretty much all of the character work is. I like how Claude is open minded and actively tries to seek out the truth. So, overall, I found his route a bit disappoint but I still really like him because he’s a fun character.
Edelgard
I fucking love Edelgard. She was my first pick and therefore the character that introduced me to the game, and by extension, the series of Fire Emblem. I picked her because she’s pretty, she looked ready to fistfight god from the word go, and she seemed like the mascot of the game so I figured the writers might put a bit extra effort into her route (they didn’t, rip). My very first playthrough was actually a Normal/Classic run, but I had to abandon the run because literally everyone died four hours into the save (I swapped to Normal/Casual). Edelgard ended up carrying me through my first playthrough. I stuck her on a dragon and she killed literally everyone and everything. In my most recent playthrough of the game, I did CF and made her an archer mage dancer for the memes and that was also a ton of fun to play with. Her gameplay feel had a role in me liking her (like, Dmitri is also very powerful, but it was my third playthrough and I knew what I was doing better by then, so him being just as OP as Edelgard didn’t really influence my opinion on him as much as it did her). 
Besides the gameplay, Edelgard’s probably the major character that I relate to the most. Every character on this list (except maybe Byleth or Yuri, I know literally nothing about Yuri tho) has experience with trauma and is coping with it in some way. Edelgard copes by villainizing herself and shutting off her emotions, but despite that, she’s still a low-empathy person who’s still very compassionate person who cares about others and is trying to do the right thing. She also generally tries to express some amount of compassion to her enemies, even if it’s little more than saying “it sucks that Dmitri had to die.” She’s not as open-minded or as truth-seeking as Claude is, but she still tries to keep herself open to other viewpoints and will readily accept any she deems as valid at a moment’s notice. I just really like that about her because I share a lot of those traits in common with her. I also like the idea of her being someone who’s willing to do evil things to bring good to the world. That’s not something you normally get in a protagonist and I think that’s a cool idea. 
I still found her route to be very awkward, especially with no context. Like, I missed the line where Edelgard’s like “yeah, btw, I’m the Flame Emperor,” so I was just wondering what happened there. It’s an anticlimactic way to end the main plot of the first half of the game. I also didn’t really get Rhea’s angle at all. So the route just felt a lot like “I guess I’m doing this now??” In other routes, I found her deaths to be very hard hitting. The death in Verdant Wind only really got me because I really liked Edelgard and she was my original student and I could feel how much she wanted to make her future a reality and how her failing meant all of those sacrifices she made and the evils she’d done would now all be for nothing. I get that impression with Azure Moon’s ending too. 
Most of my appreciation for the character does come from her support conversations. I like how her chain with Bernie has her trying to learn how to not scare her off. Her interactions with Dorothea in their support chain are kind of sad because Dorothea is trying to show her admiration and love for Edelgard in a way that makes sense to her but then Edelgard’s low view of herself causes her to reject the offer. I really liked her Manuela support too (haven’t seen Hanneman’s but I’ve heard that it’s good). I like how with Manuela, Edelgard learns why people are religious and she that being religious doesn’t make you weak. I like her Linhart support where he calls her out for trying to dictate his life and she responds by trying to overhaul some of her own systems and assumptions about him, which leads to her giving him a role to the empire that also properly accommodates for his needs. I like how with Ferdinand’s supports, he has to learn to let go of their rivalry, but once that does happen, Edelgard takes into account his ideas and roles with them. I think it’s funny that she and Hubert flirt with each other by sending each other credible death threats. Edelgard just has a lot of very good supports. Don’t get me wrong, Claude and Dmitri also have supports that are good (I thought Claude’s support chain with Petra was cute and I really like Dmitri’s support chain with Flayn), but Edelgard’s supports go a long way to paint her as someone who is flawed but still really admirable.
Edelgard is definitely one of my favorite fictional characters, and I’d love to see more characters like her in the future.
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