Broke: Edelgard good/bad Woke: Edelgard is a morally gray character whose actions cannot be categorized in such simple and singular terms. Bespoke: Edelgard sexy
Why I like Crimson Flower is that it is the only route where all major goals are accomplished (even if killing TWSITD is offscreen) with nothing being left to fate/chance; Edelgard and her army directly achieves everything she sets out to do. With Verdant Wind, Claude is fortunate that the church/Rhea essentially becomes so weak as to cede its power, and is also lucky enough that Hubert was willing to share the truth of where TWSITD are located, two obstacles that could have shattered his dream if not for what he calls "fate" (and one can argue that CF sparing Claude still leaves his dream intact, anyway). And Azure Moon? The church is still intact and while some important TWSITD leaders are slain, the organization itself still persists. It is telling that CF is the only route where Byleth essentially reclaims their humanity at its conclusion, and I find Edelgard's arc one about owning one's own destiny and seizing it without leaving anything to chance or fate.
Also pre-war Fodlan has lots of war and conflict. Jeralt and Byleth are mercenaries, traveling from nation to nation to fight in conflicts. As evident by the opening where Jeralt tells you that you are going to the Alliance the next day. You were in the Empire I believe(?) And Jeralt is a LEGENDARY MERCINARY, someone people look up to. Clearly war is common in this continent.
It isn't war persay that is so common, but rather uprisings or political conflicts between families. In all 3 of the nations, there are noted uprisings from different groups in them that remain active for years.
This sums up so much of why “Edelgard is evil!” people drive me insane. She’s a much deeper character than they want to admit and honestly I think her war is the only way anything would change. If she doesn’t do anything, Rhea just keeps the country in an endless stagnation that helps nobody but those abusing their authority and power.
"Edelgard is evil!" Huh,almost as if Dimitri hadn't a whole 'insanity' arc,Claude being a backstabbing piece of shit,Serios/Rhea being a tyrannical irredeemable hypocrite who can't even help her own problems yet tries to help humanity only to fail miserably. Let's not forget Nemesis and Thales who are borderline pure evil
Every character is morally gray. The issue is that the people who like Claude, Dimitri, and Rhea acknowledge there is bad in what they have done. Meanwhile Edelgard engages in full war crimes and abets the people who caused basically every problem she has with Fodlan, and she gets the waifu pass.
Thank you very much! It was amazing video about Edelgard von Hresvelg! I am so sorry what so many people simply look at her just another "pure evil villan", instead of "tragic social reformer". And your explain about this subject is beatiful. I agree with every your word!
Pure Evil? I mean,yes,war crimes are awful but Edelgard barely compares to any of the irredeemable villains such as Nergal who lost his mind beyond unimaginable horrors and literally forgot why he even wanted power in the first place or any of the Begnion Senators who are practically greedy assholes who brought shame on their First Empress (Altina,who is one of Ashera's Three Houses and wielder of both Ragnell and Aldonite) with one of them being as much as of a spineless coward as Reinhard or basically FUCKING ARVIS AND BERKUT Is Edelgard evil? Depends on what you define as evil,but atleast she has many reedemable qualities and is sympathetic
@@axonymous_thevoice I agree with you. I didn't say about Edelgard was "Pure Evil" and so on, as my own opinion. It was simple an example of "what common wrong opinion about Edelgard people usually has".
I know it's kind of a tricky thing to graft modern-day politics onto a feudal world (much less an alternate universe feudal world with magic and dragons and near-immortal beings), but you hinted at it in your final analysis of each of the three lords so I'm gonna dabble in it too: The three lords vaguely represent three different political perspectives which, depending on one's interpretation of the events of Three Houses, can each be read in a couple ways. (Just to state my biases upfront before diving into this topic: I'm a libertarian socialist who supports Edelgard the most among the three lords. Take that as you will, but I still love the other two lords as well and do think that there are positives to their worldviews. I just think that Edelgard is the best *politically* whereas the other two stories work better as personal redemption narrative and world-building feast climaxing with God Shattering Star.) Dimitri can represent ideologies from conservatism to reformist neoliberalism. He has faith in the hierarchical crest-based institutions, the Church, and the traditionalist customs of Faerghus. Even if one were to interpret his AM ending as optimistically as possible, his government seems to point to only surface-level reforms, as you mentioned. A forum where the common people can weigh in on affairs is good stuff compared to pre-war Fódlan, but it's very likely that the aristocracy (the aristocracy that Dimitri left intact) would just unravel those reforms after Dimitri's reign anyway. (Analogous to the unraveling of New Deal/social democratic policies over the last five decades in our own world.) At best, Dimitri is a well-intentioned liberal who wants to do the most good he can within the confines of the status quo; at worst, he's an ignorant reactionary too blindly devoted to the past and tradition to implement the changes actually needed in Fódlan. Claude's goals are a bit more complex. He can represent ideologies from left-liberalism to progressive internationalism. His goal of abolishing racism and elitism is admirable for sure, and opening the border between Fódlan and Almyra would have far-reaching effects on the world. You can also see some of it in smaller flavor dialogue with Claude and certain NPCs, but it sounds like he also wants to push Fódlan towards a more market-based/liberal capitalist type system -- something even most Marxists would argue is an improvement over feudalism. That said, you bring up great points in the video: his continued support of Rhea (as well as VW being the only route where she survives and remains archbishop) just leaves the door open for her to undo any progress he implements, especially since there's precedent for her to do that sort of thing already. This is the folly of incremental (even if progressive) liberalism: ongoing acquiescence to an imbalanced status quo just allows those with power to acclimate the class hierarchies to new social norms. Rhea could export her religious dogmatism to Almyra, a less racist aristocracy would still be an injustice, the transition from feudalism to capitalism arguably just creates a new de facto aristocracy centered on industry rather than on lineage, etc. At best, Claude is a consensus-seeking progressive who wants Fódlan to live its best life through advancements in technology and the destruction of racism; at worst, he's an "enlightened centrist" whose attempts at reform would probably just be blocked by the very institution he fights to preserve. Edelgard is, in my view, the best path forward for Fódlan, even if I agree with some of the criticisms brought against her in this video and others. She can represent a broad range of "authoritarian left" ideologies, from general Leninism to a kind of intense Machiavellian left-populism. She is vehemently opposed to the Church, the crest system, and the aristocracy more broadly, and she ultimately wants to build an egalitarian world where people are judged according to their merits rather than their lineage. Whether she advocates a meritocratic republic or a kind of proto-socialism is open to interpretation, though I would argue that those two things aren't necessarily opposed. (Leninism advocates a society defined by "from each according to their ability, to each according to their contribution" directly following capitalism -- a system with socialized production (a democratic economy) where people receive more of society's resource surplus (after everyone has their core material needs met) based on outstanding hard work or labor contribution rather than on their ownership over land or titles or the means of production. I believe that this is in-line with what Edelgard advocates, or as close to in-line as a mainstream game in a capitalist society would reasonably allow.) Crucially, she believes in concentrating power so that it can be wielded to undermine the root foundations of power inequity itself. There are flaws to this idea for sure, but there isn't really any debate over whether she actually believes that -- she sincerely does, but the non-CF routes have her become especially Machiavellian in pursuit of that goal. Additionally, I also agree with your assessment in the video: it is only because Edelgard made her forceful push that any of the smaller changes/reforms could happen in Fódlan, regardless of the route. This mirrors how change happens in the real world: basic reforms have always required future-oriented far-left revolutionaries to drag the Overton Window further along, with new status quos acclimating to reforms and either actually getting more egalitarian or just taking on the appearance of it (as is the case with, say, "rainbow/girlboss/inclusive capitalism" in our time). At best, Edelgard is a revolutionary committed to a classless future freed from the barbarism of history; at worst, she's a dogmatic Machiavellian who will steamroll anybody who gets in the way of her goal. Someday I'd love to see this topic tackled in more detail with a long-format video essay. As for this video, I loved it and really appreciate all the work you put into it! It's always refreshing to see more nuanced love for Edelgard's character and critical support for her mission, so this video was just what the doctor ordered. 🙂
Hey! What an absolutely fantastic comment, I enjoyed reading it a whole bunch, thanks a lot for making it! The exercise of mapping these characters to real-world philosophies is one I've thought about, but never really tried to do myself because of how radically different Fódlan is to the real world, as you rightfully point out, but I think you pretty much completely nail it. I would love to offer some pushback, because I love to discuss these things and I think they're the most fun when there's a little bit of back-and-forth, but I'm in almost complete agreement with everything you say, so all I can do is just sort of nod and say "yeah!" at everything. I think part of it is that we seem to have pretty similar ideological biases (libertarian socialism is roughly where I land politically, too). Just in order to add something, I would like to draw a parallel between Claude and a bunch of the "mainstream left" parties all across the world, though - by which I mean the party that's the less right-wing of the two that win every election: The UK's labour, the US's Dems, Spain's PSOE, etc etc. I think he fits in neatly with their progressive liberalism. To some extent, his beliefs can be summarized as follows: "the current system and status quo is fine, but it's weighed down by old fashioned attitudes and bigotry that result in the oppression of minorities - don't change the system, just get rid of bigotry, and everything will be fair", which might as well be word-for-word how progressive liberals view the world. In a way, his position IS that "rainbow/girlboss/inclusive capitalism" - the system's fine, just stop excluding the crestless/Almyrans/commoners/Duscurrians from it! This is purely anecdotal, but it's always felt to me like most people who play the game think Claude would be the best leader for Fódlan, which sort of adds up when we factor in that progressive liberalism is the prevalent attitude in a lot of the world (or in the parts of the world that are likely to be talking about Fire Emblem with me on the Internet, anyway). I'm being a bit unfair, because he does have positions that are more radical than just inclusiveness (fully open borders, for instance), but I think you get my drift - his adherence to the status quo means the only changes he's likely to actually make are painfully incremental while his more radical ideas fall by the wayside.
@@masterplusmargarita Since having made my original comment, I have completed Edelgard's route on Three Hopes (and I aim to eventually get around to Claude's) and I think I might rescind what I said about Claude, at least if we're analyzing his whole character across both games. In Edelgard's route, he sides with the Empire during the war and clearly wants to kill Rhea and end the influence of the Church too. I haven't played Verdant Wind in a long time, so I might've overlooked something key in my original comment, but it seems like Claude may have actually wanted Rhea alive so that she could spill the beans on the truth of Fódlan's history, not because he had any kind of interest in maintaining the Church into the long-term. Based on my admittedly still-incomplete observations, he seems more moderate in Houses and more radical in Hopes (and even occasionally more villainous if certain conditions are met, which I think is good character-writing and explores a part of him only hinted at in Houses). But I now think labeling him a liberal centrist analogue is a bit reductive. Playing Hopes made me wish that we got some actual Empire/Alliance team-up content in Houses, because the worldviews of Edelgard and Claude are not only reconcilable -- they're downright compatible and complementary. A golden ending for Fódlan would need to involve Edelgard's "Leninist oomph" when it comes to disposessing the nobility and the Church *and* Claude's flexibility and internationalism and decentralist outlook. As far as I'm concerned, a merging of those two worldviews would put Fódlan on the quickest path to some kind of political democracy, maybe even an eventually classless one (again, classless in the Marxist sense, not in the "everyone literally has the same amount of resources and a utopian togetherness is achieved" sense). Plus, the allied interactions between Edelgard and Claude were just really *fun* to witness, so more of that would've been fantastic!
@@daivambrosia6647 I played through Golden Wildfire on launch of Three Hopes (and haven't made my way through any of the other routes yet... I found the game pretty boring, to be completely honest, with considerably less interesting writing than Houses), and my interpretation of Claude was fairly similar to yours. He's definitely leaning way further in Edelgard's direction in that game than he is in Houses, and I agree with him more there. The one thing he does that I don't like is turn Leicester into a pure monarchy, removing the thing in Fodlan that's closest to a democracy. But the fact that's the one thing I disagree with him on is sort of my problem with it, I feel like Claude is a different character in Hopes than he is in Houses. In Houses he's characterized by caution and planning, his whole thing is gathering information, sometimes in lieu of taking action and he continues to support Rhea, seeing the Church as a stabilizing element in Fódlan. In Hopes he does not - if anything, the character flaw he's meant to be overcoming in Golden Wildfire is a sort of recklessness, and he turns on Rhea pretty much as soon as he has the chance, recognizing it as the main barrier to Fodlan's improvement. I just can't reconcile the two takes on Claude as the same person, which is why I think Three Hopes sort of bungles his character, turning him from his own person into a sort of Edelgard-lite, especially when so much of Verdant Wind was centered around rescuing Rhea and restoring her position specifically. Hopes Claude is a contender with Edelgard for best path forward (especially if they can form an alliance rather than turn on each other), but I simply don't see him as the same character as Houses Claude. I do need to get back around to playing Hopes - I'm much colder on it than everyone else seems to be, and it seems like Golden Wildfire is the consensus worst route, so I may have just picked a bad starting point. I didn't find Golden Wildfire that bad as I was playing it - just sort of dull - , but as more time passes and I think back on it more and more the more I convince myself it was just sort of a badly written mess, and I don't know if that's me catching onto flaws or projecting back my disappointment. The fact that I find Warriors-style gameplay pretty tedious probably didnt help either, I was basically slogging through fights to get to story bits (and doing every fight possible to ensure I'd max everyone's support and get all the dialogue... Maybe not the optimal way to play)
@@masterplusmargarita That's a really interesting point about Claude's character differences across both games and I'll have to keep that in mind once I get around to Golden Wildfire. Even with the milquetoast reception towards GW, I'm still super curious about it, since I find Claude wanting to kill Rhea to be a really cool development and I was really excited when I first heard about the pact between him and Edelgard before I even bought the game. (I refuse to play Azure Gleam because I hear they turn Edelgard into a psychologically-regressed puppet of Thales, and I'm *very* *much* not into that.) In the end, of the three main lords, I feel like Claude is probably the most difficult to pin down when it comes to characterization, since he holds his cards close to his chest and is always concocting some kind of gambit or scheme. I find characters like that super interesting, but they run more of a risk of not feeling as concrete as characters with clearer motivations (like Edelgard or Dimitri). I'm guessing that they wrote Claude that way in Hopes because they wanted to show off another side of his personality in the same way the other lords already got in Houses; plus I think the "too headstrong" angle is something that was written in there to showcase how maybe Byleth and the Academy helped rein in some of that part of his personality in Houses. In any case, I still see his *political* characterization as more compelling after playing through Hopes and reassessing Houses. Analyzed together, I do think that his "enlightened centrist" vibe is *a* *bit* of a front and that he does want to see something fundamentally similar to what Edelgard fights for. ("A bit" being the operative phrase there, since while I do think he is personally committed to change and ending racism, he's also very much an opportunist and willing to side with the status quo when he deems it necessary for his plans.) Dimitri, on the other hand, still remains pretty firmly conservative in my eyes, even if there are times when he says he vaguely agrees with Edelgard's ideals in theory. I don't know if you experienced the scene in the same way in Golden Wildfire, but in Scarlet Blaze there's a scene in Zahras where the three lords are transported alongside Shez, and it's very clear that Edelgard and Claude are mostly on the same page about their worldviews when they have a one-on-one conversation, whereas there still seems to be enough of a rift between Edelgard and Dimitri for them to never come to a peaceful solution. You could make the case that there are three broad ideological factions in the Fódlan universe: the disruptors (Edelgard and Claude), the status quo (Dimitri and the Church), and the Obligatory FE Evil Guys (Those Who Slither In The Dark). Thematically speaking, *these* three factions are the real "three houses" of Fódlan.
i will preface this with saying i havent watched the video in full yet, i was just glancing at the comments first just in case. i only wanted to respond to the VW/Claude section of this comment, if thats alright. re:rhea, while shes only mentioned in one of the vw endings, lets say we take for granted she assumes her position again no matter what. this time though, its important to recall two things: 1. Rhea owes her freedom to both byleth and claude 2. I would argue byleth has even more power than Rhea at this point, not only as the monarch of Fodlan but as the bearer of the Goddess' crest stone. the importance of byleth in this scenario is not to be understated. we should assume that whatever changes claude wants to implement, byleth will probably agree to, and they will have the upper hand on rhea, and prevent backsliding as well. byleth's now longer lifespan will also be helpful with this, beyond claude's life. on a more personal note for me, i believe that the reason claude supports rhea at all is because byleth's existence lets him use the knights to hold out against the empire instead of having to submit to them. and while i talk about claude, there's a few things i usually see go unnoticed when talk arises. we must remember as well that claude says about edelgard that hes got a pretty good idea of what shes trying to do (unlike dimitri who just... doesnt see it), and in his combat dialogue with her, he says that he'll finish the job for her. now we dont *see* this pay off we dont rightly know what he meant, but not the point. that was all without taking into account that in 3 Hopes, we see even further that claude is, more than anything, open minded when it comes to progress and different government systems. while we wouldnt expect a destruction of class system entirely within his lifespan (nor do we see it in edelgard's, she mostly enables class mobility by merit + ensures the "nobles"/government officials are there to work and not bleed the people dry), we see in claude's interactions with lorenz that he'd be very much open to electing leaders by popular vote, for example. naturally while people who are nobles would come up on top at first because of the difference in education and influence, this is a topic of nuance which im not about to get down to the details of, thats not my point. im also not gonna get into hopes claude's different stance on rhea, aka "yeah we can kill her so lets do it" i just think its pretty cool and it shows to me that rhea surviving in VW is just bc its whats most beneficial to him at the moment, hes very well aware the church is the source of the problems in fodlan and aims to change it using byleth's divine link in the og game, and he wants to use defeating rhea as a bargaining chip so that edelgard has to at least listen to him in GW. the point is. claude's goal isnt just Ending racism, its opening people's eyes and minds. showing them that things *can* be different, and that one shouldnt just brush things off because theyre different from oneself. and not just in race! claude's ideal is pushing to reject narrow-mindedness, conformism, and things like tradition and the status quo holding society back. theres a whole world of ideas, government systems, faith... and this opens the flood gates for any of these new thoughts to be expressed and combined into birthing new ideas. and while my sentiments for real life politics echo more with edelgard's side of things because things are just getting ridiculous, i still think claude's ending opens a wealth of great possibilites for fodlan (and almyra) in the long run, and i think thats praiseworthy. we can try to put labels on him if we want, but rather trying to pin him with any one known system, its more accurate to see he represents freedom of thought and a rejection of what is considered to be set in stone. just because he will go with x or y system now it doesnt mean he didnt do the ground work for the future to adopt a better one too even beyond his lifespan.
Edelgard: sends 2 friends to gronder, ordering one to retreat upon defeat Dimitri and Claude: Sends almost all friends to Gronder and still only has one retreat
This is what confuses me so much about Three Houses. Edelgard's actions never come across in-game as bad as they are described as, and yet the game is trying to make her seem that bad when she really isn't. There might as well be no split paths or anything because the game takes what you think for granted, no matter what it may be.
You know who else started a COMPLETELY JUSTIFIED war of aggression in order to put a permanent end to an objectively evil system of oppression that clearly was NOT going to end peacefully anytime soon? Abraham Lincoln himself, among many other historical figures, but he is the first who comes to mind. I rest my case. Also, I have seen some quality videos get nowhere near the number of views that they deserve before, but under 1,000 views for such a well structured video essay? That takes the metaphorical cake.
The difference is that you know slave owners weren't superhumans with standing armies that could stage a coup the day Lincoln was dead and elections were held. And even then discrimination still happens today in the US, a democratic country where equality is supposed to be a keystone of the country's foundation. In a medieval feudalistic empire where a 16 year old with a crest could crush barehanded fully trained career soldiers wearing full plate armor what would happen? If merit is all that counts then shouldn't the Agarthans or the Nabateans be included in positions of ruling since they are citizens of Fodlan and have lived for centuries? Is morality a merit in the new system? Will Edelgard go to war with her own supporters to protect freedom of religion or will she let innocents die ? What about her successors? If a person without a crest and a big devotee of St. Seiros born in Dagda and raised in the Empire is the best successor wil they be allowed to ascend? These are the questions that we are never given the answers for and make me as much as I love El as a Lord (she is up there with Dimitri for me since I think both of them are amazing characters) to consider her route to be the worst for Fodlan as a whole, even thought it might be the best for Byleth.
God, we have failed teaching history. Lincoln didn't go to war with the South because of slavery. He even stated it himself. It was to keep the country united under the Union. He tried what he could to appease the South from seceding from the Union. But once it was clear they had no intention of compromising, he went to war. He eventually added slavery to his list of reasons to fight the South as many Northerns didn't care if the South seceded. We need to remember that most soldiers in wars are young men. What better way to entice young men to join the fight to "free" slaves. This also enticed many "free" black men to fight to "free" their brothers. Even after the war, not every slave was set "free." Blacks continued to face discrimination in both the South and North for many more decades.
The only negative thing I can say after watching this incredibly good video is, why do you only have 4 videos on your channel? Seriously, thank you for making this. I really enjoyed it!
I'm just going to send this next time I feel too tired arguing one of those people. Great work! Just small corrections: the Crests don't disappear as Rhea dies, it's only Byleth's since it was tied to the Crest stone in their heart, not blood. However the game implies that the Crest bloodlines are thinning and the glorified genetic mutations are set to die out eventually. Also Rhea is very much implied to die in VW, leaving Claude free to install Byleth as a leader who's favourable to him.
To me, Edelgard is more of an Anti Hero. Even though she does a lot of questionable stuff in the story, she does have good intentions. Not everyone has to be a goody two shoed hero or a mustache twirling villain, there are some who has to do some horrible stuff for the greater good. And that’s one of the reasons why Fire Emblem Three Houses is great in terms of writing, not everyone is good or evil, they’re just trying to change the world for the better, look out for their loved ones, seeking revenge or pursue their dreams of a better life.
Yeah, that one confused me. My assumption was that Byleth's crest stone was only functioning because of some magic enforced by Rhea. Even if the two aren't actively linked, it would be a case of killing the caster kills the spell. Either that, or it's a case of them going against Rhea's intentions for them. Even if she died in other routes, those ones didn't see Byleth actively oppose her, and thus defy the purpose for which they were given the crest stone. That would make it a case of breaking the rules breaks the spell.
@@Neutra77I think it’s more likely the second option because as you said, Rhea dies in multiple routes. I think it’s mostly because it would make no sense for Byleth to keep being the vessel of the goddess despite overthrowing the church and her children haha. That also makes this path where Byleth isn’t doomed to immortality but gets to grow old with her students :)
Love the video, and a lot of your points are neat. I found your take about Dimitri to be interesting. That Dimitri could become a good king, but due to the values of Farghaus and its devotion to the church his Fodlan would have the least change. I do differ on one aspect on Dimitri though. You said Dimitri doesn't take out Those Who Slither in the Dark. In Blue Lions Dimitri takes the most TWSD commanders in his main story. You could say that they could recover eventually since Dimitri doesn't attack Shambala directly, but Myson, Thales' generic Warlock lieutenant, acts like those that are there on Blue Lions final map are all that is left of the Agarthans since Dimitri took out Cordelia, Arundel/Thales, and their personal armies before the final map. I always found it funny in Blue Lions main story that Dimitri killed all of the major TWSD commanders without even knowing who they or their organization actually were.
Great video. It is always frustrating to see the hate for this character, especially when the hate blatantly doesn't bother to engage with her character in a meaningful way.
I find it uniquely frustrating. I get having different perspectives on the game, but a lot of time the criticism feels like it comes from a place of not even understanding the most basic aspects of what's going on.
Starting a new comment to continue from your reply. Discussing this game is always fun! And yeah as you said the beauty of Three Houses is that nobody is unambiguously in the right, so you can create different interpretations, draw different conclusions about the characters. However, I do take issue with your conclusion that because Claude and Dimitri simply maintain the status quo, Edelgard is better ending. You give Edelgard's route the most charitable interpretation of how it impacts society, so I implore you to do the same for Dimitri and Claude. And in this interpretation, we'll assume the best part of Edelgard's ending is that it replaces feudalism with a new system of government and thus grants more social mobility. It also genuinely selects for competent leaders. I argue that Dimitri and Claude's endings achieve similar endpoints, even if in a more subtle way, and certainly do not leave the status quo intact. To support my point, I will use the solo ending cards for Claude and DImitri as well. In Dimitri's ending, he "spent his life reforming and ruling justly over Fodlan. He focused particularly on improving living situations for orphans and improving foreign relations." It explicitly states he worked on reforms. Additionally, you pointed out in your video that Fodlan had problems with isolation and intolerance of other nations, xenophobia. The reason for this xenophobic attitude in Fodlan is likely the clerical nature of the nation (their land has the blessing of the goddess, so it makes them superior). In other words, opening up the borders already fundamentally defies the church's teachings/rulings (Lorenz actually says this in his supports with Claude). Wanting to tackle this issue is a large part of his character, because of his relationship with Dedue, and Dimitri follows through with it. Dimitri already carried his own desire for change, and it is a disservice to his character to say he maintains a status quo or has no revolutionary desires, even if he is more conservative than the other two lords. You touched on the implications of him instituting a new form of government, and while it surely isn't a pure democracy, it is still a lot better than what Fodlan previously had. It seems like perhaps this is only a superficial, small change, but what I want to focus on is this line: "He lived for his people and alongside them." The words "alongside them" is what is most revealing of his new system. First, we know his government allows all people to be active participants in their government. And he created a society in which a king can live "alongside" his people. Taken together, this suggests at minimum a loosening of social divide thus granting more power to commoners, and at best a society that no longer is shackled by birthright, crests, and lineage as the condition for power. In both cases, this is social mobility, something Edelgard strives for in her system. Perhaps Dimitri's approach isn't as drastic as hers, we don't know how he tackles the nobility system itself, but I doubt he would leave it as is, knowing how his friends have suffered from it and his willingness to listen to suffering of the people (in many of Sylvain's endings, he convinced the nobility that crests are unnecessary). Still, his leadership changes Fodlan in substantial ways, by defying the church's old doctrines by tackling xenophobia and at least letting all people have the ability to partake in their government in some capacity. In allowing all people to have a voice in their government, this does lead to far more competent leadership than Fodlan's nobility system that can take a corrupt noble's word as law. This new system carries the promise of further change. While a feudal system is possibly not fully removed in Dimitri's route, there is certainly a break in the status quo with his going against the church's attitudes towards other nations, and in reforming the government so that the people have more power. This would make the worst aspects of the nobility system less impactful. Taken this charitable reading in comparison to Edelgard's charitable reading, there is enough overlap: social mobility, defiance of the church's teachings, and the potential for things to further improve. At the very least, Dimitri's rule over Fodlan isn't nearly as bleak as you depicted in the video. Claude's solo ending is less vaguely wording than Dimitri's, but perhaps not detailed enough. Still, what we can glean from it is that Claude leaves Fodlan to lead Almyra and create open borders that eventually leads to peaceful coexistence between people. Given Claude's distaste for crests/nobility as is, I sincerely doubt he'll bring the problematic aspects of Fodlan to Almyra. In VW, Rhea resigns from her position as Archbishop, by the way, so her going back into power is a nonissue. She either dies from her illness (as she does in SS without S-support), which you can conclude because Catherine leaves the Knights of Seiros in VW solo ending, or retires to Zanado with Catherine. Claude only wanted her alive because he was looking for answers. I would concede on most of your other points on what Claude brings to Fodlan, and with the knowledge that he does not let Rhea back into power, surely you can agree that what he created is not simple a rehash of the status quo. He hopes to address much of the same issues as Edelgard, with greater emphasis on foreign relations than the internal politics of the nobility system, but he still desires to reform both. His method is more slow than hers, yes, but I think there is a great wisdom in not forcing change too quickly. In waiting for greater, longer-lasting rewards. Edelgard's methods and her stubbornness/tunnel vision lead to her taking very extreme and violent means to achieve her goal-- including implicitly finishing off a genocide. I get Byleth regaining their heartbeat is meant to be a triumphant moment for humanity in the CF route, but it strikes me as saddening too. Edelgard wants for humanity to thrive, and her vision of "humanity" explicitly does not include the Nabateans or Agarthians. Of course, the Agarthians are depicted as the aggressors, so wiping them out can perhaps be morally justified. But the Nabateans are able to be reasoned with (in VW, Rhea is willing to forfeit her power), and though not humans, they are, under our modern day understanding of it, a sapient species (i.e. people). Edelgard's vision leaves no room for an entire species that fits our definition of personhood to live. She knows what Rhea is and wants her dead, she kills Seteth and Flayn, and in Linhardt's paralogue he does not want Edelgard present when he is looking for Saint Indech. Byleth becoming human again is a miracle as they defy fate with Edelgard, but it also means the Sothis (Nabatean) part of Byleth has to go (god is dead and edelgard killed her, ig?), because that part of Byleth's identity has no place in Edelgard's world. It's part personal, because I am upset about the attempted genocide of the Nabateans in Fodlan's history, and it seems history is doomed to repeat itself in CF. But it is also poses an ethical concern. Is the extermination of a species of people worth the peace afterwards? Compared to that, Claude's way is a more morally palatable path to change. Even if it takes longer, it truly does welcome all people and best embodies that spirit of unification, including non-humans. Rhea is able to live the rest of her days in relative peace, while not in a position of power. Speaking of Rhea, though, the crest system is absolutely defunct and even when she reclaims power, she does NOT reinforce it. She tells the the truth about the crests, and is tired of humans fighting for power, aware that the crests are a primary cause of the recent war. In her paired ending with Byleth in SS, when Rhea regains her title as archbishop, she puts efforts into redemption and "applied herself to rehabilitating the church and helping those who had suffered because of the war." Most importantly, she "[forged] new policies and [achieved] progress for Fodlan" with the game describing her work as "nothing short of miraculous." Rhea's work on Fodlan's government isn't specifically described, but it's incredibly obvious the crest-based nobility system is gone. Having Rhea back in power isn't the most revolutionary thing you can do, I suppose, but even in SS she is able to own up to her mistakes and improve Fodlan. (part 2 in reply)
PT II: Edelgard's desire for change is absolutely justified. It took great courage to do what she did, and it set off the start of reforming Fodlan to something better in all the routes. However, when you look at the very best each route has to offer, I don't see any particular ending unambiguously coming out on top. All three of the main lords' endings achieve greater social mobility. They directly oppose the church's old teachings in some form, and Rhea loses power in all three. The influence of the nobility/crests are reduced, to varying degrees. Most importantly, they all shatter the status quo and sow the seeds for long-lasting change. Also this doesn't fit into my argument anywhere but Lorenz! The game directly contradicts your assertion that Lorenz does not change his stance on the nobility-commoner relationship. In his A support with Byleth, Lorenz word for word says, "bloodline alone is insufficient to gauge a person's worth" and that Byleth is so much more than the abilities the crest grants them. Like Ferdinand, Lorenz still wants to embody the ideal of nobility but eventually comes to conclude that the crest/bloodline-based nobility system is not the best way to foster those ideals (he has a monastery dialogue saying so in CF). Additionally, you can look at Lorenz's solo ending card: "His political talent yielded revolutionary policy changes, many of which were of particular benefit to the commonfolk." The text outright describes his political career as revolutionary. He almost certainly has a hand in completely changing the way the nobility operates, even if unspecified, and the changes he brought were specifically designed to improve the lives of commoners. If you take Lorenz's character growth as a whole, you can see how his attitudes towards marriage mirror/parallel his changing attitudes on the nobility. Pre-timeskip, Lorenz's "suitable spouse" had to be a noble. Post-timeskip, he becomes open to accepting a commoner as his wife, i.e. bringing a person of non-noble birth into a position of power. His personal journey reflects his stance on the concept of social mobility, and he thinks it is a good thing. What's so impressive about his character, to me, is that this is a conclusion he comes to independently, after observing the world around him more carefully. People typically have a hard time changing cherished beliefs, because they don't want to be wrong, or perhaps that belief grants comfort. Lorenz values reason and truth far more than being in the right, so he is able to see the errors of his ways through his own introspection. There is no one support or turning moment that changes Lorenz. Rather, Lorenz responds to the ideas of his peers in good faith, while defending his own stance, and then, off-screen, he changes his mind and admits where there is a flaw in his thinking. It shows that he gives the other perspective serious consideration in his own time, and thinks about how it could be a better way to achieve his goals. Not many characters-- and real people-- are capable of completely discarding a cherished belief in this way, and he has my respect for that. And while I do not defend the real life feudal system, the one in Fodlan is a) fictional and b) formed in a way that is different from ours (magic, crests, dragon-people). So while the oppression and abuse of power is there and we can use our own history as a baseline for comparison, it is not the same as the system in our real world history. It's less complicated in Fodlan, and the game seems to suggest that the nobility system can be quite functional with the right changes, given that the noble characters in the game who choose to rule as a noble genuinely make improvements to society without compromising the power or well-being of commoners. OK whew that was a long one! I hope this doesn't create the baseline for another video lol Thanks for taking the time to read this!
I don't like the nabatean genocide being framed like it was something edelgard went out of her way to do, she did kill seteth and flayn but the thing is they went onto the battlefield and they knew the risks that come with that though I haven't played her route so maybe things were different, while in verdant wind rhea can be reasoned with the circumstances are very different, claude got lucky because despite wanting to get rid of the church he incidentally ended on the side of the church meaning rhea was more friendly to him and she later stepped down due to nuke poisoning or something I think, anyways edelgard is in a very different position she directly opposes rhea and rhea is very unwilling to talk to people who oppose her as for the agarthans, well this is just a writing problem in three houses, they are basically just simplified into evil cult despite the fact that futuristic mole people bodysnatchers is a really cool concept, as far as we know every agarthan is evil with the possible exception of shez's mother since I think she was implied to be an agarthan and seemed nice from what they said about her though maybe I'm getting shez's mothers mixed up, why do they have two sets of dead parents again
Honestly it’s amazing how nuanced the world of foadlan is. Our discussions here echo real discussions people had during the 15th century aka the early modern period. I however have an aversion to Edelgard though I’m very attracted to her as a person and a leader. Dimitri is defined by a desire for revenge-while Claude is defined by his desire for peace. I believe Edelgard is driven by fear; fear of the ancient peoples, fear of an uncertain future, fear of being weak. She looks to her trauma and the suffering the “ancient peoples” have caused on normal humanity and her family, and declares “Never again!” That is what gives her the strength and desire to plunge the continent into war, in her mind it is safer to do so rather than be manipulated by dark forces. This is unlike claude who ultimate desire is peace while also being considerate with people. Although he is not above forcing his ideals upon people, he knows that his way is not the only way, he bends and negotiates for what he wants. Claude is the leader who actually knows how to play politics. Dimitri is your standard crown prince who rules through feudalism. Edelgard is an absolutist Emperor who ruled through blood and iron. In conclusion, the other house leaders should shut the fuck up and listen to Claude, at least he won’t kill everyone. Edelgard is a good waifu tho, the ultimate “I can fix her.”
The big issue with Edelgard is that she's the villain in three of the four paths. Two of which don't teach you much about her origin. Dimitri by contrast never comes off as flawed in most of the paths. Thus there's an error of storytelling in the four paths you can take, in that they aren't treated equally. If you ask me, there should have been a form of square conflict going on. Maybe Dimitri is blaming the Alliance for the Duscar masacre, Claude is suspicious of the Empire, the Empire attacks the Church, and the Church goes after the Kingdom. (As an example) Maybe in some of the paths you ally with one of the other houses etc. That away we avoid Edelgard coming off as the villain in every damn path.
I personally quite enjoy Edelgard as a character since she kind of embodies the idea that, if you have the means to (at least try to) change aspects of the world that are bad, you owe it to everyone and everything to go for it. She knows what she has to do will in some aspects be incredibly terrible, but any inaction would just work as a form of endorsement for the Church and its ways.
Awesome video man. When I first played Three Houses, I was too politically niave to pick up on the themes of the characters and thought of the routes in very black and white terms. Especially since I only played Claude's route. Coming back to the game a little wiser and a little more politically mature has been such a fun experience. Something I noticed and think is really interesting are the ways in which each of the main three lords address the status quo. Dimitri wants to embrace the status quo in the best way possible. Claude wants to take a revisionist approach to it, using the systems currently in place to make long term improvements with as little bloodshed as possible. And Edelgard wants a violent revolution to address the problems in as swift and efficiently as possible. As himself a member of the upper class without any discrimination, Dimitri sees the fewest issues with the status quo, and so his resolutions are the least drastic. Claude has experienced more and recognizes more of the problems with the status quo, but his methods still are long term and passive. Edelgard is the direct and explicit victim of the status quo and has seen the worst of it, and so of course her resolutions are the most radical. It's a very interesting dynamic and I'm happy to see people discussing it. Great video!
Exactly! The Lords' positions on what direction to take Fodlan in are direct consequences on having seen what Fodlan's current system is capable of doing first hand. I also think it's importang that Dimitri's big trauma - the Tragedy of Duscurr - is the system failing to do the that it's designed to do, so it makes sense that he'd see shoring it up and reinforcing it as good. At the same time, Claude is shielded from a lot of the worst consequences of Fodlan's racism by his position as a noble son of house Riegan, so it makes sense for him to not want to get rid of that entirely on a subconscious level - I don't think he calculatedly thinks "if I get rid of the nobility people will be able to be racist to me", but there's probably some positive feelings toward the concept of nobility that stem from that. It's such a good game.
I think one of the things which really hurts Edelgard's path is the fact is just isn't complete. I maintain that we should have ended with Edelgard destroying the Argahans. The lack of proper cutscenes also hurt it, making it seem rushed. Honestly, it was one of the things which really put me off the game and made me very hostile towards it. Good video though.
I can sympathize with that. I think Crimson Flower's criminally unfinished, which is why I hesitate to call it my favourite path - as much as I love Edelgard and I think CF has some of the more interesting storytelling, it also just... abruptly ends, and then says a bunch of stuff happened off-screen. I do think it'd need to be restructured a bit if it were complete, tho, because I don't think *ending* it fighting the Agarthans would've been quite as thematically satisfying as having Rhea/Seiros as the final boss (since she stands for everything Edelgard is opposed to - she's the one who's molded Fodlan into what it is, she's the closest thing we have to the source of all Crests etc etc), so I'd personally probably slot the war against TWSITD between conquering Leicester and turning northward toward Faerghus.
@@masterplusmargarita Sorry for my late response and thank you for taking the time to reply to my comment. I agree that the emotional weight of fighting Rhea (Seiros) is the stronger ending - a sort of truly entering a new age. To be completely honest, the Golden Deer (despite having some amazing characters in it) feels like it shouldn't be here. The lore and history of Fodlan is very much between Faerghus and Adrestia - not to mention the connection between the two kingdom's leaders. I think if you were to cut the Golden Deer path and add it into Crimson Flower, it would make the experience feel complete. If I were to do the events - it would be. Defeating the Church and Faerghus, but not killing Rhea or Rhea managing to escape. While she is away, Hurbert begins his campaign against TWSITD, launching strike forces to dismantle their ability to use the light spears. You could have your units replaced with the generic models of their chosen class, so it plays to the themes of this being covert. Once the ability for the Agarthans to use the spears of light (which I do think is a dumb plot point) then you can have Edelgard mounting a full war against the Agarthans, exposing them for all the misery they caused Fodlan. You can also give the player the closure of watching Edelgard slay her uncle - something we are criminally robbed of in CF. Have Nemesis revived and then destroyed by Edelgard and in the final chapter, Rhea, now completely and utterly insane (as Dragons tend to become in Fire Emblem lore) attacks either the Church (turning it into ruins) or the Adrestiain capital. Personally, I think the church makes more sense and you could have it so you fight through the school ground (really give that emotional payoff) before you confront Rhea in the church. You could even make this final map like the Serenes Forest from Path of Radiance. Once you being, the map is split up into different sections, and at the start of each one you have the option to call in reinforcements. Perhaps if you allowed Dimitri to live (because the professor's bond with him was high enough) we could arrive and offer his strength to the fight. This all leads to the slaying of Rhea. While bitter, this allows Fodlan to truly enter a new age with no lingering ties to its past. I can further expand on these ideas if you're interested, but this is pretty much how I think the developers should have handled the story. The reality is they were spread too thin and all the rich and fascinating lore (some of the best in the series) is lost in some very clumsy stories - which leads to people making really, really stupid and shallow conclusions about the characters and their motives.
Unless there's something I'm missing (please correct me if so) you're straight up wrong about Rhea coming back into power in Verdant Wind, since it's Byleth who takes over and I'm pretty sure Rhea willingly steps down before the battle with Nemesis. Three Hopes also shows that Edelgard could've begun to enact reforms in Adrestia without provoking Rhea, but I know that she wouldn't know that and it's not a risk that makes sense for her to make in the Three Houses timeline. The rest of this video is very good though
Yeah, most of this video is good, but he kinda fumbles the ball in the “Why Edelgard is the best ruler” section. I have no problem with him believing she is the best, I just disagree, but he (probably unintentionally) misrepresents a lot of things regarding the other leaders. I’m a Blue Lion sympathizer though, so I’ll just be laying out Dimitri’s side. (Fair warning, this is probably gonna be an essay lol) 1)”Never intends to enact sweeping change” He says multiple times in AM that he is against the crest system as it is now, he’s just trying to change it through persuasion and reasoning rather than legislation that can be easily changed with the new monarch. 2) “No real qualms about the nobility system, just wants people to treat commoners better” This is fair to an extent. He doesn’t mind the separation of nobles/commoners but he views the job of nobles to be to serve the commoners. He sees them more as government officials who should use their power to better the lives of their subjects. (Much like Ferdinand) 3)”Firm and devout believer that works with the church” This is just false. Dimitri isn’t fond of the church, he just isn’t openly hostile to them like the other two. He allies with them in Crimson Flower, not out of loyalty, but because they have a common enemy in Edelgard. 4) In regard to his government structure. He doesn’t create a democracy, it’s more of a republic. The other noble houses act as senators who listen to the wants, needs and concerns of their people and bring them to the king. The king then makes the final decision, but if it isn’t in line with what the people want or the king starts being corrupt, the people are far more empowered to instate a new king. 5)”Faerghus is toxic”…Yeah, but that’s kinda the point of the game. The way the countries are being run currently is bad but the rulers plan to change things. I could see this point if his belief that Dimitri was content with how the kingdom is currently was true, but as I’ve already stated it just isn’t. 6) Kingdom citizens hyper-glorifying honor, duty, loyalty and self-sacrifice to the point of needlessly throwing their lives away. Dimitri says on multiple occasions that he is against this idea both before and after timeskip. (His supports with Ingrid and Gilbert, when Dedue returns after timeskip, and when Rodrigue dies to name a few). During his madness he says he’s willing to sacrifice people for his goals but, as we see with Dedue and Rodrigue, this isn’t actually true. In fact most of what he says during his madness is an act to try to convince others and himself that he’s this cold and uncaring monster but there is a few times when the mask slips and we see the vulnerability that he’s trying to hide. 7)”Agarthans are never defeated” If we just go off what the base game explicitly tells us this is true, But all the big names are dead. Kronya, Solon, Cornelia and Thales(Arundel). There was a small splinter group led by Myson left but they are severely hindered after Myson is killed in Edelgards palace. If we add in speculation or DLC though, this is completely nullified. In both her own ending or her pared ending with Dimitri it says that Hapi wipes out the rest of the Agarthans, and even if Hapi isn’t involved it’s entirely possible that Hubert left the same note that he leaves in SS and VW leading them to Shambala. Without any speculation they are as defeated as in SS(only a sleeping Nemesis left), with a little speculation they are completely defeated like in VW. Thank you for coming to my TED Talk
@@coreyklaustermeier5692 Massive respect for that lol. I think a lot of people are way too biased about the Fodlan games, basically only seeing their original lord as correct when the entire point of the game is that no one (except the Agarthans) is completely evil or unjustified, and that not even people like Rhea have the full story in mind when they make decisions. People also act like the Three Hopes timeline is objectively worse for everyone involved when that isn’t true at all (a lot of the playable characters do get pushed aside there, but in terms of Fodlan as a whole, the war ends in like half the time). Literally no ending for Fodlan is straight up bad, but which ones are better are up to you. That’s the entire point.
i was already enjoying the video so far, but as soon as you said ferdinand was your favorite character in the entire game, i knew all of your opinions were going to be based
Before I watch the video, I would like to say that some of the same ppl who mindlessly view Edelgard as some villain or fascist are also some of the same ppl who cry “we need more complex women in our video games!!!” Like. Yeah. I agree. We do. One note characters are only fun and interesting to a point. But I’m just saying, when they did that, you weren’t able to handle it 😂
I suppose for me the difference between Edelgard and the other two lords is that I think genocide is a more terrible thing to do than feigning indifference and being mentally Ill. Nobody thinks Edelgard is really evil. I think she’s irrational though.
I like Edelgard but I would say she's my least favorite of the three lords. I think her biggest flaw- and you touched on this a little- is her arrogance which, paired with her shortened lifespan, cause her to make really drastic and violent decisions like allying with TWSITD and starting the war. (Granted there is an argument that this is the only way to make real lasting change but that's a whole other topic and this is a video game) Maybe it's not the most realistic but I really think that there is a chance that she could have worked WITH Dimitri and Claude to create a better Fodlan without starting a war. I at least wish she would have tried although she admittedly would have lost the element of surprise in that scenario. At the very least I'm pretty confident she could convince Claude that Rhea has caused a lot of harm for Fodlan and I think even Dimitri could be swayed if he found out about a lot of the really shady things that Rhea had done. This could just be me grasping at straws for a happy ending/golden route but idk
this game has a lot of morally grey characters, morally grey characters are a bit of a mess as they are often hard to write properly, three houses does this very well, but there is a second issue, they are also hard for many audience members to understand, this also goes for villains who aren't meant to be completely sympathetic but also not completely evil, I think silco from arcane is a good example because many people just don't get his character, he genuinely loves jinx like a father wich is a good trait, but one good trait doesn't make up for being evil the rest of the time, anyways morally grey characters are often a tin line to walk, you want to make them do some things wich ad the grey aspect but also have to be careful to not make them hateable and even if you do everything right some audience members still won't get it
edelgard is wrong to try to establish a meritocracy independent of the church but right to offer dimitri someone to spar with if he ever changes his mind.
I still think she's too justified to be called "morally grey". Like, instead of showing the events of the game and letting us realize for ourselves if Edelgard ha sthe best ending, it shows how it actually is the best ending and goes "Eh? Eh? Get it?". And then it has the gall to still act like it is "ambiguous".
Prior to the events of any timeskip she engages in the following 1. Orders the assassination of Dimitri and Claude to likely force a war between the nations 2. Assists the Agarthans in kidnapping Flayn (a Nabatean) in order to steal her blood. 3. Allows Kronya and Solon to go completely unchecked at the Monastery, an action which led to Jeralt dying. 4. Allowed Byleth to run headfirst into a trap set by Kronya in order to lock him in Zahras. 5. Ordered Imperial troops to kill Byleth AND the entire Black Eagles house. It's very weird how people talk about the scene in the Holy Tomb like Rhea was ordering you to murder Edelgard as she was bawling on the floor crying about a broken foot or smth. "She was unarmed", yeah homie bc she was *defeated*. She's not the only good guy that IS came up with for the entire game. She, just like Rhea, and just like Claude, and just like Dimitri, does a LOT of fucked up stuff in the name of her beliefs.
The status quo is always seen as good so the ruling class can keep their power. Any sort of change is seen as bad and in media the change is often seen with evil intent as if the current society isn't already unjust. The villains usually are bad, but that's justification for keeping the status quo. Until you look at the current society and see how they are actually the same as far as bad things, it just looks different
Funnily enough, Edelgard is more of an edgelord to me. Dimitri sinks pretty low in Azure Moon, but before and after he's a very open and amiable character. He hides from girls in Sylvain's room, he tries to learn how to sew from Mercedes, and teases Annette with embarrassing stories from her dad. Dedue even mentions how Dimitri's flaw is that he cares too much for people, living or dead. Edelgard meanwhile cosplays as her edgy "Flame Emperor" persona, hangs out with her vampire simp and a guy with a skull mask, and has a whole arc revolving about her trying to wake up the world to atheism. She also never tells her classmates about her affiliations to the dubstep mole cult or the truth about Arianrhod because "They could never understand..." Dimitri's ending image has him surrounded by smiling children, Edelgard's has her stomping on the flags of the territories she conquered while a bunch of nobles look on in horror. She's way more edgy than Dimitri to me.
@@greendemon905Yeah yeah we heard you Dimitri fanboy. You're always there whenever Edelgard is discussed and people don't put your His Majesty on the same pedestal as yours. The exit is over there.
@@masterplusmargarita ok one out if the three lords to romance byleth witch one do you think is the best. out of the three lords witch one do you think is the strongest in the lore both pre and after time skip. three is byleth never return to the war after the time skip witch side would edvegliey win. and four I hope you make another video covering a nother commen miss comsepsion that being the realaship between byleth and rhea for not being a incest realaship. if you chose to romance her. what do you think?
I've never done the Claude romance, but I think both Dimitri and Edelgard feel like they're set up as romantic interests for Byleth (Edelgard pretty much explicitly has feelings for Byleth in Crimson Flower), so I think either of them work, though slight preference for Edelgard just because there's more groundwork there. I guess in terms of lore Edelgard is probably the strongest? She's got the dual Crests going on after all, and stuff like the Hegemon form. That said, Dimitri is always said to be inhumanly strong as well, which is never explained in lore but definitely backed up by the stuff he's said to do during the timeskip. My brain says Edelgard, but my gut says Dimitri. Edit: This is assuming we're not counting Rhea - she wins by a landslide for being a Child of the Goddess - I don't think individual humans can stand up to that. Who'd win the war without Byleth is really tricky to say, because the conditions that the war starts with depend on Part 1 - stuff like how much Edelgard is willing to trust TWSITD, who wins the battle of Garreg Mach, who controls Garreg Mach after five years, even whether Dimitri loses his mind. Assuming we're more aligned with the Blue Lions and Golden Deer routes (as opposed to the more drastic changes of Black Eagles), my guess would be the outcome would be most similar to what happens in Silver Snow - a sort of neutral force spearheaded by old Knights of Seiros and Church officials would eventually be able to gain build up enough support across Faerghus, Leicester and even anti-Edelgard bits of Adrestia to slow bleed the Empire out of resources. I think the main difference would probably be how long the war takes - Byleth's main contribution (aside from helping make their Lord a better person) is being able to win battles consistently enough that they steamroll their opponents - without that consistency the war becomes a bloody back-and-forth and goes on for many more years. After all, the timeskip is 5 years into the war, and it's still a stalemate. Finally - I wouldn't say romancing Rhea is incest, since Byleth isn't Sothis and Rhea's not related to them by blood (unless I'm misremembering some of what was revealed in Cindered Shadows), but I don't think that there's quite enough there to justify a video about - sorry.
@@masterplusmargarita thank you for answering my question. I would like to add more to the questions if you don't mind. one why do you think that edelgard have a atleast a crush on byleth from breaty much from the beginning and still having the same filling in other routes. two I was not counting rhea I was counting Claude in the three lords but I think we can agree that he's the weakest of the three right? but speaking of rhea who do you think would win byleth and rhea in a one on one battle. that all right if you don't want to make a video on it I was wondering what you thought of the relationship because I've seen people say that rhea is byleth mother,grandmother sister aunt. nuts righr?
I think Edelgard's infatuation with Byleth comes from a couple different places: Her and Claude are both really good at seeing people for what they are and recognize Byleth's ability to be someone that they can draw strength from. Byleth's whole role in the narrative is basically to be someone who can an equal to the Lords, who are otherwise isolated in their positions of absurd power as well as just how clever they all are. Claude's too self-assured and self-reliant to feel instantly drawn to that though, and his arc is largely about accepting Byleth as a friend and in the process learning to let people close to him. He's confident he's in the right and has no qualms about following his path either way. Edelgard on the other hand really wants someone to lean on who can understand her - while she's convinced she's right she also feels constantly guilty and isolated because she has to lie to everyone around her (other than Hubert, who's not exactly the kindest person out there). It's why she turns out pretty badly in routes other than Crimson Flower, she ends up having to just rely on herself and breaks under all that pressure that she's unable to shoulder alone - she turns into, as she says herself in her A support with Byleth "a cruel ruler with a heart of ice". Byleth is the only person who she feels she can entrust herself to, the only person she doesn't need to be the Emperor for and she can be just Edelgard with, and that makes Byleth incredibly special for her. I think it's a similar case with Dimitri, but he's a little worse at evaulating people than Edelgard is, so it takes him until Act 2 to get there. I would say Claude's the weakest of the Three Lords, but only in a direct fight. He may have the least combat strength, but he's possibly the cleverest and definitely the best politician out of any of them, and I think he'd be the one who'd thrive the most in peacetime. He's in a tougher position than either Edelgard or Dimitri - both uncontested heirs to positions of absolute power where he basically just has a bit extra leverage in a council - but he's basically as in firmly charge of Leicester as either of them are of their respective nations. That takes incredible skill. To come back to your previous question about who'd win the war if Byleth wasn't there, the only reason I didn't say Claude is I think the pro-Empire side of the Leicester Alliance would prove too big a roadblock for him to overcome. If Leicester was unified against Edelgard he's cunning enough I don't think there'd be any way of stopping him. 1v1 Rhea wins against Byleth easily. Byleth has Sothis powers, but they don't seem to translate to being strong in combat other than rewinding time. If they couldn't even prevent Jeralt's death I don't think they stand a chance against an Immaculate One (also, they definintely can't solo her in the in-game combat system). (Sorry for the massive comments - I enjoy writing and thinking about this game, if you couldn't tell :) )
Well Duh, literally the point of the entire game is that(other than The Arghatans) there's no Real Villain,and in all Paths you fight for whom,and what you Believe in.
Tell that to people unironically thinking Edelgard is the BBEG villain. Sure by design wise she's traditional bad guy (the red lord of FE) but the thing is the fked up world of Fodlan is really grey, imo with exception of Dimitri when you put aside his mental illness, dude's really the least grey or even straight typical good guy in 3Hopes, which making him less appealing to me. I guess being the least grey and added layer of trauma is why BL route is the most easily accepted by people (and tbh to me Dimitri fanboys are even more annoying than Edelgard fanboys saying him is perfect. Well duh he's written as the closest thing to typical FE main protagonist lords/crown prince)
@@fz_dracohart1255 well it is True Eldergard is the one to take the most extreme choices,but even that it is somewhat justified by her whole context. That say,I think people think that way because she is the pictured one of,if not the Villain in every route not her own and how out of all the entire Cast her Actions are the most Trickier to defend and Justify. She Wants a better future for Fodlan,yet intents to Build Say Future upon Mountains Corpses. CF further sour ppl opinion by being An objectively badly written route that on top of being bad Depends on Demonizing The rest of the cast(Rhea for obvious Reasons being the worst out) to try to shy away from everything moraly wrong on the route. Imo,there's much I dissaprove of Eldergard but I admit she ain't the Devil. I Also think CF would have been better if it didn’t Shy away from the fact Eldergard Is willing to go any length necessary for her better Future instead of beding over backwards to make it seems you’re still ultimately the good guy no matter what. For once, you’re playing with the Red Emperor in a FE game I don't say that you Threat me like a monster but don't try to play it off like I'm the Hero still! I also haven’t meet anyone that Thinks Dimitri is Perfect but yeah that's a Great disservice to his Entire Charather and Most of all to his Path During his Route that it's about Forgiving His Wrongs and Find the way fortward. Literally the Entire Charather's charm lies on his Flaws so yeah idk what's up with the ppl u say.
As much as I love El, I believe that of the four lords she is the most idealistic and naive. She tries to force a social reform that while good on paper will lead most likely to a collapse of the Empire in a few generations (much like the real world Roman Empire) and then it will most likely be back to petty Crest empowered kings untill either someone unites them in a second empire or Fodlan becomes colonised by Brigid, Dagda etc while it has no form of central leadership. Ironically the CF route is the one that needs the most an immortal SotC wielding Byleth to act as an arbiter to Edelgard's meritocracy after her inevitably early death from the experiments she had happen on her and is the one that the Crest of Flame is broken.
That's an interesting perspective, but I just don't think what you're saying would happen is set up. Throughout the game there's no real implication that the Empire's at any real risk of falling apart after Edelgard passes. Sure, she's currently the unifying force, but that can be said about any Emperor, and while the system she sets up is a meritocracy, it doesn't actually look like she's changing all that much about the organization of the Empire. She's still leaving the backbone of the system intact, with the positions of the seven great families still in place - they're just no longer decided by birthright, but instead by merit. The only real problems I can see are a crisis of succession, since Edelgard is sort of the figurehead of the entire movement, but her solo ending card specifically says "In her later years, she entrusted her life's work to a worthy successor, before finally vanishing from the public eye" (there's also a similar thing in her ending card with Hubert), which to me implies a pretty smooth transfer of power - if we know Edelgard at all, she would not just sit back and chill outside the public eye if her successor was unable to command power in a way that threatened the stability of the Empire. I'm sorry, but as much as I rake my brains looking for one, I just don't see a reason to believe that Edelgard's system would collapse - it might, but so might all of the other forms of rule the game can end on, I don't see why Edelgard's Fodlan is any more likely to splinter apart than Dimitri or Claude's. If anything, I think Dimitri leaving TWSITD unopposed and keeping the status quo that led to Edelgard starting this war to begin has much more potential for a societal collapse, since it leaves the situation primed for another Edelgard figure to rise up (maybe a few generations down the line, when the King is someone less competent than Dimitri, since all they have to do to be King is be Dimitri's relative), but this time potentially as a full-on puppet of TWSITD who doesn't have Edelgard's good intentions. Claude's might do a bit better, but I also think his reforms are unlikely to succeed and eventually bleed back into the status quo. And like... don't you think it's a bit weird to say that you need an immortal God being with a sacred artefact to enforce meritocratic rule? The whole idea with CF is that beings like Byleth, who are divinely empowered to rule over men are unnecessary - it's not up to the Gods to rule men, it's up to men, and people like Edelgard are more than capable of doing it. This is a bit of my real world ideological bias seeping in - which given the game's nature I think is fair -, but I just don't think societies collapse if they're not led by a single strong leader. If anything, the way Edelgard seems to intend to keep the position of Emperor after her reforms is one of my least favourite things about the way she organizes her society. Sorry for the long message - I get pretty passionate about this game, who knew?
@@masterplusmargarita Your third paragraph here is so important and reminds me why I love CF so much. As far as I'm concerned, Byleth losing their god powers and regaining the humanity Rhea stole from them is maybe *the* most poetic ending in 3H, especially once you pair it with Edelgard eventually defeating *her* abusers in the post-game (though I'll always be bitter that we never got CF DLC involving the battle with TWSITD) and especially once you remember that it's the only ending where Byleth doesn't become the new pope or monarch of Fódlan (though I guess they could become the latter if they marry Edelgard....which, if you're doing CF right, is what happens anyway I guess 😅😂). I'm also kind of miffed that Edelgard retains her emperor status in the post-game too. Even if they do a good job showing off Edelgard's ideals, I think there's still a lot of socio-political details open to interpretation in the CF ending. I like to believe that Edelgard was fighting for a classless meritocracy, where no one has ossified/class-based/top-down control over land or the productive forces but also where individuals who show merit and determination are able to secure more of society's resource surplus after everyone's core needs are met -- i.e. the "from each according to their ability, to each according to their contribution" of Leninism. This is probably some of my own political bias creeping into my interpretation, but like you said it *is* inevitable with a game like 3H, and I will maintain that a system like that isn't far off from the ideals Edelgard speaks of in her dialogue throughout the game. I don't think it's a stretch to say that Edelgard gets real-world influence from Marxism and anti-clerical left-wing perspectives, at the very least, with those influences then grafted onto a feudal world where you're still expected to preserve *some* of the old Fire Emblem tropes (having a monarch figurehead, being the obvious one).
I like your passioned dive into Edelgard, @@masterplusmargarita and I agree that Edelgard is justified in her actions. But I think there are a few flaws in her plans that you overlooked here, and I am hesitant to say her path is the "definitive best" option for Fodlan. I reply to this comment chain because the original commenter pointed out the naivete in her ideals, and I want to elaborate on why I agree with that sentiment. In Edelgard's own words, she wants people to "rise and fall based on their merits". We assume "rise" refers to someone being able to obtain a position of power. That sounds reasonable enough, but what does she mean by "merits"? Who gets to determine what are these merits? It's unclear what this means, and more disturbingly, then, is how far will she let people fall if they do not meet these undefined merits she is looking for. If the lows are poverty, then under a meritocratic system, does a person in poverty deserves their place there, because they couldn't rise on their own merits? These are some problems Edelgard's system brings. She definitely means well, she wants to do the right thing. She does not want people to suffer because of poor leadership, but without defining what she means by "merits", and who gets to decide on those merits, it does leave her new system vulnerable to failing to end the suffering she wants to berid of. One of Edelgard's defining traits-- her strong resolve-- creates a critical flaw that leads to problems: it is the fact that she struggles to see other perspectives when they don't confine to her narrative, which means she does not have the ability to see reality objectively. This is even by her own admission, in her supports with Manuela. She operated under a very false presumption that people of faith used religion as a crutch to avoid owning up to one's own self-sufficiency, and because of these unfounded beliefs, Edelgard avoided talking to Manuela on a personal level. This was until Manuela joined her cause and explained what her religious beliefs actually meant to her. There are two unsettling conclusions you can draw from this support: firstly, that Edelgard is prone to unfairly dismiss the "merits" of other people's choices without giving it a proper chance, and second that "self-sufficiency" is a quality that she values, and perhaps would consider a merit in her system. In that vein, where does a person who isn't so self-sufficient go under her system? They won't have positions of power, presumably, so where will they fall? Her judgement as a leader can run into dangerous territory. Another major point that Edelgard overlooks, and you do as well, is the value the current nobility system DOES bring to Fodlan. Ferdinand, Lorenz, and I'd argue Dimitri, all aspire and embody this ideal function of the nobility system. As a Lorenz enjoyer and defender, I will use Lorenz to elaborate on the positive points a nobility system brings to society, as I think your reading of his character is as one-note as the anti-Edelgard YT comments you despise. You say Lorenz sees commonfolk as subhuman and never grows beyond that, citing him not punishing Acheron as evidence of this. But that Acheron paralogue happened in the pre-timeskip, so that evidence has no bearing on Lorenz after the time skip. In the actual post-timeskip, when Lorenz actually has both the authority and means to kill Acheron, he absolutely relishes in doing so, so I rest my case (see their unique battle dialogue on the Myrddin map). Secondly, in Lorenz and Catherine's B-support (which IS pre-timeskip), Lorenz says explicitly that commonfolk have a right to revolt against the nobility, as it is their way to express that they need better leadership to maintain their livelihood. That is emphatically Lorenz seeing commoners as humans who have an innate right to a healthy, safe life. In his supports with Leonie, it's clear that Lorenz lives as he preaches, because while he does see a "social gulf" with her, it is not meant to be dehumanising. Rather, he earnestly looks after her well-being and considers it his duty to make sure a commoner from his territory is safe and well, and his house was the reason Leonie met Jeralt. Yes, the nobility system is flawed, yes the crest system is becoming obsolete in Fodlan, and people are suffering. However, functioning at its best, the nobility system neatly solves the flaw I see in Edelgard's meritocracy. It shouldn't let people "fall", because even commoners play a vital role in keeping society running smoothly. Nobles provide leadership and security to commoners in their land, while commoners provide food, labour, and make up the backbone of society. The core growth in Lorenz is realising the divide between nobles and commoners based on upbringing to be arbitrary, while still retaining values on the ideal purpose of nobility: a good relationship between people who have the right skillset and attitude to govern, and the people they are leading. This is something Edelgard does not see, as in her A-support with Ferdinand, he has to point out to her that the nobility system provides rigorous training and opportunities to create capable leaders. Ferdinand suggests that if Edelgard were to carry out with her plan, she needs to instill a new system that serves the same purpose as the nobility, a means to provide an upbringing that brings out the potential in people so that they have the necessary skills to govern. Edelgard at first takes this reasonable critique as him saying she is "wrong", which indicates she did not think of this point at all. Nobody can see all the angles, of course, but it is alarming that a leader, a product of the very nobility system she intends to unravel, does not consider a way to actually replace the old ruling system after unraveling it. Simply undoing the nobility system and then letting people rise on "their own merits" will still undoubtedly favour the former nobility because these are the people who are most used to having positions of power, and have had years of training in the right skills. I think this is what the original commenter meant by Edelgard being naive. Sure, saying nobility is bad and creates problems, so it must be gone sounds good on paper, but untangling the reality of that and implementing a truly better system requires a nuanced type of thinking that Edelgard does not possess. In CF, she is only able to implement her vision precisely because she has friends to rely on and had the opportunity of opening up to people she normally wouldn't want to get close to, to help her see beyond her one-track determination. But even after coming to power, I think we're still left in the dark about what are the "merits" people are rising and falling based on, and who gets to decide that. Fuzzy criterion leads to fuzzy results. Additionally, Edelgard herself, while a capable individual, struggles in the realm of nuance and so it is hard to trust how she defines those "merits". These points put together, I am very hesitant to say that Edelgard's meritocracy is truly the "best" ending. In Claude's ending, the true history of Fodlan comes to light, so the crest-based system of nobility (the main problem) would naturally lose its sway. In Dimitri's ending, while the underlying system doesn't change, you have two leaders who can facilitate change in a peaceful way (Dimitri and Byleth wouldn't let people suffer from the crest system). Perhaps it depends on what you value more, as each ending provides its own ups and downs, but the risks of Edelgard's system still leading to inequality to me kind of isn't the big reform that I'd consider worth all the sacrifice. It's still a good ending, but compared to the other two I don't think it unequivocally comes out on top. Nevertheless, Edelgard was the visionary who catalysed change in Fodlan, regardless of who took up the mantle. She's a great character whose conviction is truly unforgettable, however misguided it can be depending on the route.
@@EeveeFlipnoteStudios Hey, thanks! I really appreciate honest, well reasoned disagreement, considering the whole reason this video got made was my frustration at how short-sighted a lot of the anti-Edelgard stuff online was. Because of the sheer size of your comment it's a little tricky to answer everything you've got to say without accidentally writing another whole video script, so I'm mostly going to answer at a general level rather than going into super-specifics. It's also been well over a year since I engaged with FE3H at all, so I might misremember specifics. Your 1st paragraph, about how Edelgard's meritocracy is a maybe worrying system, is actually something I've thought about a decent bit. My intuition just tells me that she'd set up some sort of social safety net because ultimately she have the best interests of the populace at hand, and I don't see her as the sort of person who lets people fall into absolute squalor. I don't think she's a straight-up objectivist because that's simply incosistent with the way we see her legitimately worried about the fates of those in need throughout the game. When she talks about "merit" I take it to be something like "competence", especially because a lot of the time when she talks about "merit" she's talking about government positions. Effectively, I see Edelgard's change of system as a stepping stone away from feudalism into something more akin to mercantilism (which itself is a stepping stone toward capitalism). It's quite likely Fodlan under Edelgard is still not a great place to live, especially for the unskilled, but it's a far shot better than Rhea's Fodlan, as it's run by more competent people and it's designed in such a way that fortunes can change - a peasant is not necessarily forever a peasant, and a lord is not necessarily forever a lord. It's not ideal, by any means, but it's the only system I see that moves Fodlan closer to a modern-day society. It's not a panacea to all of Fodlan's problems, but I'd take Edelgard actively reforming the system over Claude and Dimitri maintaining a thoroughly disfunctional status quo any day. No issues with the second paragraph - Edelgard's stubborn as a mule and has a hard time seeing other perspectives. I do think having friends around her in CF - and the version of her at the end of CF is the one I want ruling Fódlan - makes this weak point of hers a little less weak (especially having interactions like the one with Manuela, which is one of my favourite support stories, incidentally), but it's still a character flaw that she's likely to have for the rest of her life. Your third paragraph I really, really disagree with. There is a dehumanizing element to the nobility-peasantry system by nature. When Lorenz has conversations like the ones he has with Leonie, he's still patronizing and positioning himself over her. The noble's job is to protect the commonfolk, because the commonfolk aren't capable of protecting themselves, because there's something about the noble that makes them capable of what the commoner isn't. Sure, it's a nice sentiment, but it's also lessening the commonfolk. It reminds me of the way women were treated in the Victorian ages, as delicate flowers who men - by virtue of allegedly being stronger and smarter - must treasure and protect. It IS dehumanizing, you're lessening the other in order to position yourself over it, the implication of the commonfolk needing someone to look after them is that they can't look after themselves, entirely because they were born as part of the commonfolk. For what it's worth, I think Lorenz does mean well and I do think he's a kind person, but I don't think he ever shakes that perspective (in 3 Houses, anyway, he sort of does in 3 Hopes), and I think that ultimately doesn't make him a good person. The thing that really bothers me is that your third paragaph is an almost explicit defence of feudalism. You're saying that we need to install powerful people over us, so they might watch over the weakest of us. I could not disagree more. Not only has this system failed in Fodlan, it has failed in the real world, it's fallen apart because it leads to the masses becoming disenfranchised as the "protectors" gorge themselves. The disenfranchised can't break out because their "protectors" have all the power, and keep it to themselves. It's got the greatest possible fault of Edelgard's system - the disparity between the rich and poor - while not having any of the benefits. It doesn't let people "fall" because most of the population is already "fallen" by default, living in poverty. The extreme worst case scenario - and I do mean extreme, I don't think this is nearly how it'd work out - of Edelgard's system is exactly this, but at least those who are the top have earned it, and those who are at the bottom can conceivably make their way up. All this talk about "the nobility keeping people safe" is just the excuses they give to maintain their power over everyone else. The difference between Ferdinand's arc and Lorenz's arc is that by the end of his conversations with Leonie, Lorenz is agreeing with Leonie when she says that "nobles and commoners have their own roles", while at the end of his conversations with Edelgard, Ferdinand is effectively conceding to Edelgard that "nobility" as he sees it is not birthright, but merit. "If you insist upon undoing the nobility, then we must build something in its place. We can provide free education for all, and then select the highest-performing students for more intensive training and tutoring. I truly believe that people are products of their environment." Ferdinand, as someone who's waaay into the idea of nobility, still wants a system along the lines of the noble/commoner system, but he doesn't think the role of noble has to be something you get from birth, but instead something that can be earned through performing well in education, an idea which Edelgard seems to really like, and which is sort of objectively better than "I am Lorenz, I must protect you Leonie, because I am noble and you are not". Fun fact: I wrote this bit before re-reading the part of your comment where you use the Edelgard-Ferdinand support to prove her stubborness, because that support's always stuck in my head as one that makes Edelgard look really good. Really cool how we pulled different bits of that and saw different things. This game's so good! I've sort of unwittingly provided my answer to your 4th paragraph in my 4th paragraph, and I'd say this whole video is the response to your 5th paragraph, so I'll stop there. Thanks once again for the good-faith disagreement!
@@masterplusmargarita Do you think Edelgard's ending completely invalidates the other routes, and entire gimmick as a whole? Because I don't see how I, as someone who didn't pick Edelgard as my first route, can argue against any of this. I basically made the wrong choice the game wanted me to make.
Another point in defense of starting the war is that the agarthans literally have a gun to edelgards head the whole route and she can’t show her hand too soon and has to keep them somewhat placated. The chaos also gets the agarthans to come out of their hiding holes enough that they are able to track them better. Hubert and his Gestapo are the only ones capable of finding and rooting out a covert force like that
It's hard to take El simps seriously bc she can apparently order the assassination of 3 fleeing teenagers, kidnap what everyone perceives as a child, permit experiments on students, abide the Slithers' actions at Remire Village, assisted in sneaking Kronya into the monastery (which btw got Jeralt killed. Ya know, the guy El simps praise for being doubtful of Rhea), and can attack her fellow students, Byleth, and Rhea in the holy tomb completely unprovoked. But the mere INSTANT Rhea goes "hey yo kill this bitch" suddenly she did nothing wrong.
"She ordered the assassination" Not even close to what happened "Kidnapped a child" Wasn't her order "Permit experiments on students" You can't "permit" something you don't know is happening "Abide what happened at Remire" Same as above "Sneaking Kronya in" Not her plan "Attacked the Holy Tomb" Sure, you can have that one And yes, Rhea was wrong to one-sidedly order her execution. Edelgard was in a similar position during her coronation, when she had Duke Aegir, the man who ruined her life and murdered all her siblings, at her mercy, and yet spared him. That to me shows she at least has more moral integrity than Rhea.
@@stickfigure8416 She hired Kostas as the flame emperor. That’s exactly what happened. She’s Allies with TWSITD. She is responsible for their actions in the monastery bc she knew of it and did nothing to stop it. She knew they were going after Flayn, bc the Death Knight was there. She knew they were plundering the Holy Tomb, bc the Death Knight was there. She literally ordered the empire to kill the black eagles (including Byleth). And when you defeat her, Rhea goes “yo what the fuck is wrong with you? You did all this shit?? Bro…kill her ass”. And then she magically did nothing wrong. She allied herself with the slithers. She’s responsible for their actions by doing so. If you allied yourself with the Nazis in WW2, you might not have built the camps or sent anyone in them, but ur sure as shit responsible for what they did there since you aided and abetted them. Edelgard knew they were evil and worked with them anyways because the idea of peaceful reform was too sour in her mind. She started a war because she was spoon fed lies by the very people who tortured and experimented on her, and she swallowed up every last bite. She was a war criminal, a tyrant, and an idiot
@@pickcollins9910 TL;DR: The assassination argument makes no sense. Her ability to openly oppose the Agarthans was there, but limited. And opposing the church is not the result of believing some "lies", they have way too much power and influence that would hinder peaceful reforms. "She hired Kostas" So? What exactly was the plan? If it truly was an assassination, it'd mean she expected a bunch of random bandits to overpower the Knights of Seiros, and kill two specific targets amongst a group of students that she herself was a part of. The only reason they end up in danger is because Claude decided to run off, and Dimitri to follow, which she chastises him for. If she truly wanted them dead, all she had to do... was nothing, just stay with the other students under the protection of the knights and wait for them to get killed in the forest. Instead, she ran after them, putting herself in danger, and even guided them towards Remire where they could get help. Again, if it was an assassination attempt, it'd mean she was handed the perfect opportunity, and then decided to sabotage herself for no reason. So if you want to convince me she wanted them dead, you're gonna have to detail what the plan was and how it was supposed to work, because as it is it makes no sense at all. What makes sense, though, is to use the attack to scare away the professor candidate, which is a much more predictable and safe result, in order to plant Jeritza within the academy's faculty. She did not know, by the way, what the Agarthans were doing with the Death Knight. While yes, he is her servant rather than theirs, after the attack of the mausoleum, we can see a cutscene where she lends the Death Knight to Arundel. Is she responsible for that? Yes, but that doesn't mean she knew what they were doing with him. I don't excuse her choice to aid in the Agarthans' plans, but it's false to suggest she had an "equal" relationship with them. All it takes is looking at the political situation in the Empire during White Clouds: it's stated that during the Insurrection of the Seven the Prime Minister and others took power from the Imperial Household, taking control and leaving the Emperor as a puppet. Then, following the Agarthan's suggestions, they took Edelgard and her siblings to experiment on. At the start of the game, she hardly has any power or political sway on the affairs of the Empire. It is only when she negotiates with the other ministers and pulls the rug from under the Prime Minister during her coronation, that she finally has the power and authority to control the Empire. Which happens practically at the end of White Clouds. So yeah, it'd be like allying with Nazis during WWII... if the Nazis had conspired with some of my own generals and ministers to take all power away from me, so I don't really have the strength to say "no" and win and instead chose to bide my time. Does that make me partially responsible? Yes, but it's much more productive than having myself killed and let them run rampant. And claiming she opposes the church because she "bought into the Agarthans lies" is ridiculous. Why would you take the word of the people who ruined your life? The reason is much simpler: everything that transpired was the result of the political structure based around Crests, which the Church itself set in place and supports through its dogma. If you want to get rid of it, you have to get rid of the Church. Had she tried to forgo war and simply fix things within the Empire, she would've found extreme opposition from believers, both local and foreign, and she would still have the Agarthans to deal with. And the events of the Holy Tomb pretty much confirm how much power and influence the Church has: no matter what the reason was, Rhea "shouldn't" have the authority to execute a head of state without trial, especially not after being disarmed and captured. The fact that she can do that, unchallenged, speaks volumes. So yeah, chalking her faults, which there are, to her just being "dumb" is making a huge disservice to the writing of the game as a whole, which is some of the best in the entire series.
@@stickfigure8416 “Even if she hired Kostas” This is not up for debate; she did. End of story. She was the flame emperor, the flame emperor hired Kostas. Ergo she hired Kostas. “It means she expected a group of bandits to overpower the knights of seiros and kill 2 specific targets” First: she did not lead the bandits to Remire. Edelgard said “they attacked us while we were at rest in our camp”. There’s nothing to indicate Edelgard led the bandits to Remire purposefully. I don’t need to detail anything for you. The game confirms the flame emperor hired Kostas to attack the knights of Seiros, and they went specifically after Claude, Dimitri, and Edelgard. Claude ran off, and Dimitri followed, and so did Edelgard. Likely because the flame emperor (hint hint: Edelgard) told them to kill all 3 nobles so, were they to get captured, they wouldn’t be able to rat out Edelgard and imply they were hired by the empire. She hated the Slithers so much yet she gave them the Death Knight? I guess this is another one of those “she was powerless to say no” situations, right? Bc she can’t do anything wrong? “Why would you take the word of the people who ruined your life” Literally trusts their own words and buys into the nonsense shit about Nemesis that they helped peddle. She would also have not found opposition to reforms within the empire from the church, as the Adrestian church was independent of the central church, peaceful reforms don’t spark violence with the central church (as 3 hopes proves: Rhea is amiable to reform), and it doesn’t do exactly what the slithers wanted. She fell hook, line, and sinker for all the Agarthan lies so they could throw Fodlan into war, kill Rhea (the only person they were actually afraid of before Byleth became the fell star), and take control for themselves. And look at that! Because of Edelgard they accomplished 2/3 of those goals and nothing confirms that they didn’t accomplish the third! Ergo: yes Edelgard was a fucking idiot.
@@pickcollins9910 I did not say she led the bandits to Remire, she arranged the attack on the camp, where the knights would fend them off. She led Claude and Dimitri to Remire, this is plainly stated in Three Hopes that she was the one guiding them to safety. The bandits chased after them because Claude splintered from the group and became an easy target. This was something not accounted for and she calls him out on it. "She hired Kostas" hardly explains anything when she went out of her way to help the people you claim she wanted killed. And kidnapping? An unlikely scenario considering the bandits were told to "kill rich brats at random" The Southern Church did split from the central, but there was no change in its teachings, the same teachings that prop the nobility of Fodlan simply because of magic blood. The same teachings that embolden nobles to abandon crestless children, or reduce women to pieces of meat meant to churn out crest babies. Emperor Ionius tried to challenge it, and it resulted in the other nobles banding against him because they feared it'd call the authority of their sacred bloodline into question. Saying Edelgard is abetting the Agarthan's actions is comparable to saying Rhea is responsible for the atrocities of the nobility, as she put those rules into play and had a much better position to change them. "Rhea was open to reform"? But apparently she was in no hurry either. Not that I don't understand Rhea, the current system allows her to hold onto power so she can pass it on to Sothis when she successfully revived her, fully convinced she'd make everything better and solve all the problems. And she's probably not wrong about that. She "echoes the Agarthans' claims about Nemesis"? Even though she also questions those same Agarthans' calling Nemesis a "thief"? The only argument she makes on the subject is that he was a king of men and that Seiros campaign was not a "holy crusade against a fallen hero" but rather a struggle for power between both sides. These claims, while severly lacking in context, are not untrue. And, as per her account, these claims don't come from the Agarthans, but have been passed along the imperial line, started by Wilhelm, who was actually there. I never said she could do no wrong and that she bears responsibility for her actions, all I argued is that she tried to play the best hand she could with the shitty cards she was dealt. "Because of Edelgard they accomplished 2/3 of their goals and maybe even the third (take control)". I think the fact that she had them killed after the war would make that kind of impossible. And it's not an if, the end makes it pretty clear, more than the other endings, at least.
@@masterplusmargarita ok so I know this game hase grey character in it with no real main bad guy or good guy with the exception of Claude being the good person. I think this the case of the other fire emblem games i don't know i haven't played then all I know this that there stand alone games that don't have anything to do with each other with only like two games being a direct sequel to that game. anyway what do you think is the most evil character of the game that would become considered to be the true main vilian. with including all sidchataters.
@@sueflewelling3657 Easily Thales as leader of TWSITD. Those Who Slither In The Dark are the only group in the game with no redeeming qualities whatsoever - their only motivation is hatred for the Nabateans and the surface dwellers, and their only goal seems to be to cause them as much grief as possible. They're at least partially behind every tragedy in Fódlan's history we know of (the Red Canyon Massacre, the war with Nemesis, Loog's uprising, the Insurrection of the Seven, the Tragedy of Duscurr and even Edelgard's war to some extent). They're so one-dimensionally evil that I'd criticize the game for their inclusion if they weren't mostly relegated to the sidelines, and they're thankfully not used as a copout to excuse anyone's actions the way Fates: Revelation used its one dimensional bad guys as a copout. Plus, it seems like there's a decent chance Shez from Three Hopes is going to be a non-evil Agarthan, which should help give TWISTD some depth.
@@masterplusmargarita ok thank you. speaking of the twsliditd do you think edelgard live span is shorten. we know one girl is i just can't remember her name at this point. she said she was exseremint on and have two crest that chases her live to be shorten and that explains why she hase white hair and while that girl edmeted she hase this edelgard dosent and its heavly implie that she is. what do you think?
@@sueflewelling3657 I'm glad you asked this, because I sort of bring it up in the video but don't go into full detail - I do think it's likely Edelgard's lifespan is probably shortened, but not as much as Lysithea's. Lysithea was TWISTD's first succesful experiment in implanting dual crests, and probably the reason they wanted to do an experiment to begin with is to get it right when creating their Flame Emperor, so Edelgard's operation was probably more refined and less damaging. That said, they'd clearly not solved all the issues seeing as all of Edelgard's siblings did still die from the operations, so I'd guess she does have a shortened lifespan. Also: conspiracy theory time: Lysithea's lifespan might not be as short as she believes. She's told by TWISTD she has five years left, a few years before Part 1. Part 2 is five years after that, and her body seems to be doing fine still, and she even does stuff in a lot of her epilogues after that. Clearly the 5 year limit is just an arbitrary number her torturers threw out and she has at least 7 or 8, maybe even more than that. If we assume Edelgard has even longer to live than Lysithea due to refinements in the Crest implantation process, she might be able to live out most of a normal life. Truth is there's not enough info in-game to say. And, preemptively, because I know some people will see this as an incosistency with my argument that Edelgard's shortened lifespan is a reason (out of many others) she can't afford to not start the war: The actual truth as to how long Edelgard has doesn't really matter to how she has to act - what matters is how long she has been led to believe she has, since that's the information she has to act on.
Claims people are brainless who uncritically bash Edelgard yet uncritically buys into propaganda against Rhea and the Church which has for the most part kept the continent at peace. Aside from some random books that could be outright lies we see no direct evidence that Rhea is holding people back in any way. Also Edelgard just straight up adopts the dogma of the Agarthans and does way more damage than any noble or the Church ever did.
@pandabanaan9208 So plunging the whole of Fodlan to war is the only answer? I understand the story very well and really love Eddie. But she is the villain of the story. A tragic one when you learn what made her decide to go to war. Eddie is rather naive to believe the Church is entirely at fault for all of Fodlan's problems. The biggest proof of how she has been really mislead is her statement on how the Church purposely split the region into 3 different nations, which we all know is false. The Church let it happen and supported all sides of each conflict to keep the peace amongst the 3 while TWSITD worked behind the scenes pitting everyone against each other so they can come at the very end and claim the land themselves. Eddie knows she is working with an unforgivable group and plans on taking them down after taking down the Church, but what if she failed. She would've just handed them the keys to Fodlan. She also suffers from a bad case of "savior complex". Many of her fellow classmates she pittes (is that how it's spelled) understands how the system of the Crests is poor but plan to still fight past it and succeed. Many of them, with or without the war, do accomplish their desired outcome thanks to the help of other classmates and professors (especially Byleth). Eddie wants to help Fodlan. Though she the quickest way possible which leaves so much more bloodshed than was necessary. She could've easily exposed TWSITD to Rhea and played a triple agent to aid the Church. But of course she's been fed lies about the Church for years to be the perfect puppet of TWSITD.
@@GreenWolf2k the church is led by rhea who is not fit to be in such a position of power anymore, the woman needs therapy, her trauma has caused her to be against change in a lot of cases, have a strange obsession with her mother, execute people without any kind of trial, perform human experiments to revive her mother on church followers wich is a pretty messed up power dynamic when you think about it and the whole abyss situation, the church has also not been entirely positive for how people think as catherine goes along and participates in rhea's plan to burn a town with the civilians still there, edelgard might have had a better way of doing things but saying she has been fed lies about the church is a big exagduration when she was litterally around during many of rhea's more quirky moments, like sure the agarthans might have told her lies but the valid reasons to oppose rhea aren't exactly hidden with some of her behavior in white clouds, I think in three hopes she also goes about this a lot better since she is able to break ties with the agarthans early on and even forms an alliance with claude in two routes since their goals are so similar, despite it not being a golden route like people innitially thought it does show the 3 lords probably at their best morally, but rhea did definitly need to be removed from power though maybe you could say claude had the better idea of handling it(but then again he didn't really seem to have any kind of plan prepared to begin with)
@@pandabanaan9208 Oh hell yeah I agree Rhea shouldn't be in a position of power, but she has succeeded at keeping the peace for a long time. She has done many acts that are indefensible. I still say Edelgard is worse in the fact that she chose war. I haven't played 3 Hopes so I have no comment on it's story.
@@masterplusmargarita ok so this is about church of seiros I've seen people say that when the church of seiros kill people who don't believe in there biifes and some people say that they they only do thay to basically bad people and say that edelgard is in the wrong what do you think?
@@sueflewelling3657 I think it's silly. The Church explicitly executes people who disagree with its teachings. Sure, some of those people are bad, but the sole fact of disagreeing doesn't make one evil. I definitely don't think Edelgard is evil - that's the point of the vid, after all ;)
I don't think so - I'm obviously a Black Eagles guy, so Crimson Blaze is obviously the route I'm most excited for, but I'm also the type of person who likes to leave the thing he likes most for last. I think I'm doing Azure Gleam next.
I do plan to eventually have first-impressions reviews out of all three of the routes (though not any time soon), because I have a lot of thoughts about GW, but I think it's honestly about as good as VW, but for different reasons. My main problem with VW is that it lacks an identity, it's clearly just SS with some added exposition - it's really good exposition, mind. GW has a super defined identity, and it really looks at Claude as a character way more thoroughly than Three Houses ever did, but I also think it hinges on "oh shit" moments that are really shocking and effective in the moment but don't really pay off - Chapter 9 feels like a massive deal but then doesn't do anything, Chapter 10 feels like it's setting up for character growth that never comes, Almyra doesn't wind up mattering... It's good - I really like VW, and I think this is as good as it - but it didn't hit me as hard as AM or CF did. Then again, I didn't expect the Warriors spinoff to be remotely as well written as the original game, so I'm pleasantly surprised in a way.
Idk why people go on these hour long videos to try and justify stupid writing 😂. In the end, none of the 3 house masters are virtuous with Cloude being the most mild out of the 3 mostly because in most routes he is always on his backfoot. I think the main flaw in any story that entails war is that theres no end to it, there is no victory through it and I think most of us can see it in the real world. When one war ends, another ignites somewhere else because so long as humans exist, conflict will follow. History is plagued with conquerors and tyrants that plunged entire nations and continents into chaos and mayhem for what they believed was a greater good all to no avail. Even in a more futuristic present like ours, war is still present everywhere and it would be much worse if it wasnt for the massive deterrent that nuclear weapons represent. What I mean is, Edelgards motivations are fundamentally futile. Even if she does away with one corrupt system, another will take its place. Edelgard focuses exclusively on the church because that her way of coping and validating her suffering, not because the church is any worse than her uncle, Miklan, a rabid Dimitry, the ones that slither in the dark, etc. Anyone that unilateraly starts an armed conflict is evil, period. Everyone talks about the house masters but no one thinks of the little people 😂. What I mean is, every life is sacred in my book, they are not sacrificial pawns for royalty to throw away as expendible for their own convoluted reasons and grand dreams. So, at the end, wheb Edelgard passes away and other tyrant shows up and starts a war of his own is when you can ask the question? Was all the blood spilled worth it? This is why i categorize loude as the lesser evil simply because he does war in a defensive way, he doesnt start a conflict unilateraly but he does keep on fighting for some reason. So, if the empire was so good, why not simply yield and move on? Especially without Rhea and the Church looming over his head?.
it was probably said but in Azure moon if you get Hapi and Dimitri's support to an A it does confirm that they hunt down those that slither in the dark so yes they are removed in his time line as well (in this one situation only so its not something that always happens)
Yeah only in the timeline where his wife is an explicit victim of the group is when he actively hunts them down instead of killing 2 of their higher ups by pure chance.
![The Dimitri Documentary. [Fire Emblem: Support Science #21] Fire Emblem: Three Houses](/img/n.gif)
Broke: Edelgard good/bad
Woke: Edelgard is a morally gray character whose actions cannot be categorized in such simple and singular terms.
Bespoke: Edelgard sexy
Edelgard is such a fabulous written character. She is such an amazing way to write any anti-hero ❤
Why I like Crimson Flower is that it is the only route where all major goals are accomplished (even if killing TWSITD is offscreen) with nothing being left to fate/chance; Edelgard and her army directly achieves everything she sets out to do. With Verdant Wind, Claude is fortunate that the church/Rhea essentially becomes so weak as to cede its power, and is also lucky enough that Hubert was willing to share the truth of where TWSITD are located, two obstacles that could have shattered his dream if not for what he calls "fate" (and one can argue that CF sparing Claude still leaves his dream intact, anyway). And Azure Moon? The church is still intact and while some important TWSITD leaders are slain, the organization itself still persists.
It is telling that CF is the only route where Byleth essentially reclaims their humanity at its conclusion, and I find Edelgard's arc one about owning one's own destiny and seizing it without leaving anything to chance or fate.
Also pre-war Fodlan has lots of war and conflict. Jeralt and Byleth are mercenaries, traveling from nation to nation to fight in conflicts. As evident by the opening where Jeralt tells you that you are going to the Alliance the next day. You were in the Empire I believe(?)
And Jeralt is a LEGENDARY MERCINARY, someone people look up to. Clearly war is common in this continent.
It isn't war persay that is so common, but rather uprisings or political conflicts between families. In all 3 of the nations, there are noted uprisings from different groups in them that remain active for years.
This sums up so much of why “Edelgard is evil!” people drive me insane. She’s a much deeper character than they want to admit and honestly I think her war is the only way anything would change. If she doesn’t do anything, Rhea just keeps the country in an endless stagnation that helps nobody but those abusing their authority and power.
"Edelgard is evil!" Huh,almost as if Dimitri hadn't a whole 'insanity' arc,Claude being a backstabbing piece of shit,Serios/Rhea being a tyrannical irredeemable hypocrite who can't even help her own problems yet tries to help humanity only to fail miserably. Let's not forget Nemesis and Thales who are borderline pure evil
Every character is morally gray. The issue is that the people who like Claude, Dimitri, and Rhea acknowledge there is bad in what they have done. Meanwhile Edelgard engages in full war crimes and abets the people who caused basically every problem she has with Fodlan, and she gets the waifu pass.
Thank you very much! It was amazing video about Edelgard von Hresvelg! I am so sorry what so many people simply look at her just another "pure evil villan", instead of "tragic social reformer". And your explain about this subject is beatiful. I agree with every your word!
Pure Evil? I mean,yes,war crimes are awful but Edelgard barely compares to any of the irredeemable villains such as Nergal who lost his mind beyond unimaginable horrors and literally forgot why he even wanted power in the first place or any of the Begnion Senators who are practically greedy assholes who brought shame on their First Empress (Altina,who is one of Ashera's Three Houses and wielder of both Ragnell and Aldonite) with one of them being as much as of a spineless coward as Reinhard or basically FUCKING ARVIS AND BERKUT
Is Edelgard evil? Depends on what you define as evil,but atleast she has many reedemable qualities and is sympathetic
@@axonymous_thevoice I agree with you. I didn't say about Edelgard was "Pure Evil" and so on, as my own opinion. It was simple an example of "what common wrong opinion about Edelgard people usually has".
Change the video title to ‘1 hour of straight facts’ please
I know it's kind of a tricky thing to graft modern-day politics onto a feudal world (much less an alternate universe feudal world with magic and dragons and near-immortal beings), but you hinted at it in your final analysis of each of the three lords so I'm gonna dabble in it too: The three lords vaguely represent three different political perspectives which, depending on one's interpretation of the events of Three Houses, can each be read in a couple ways.
(Just to state my biases upfront before diving into this topic: I'm a libertarian socialist who supports Edelgard the most among the three lords. Take that as you will, but I still love the other two lords as well and do think that there are positives to their worldviews. I just think that Edelgard is the best *politically* whereas the other two stories work better as personal redemption narrative and world-building feast climaxing with God Shattering Star.)
Dimitri can represent ideologies from conservatism to reformist neoliberalism. He has faith in the hierarchical crest-based institutions, the Church, and the traditionalist customs of Faerghus. Even if one were to interpret his AM ending as optimistically as possible, his government seems to point to only surface-level reforms, as you mentioned. A forum where the common people can weigh in on affairs is good stuff compared to pre-war Fódlan, but it's very likely that the aristocracy (the aristocracy that Dimitri left intact) would just unravel those reforms after Dimitri's reign anyway. (Analogous to the unraveling of New Deal/social democratic policies over the last five decades in our own world.) At best, Dimitri is a well-intentioned liberal who wants to do the most good he can within the confines of the status quo; at worst, he's an ignorant reactionary too blindly devoted to the past and tradition to implement the changes actually needed in Fódlan.
Claude's goals are a bit more complex. He can represent ideologies from left-liberalism to progressive internationalism. His goal of abolishing racism and elitism is admirable for sure, and opening the border between Fódlan and Almyra would have far-reaching effects on the world. You can also see some of it in smaller flavor dialogue with Claude and certain NPCs, but it sounds like he also wants to push Fódlan towards a more market-based/liberal capitalist type system -- something even most Marxists would argue is an improvement over feudalism. That said, you bring up great points in the video: his continued support of Rhea (as well as VW being the only route where she survives and remains archbishop) just leaves the door open for her to undo any progress he implements, especially since there's precedent for her to do that sort of thing already. This is the folly of incremental (even if progressive) liberalism: ongoing acquiescence to an imbalanced status quo just allows those with power to acclimate the class hierarchies to new social norms. Rhea could export her religious dogmatism to Almyra, a less racist aristocracy would still be an injustice, the transition from feudalism to capitalism arguably just creates a new de facto aristocracy centered on industry rather than on lineage, etc. At best, Claude is a consensus-seeking progressive who wants Fódlan to live its best life through advancements in technology and the destruction of racism; at worst, he's an "enlightened centrist" whose attempts at reform would probably just be blocked by the very institution he fights to preserve.
Edelgard is, in my view, the best path forward for Fódlan, even if I agree with some of the criticisms brought against her in this video and others. She can represent a broad range of "authoritarian left" ideologies, from general Leninism to a kind of intense Machiavellian left-populism. She is vehemently opposed to the Church, the crest system, and the aristocracy more broadly, and she ultimately wants to build an egalitarian world where people are judged according to their merits rather than their lineage. Whether she advocates a meritocratic republic or a kind of proto-socialism is open to interpretation, though I would argue that those two things aren't necessarily opposed. (Leninism advocates a society defined by "from each according to their ability, to each according to their contribution" directly following capitalism -- a system with socialized production (a democratic economy) where people receive more of society's resource surplus (after everyone has their core material needs met) based on outstanding hard work or labor contribution rather than on their ownership over land or titles or the means of production. I believe that this is in-line with what Edelgard advocates, or as close to in-line as a mainstream game in a capitalist society would reasonably allow.) Crucially, she believes in concentrating power so that it can be wielded to undermine the root foundations of power inequity itself. There are flaws to this idea for sure, but there isn't really any debate over whether she actually believes that -- she sincerely does, but the non-CF routes have her become especially Machiavellian in pursuit of that goal. Additionally, I also agree with your assessment in the video: it is only because Edelgard made her forceful push that any of the smaller changes/reforms could happen in Fódlan, regardless of the route. This mirrors how change happens in the real world: basic reforms have always required future-oriented far-left revolutionaries to drag the Overton Window further along, with new status quos acclimating to reforms and either actually getting more egalitarian or just taking on the appearance of it (as is the case with, say, "rainbow/girlboss/inclusive capitalism" in our time). At best, Edelgard is a revolutionary committed to a classless future freed from the barbarism of history; at worst, she's a dogmatic Machiavellian who will steamroll anybody who gets in the way of her goal.
Someday I'd love to see this topic tackled in more detail with a long-format video essay. As for this video, I loved it and really appreciate all the work you put into it! It's always refreshing to see more nuanced love for Edelgard's character and critical support for her mission, so this video was just what the doctor ordered. 🙂
Hey! What an absolutely fantastic comment, I enjoyed reading it a whole bunch, thanks a lot for making it! The exercise of mapping these characters to real-world philosophies is one I've thought about, but never really tried to do myself because of how radically different Fódlan is to the real world, as you rightfully point out, but I think you pretty much completely nail it. I would love to offer some pushback, because I love to discuss these things and I think they're the most fun when there's a little bit of back-and-forth, but I'm in almost complete agreement with everything you say, so all I can do is just sort of nod and say "yeah!" at everything. I think part of it is that we seem to have pretty similar ideological biases (libertarian socialism is roughly where I land politically, too).
Just in order to add something, I would like to draw a parallel between Claude and a bunch of the "mainstream left" parties all across the world, though - by which I mean the party that's the less right-wing of the two that win every election: The UK's labour, the US's Dems, Spain's PSOE, etc etc. I think he fits in neatly with their progressive liberalism. To some extent, his beliefs can be summarized as follows: "the current system and status quo is fine, but it's weighed down by old fashioned attitudes and bigotry that result in the oppression of minorities - don't change the system, just get rid of bigotry, and everything will be fair", which might as well be word-for-word how progressive liberals view the world. In a way, his position IS that "rainbow/girlboss/inclusive capitalism" - the system's fine, just stop excluding the crestless/Almyrans/commoners/Duscurrians from it! This is purely anecdotal, but it's always felt to me like most people who play the game think Claude would be the best leader for Fódlan, which sort of adds up when we factor in that progressive liberalism is the prevalent attitude in a lot of the world (or in the parts of the world that are likely to be talking about Fire Emblem with me on the Internet, anyway). I'm being a bit unfair, because he does have positions that are more radical than just inclusiveness (fully open borders, for instance), but I think you get my drift - his adherence to the status quo means the only changes he's likely to actually make are painfully incremental while his more radical ideas fall by the wayside.
@@masterplusmargarita Since having made my original comment, I have completed Edelgard's route on Three Hopes (and I aim to eventually get around to Claude's) and I think I might rescind what I said about Claude, at least if we're analyzing his whole character across both games. In Edelgard's route, he sides with the Empire during the war and clearly wants to kill Rhea and end the influence of the Church too. I haven't played Verdant Wind in a long time, so I might've overlooked something key in my original comment, but it seems like Claude may have actually wanted Rhea alive so that she could spill the beans on the truth of Fódlan's history, not because he had any kind of interest in maintaining the Church into the long-term.
Based on my admittedly still-incomplete observations, he seems more moderate in Houses and more radical in Hopes (and even occasionally more villainous if certain conditions are met, which I think is good character-writing and explores a part of him only hinted at in Houses). But I now think labeling him a liberal centrist analogue is a bit reductive. Playing Hopes made me wish that we got some actual Empire/Alliance team-up content in Houses, because the worldviews of Edelgard and Claude are not only reconcilable -- they're downright compatible and complementary. A golden ending for Fódlan would need to involve Edelgard's "Leninist oomph" when it comes to disposessing the nobility and the Church *and* Claude's flexibility and internationalism and decentralist outlook. As far as I'm concerned, a merging of those two worldviews would put Fódlan on the quickest path to some kind of political democracy, maybe even an eventually classless one (again, classless in the Marxist sense, not in the "everyone literally has the same amount of resources and a utopian togetherness is achieved" sense). Plus, the allied interactions between Edelgard and Claude were just really *fun* to witness, so more of that would've been fantastic!
@@daivambrosia6647 I played through Golden Wildfire on launch of Three Hopes (and haven't made my way through any of the other routes yet... I found the game pretty boring, to be completely honest, with considerably less interesting writing than Houses), and my interpretation of Claude was fairly similar to yours. He's definitely leaning way further in Edelgard's direction in that game than he is in Houses, and I agree with him more there. The one thing he does that I don't like is turn Leicester into a pure monarchy, removing the thing in Fodlan that's closest to a democracy. But the fact that's the one thing I disagree with him on is sort of my problem with it, I feel like Claude is a different character in Hopes than he is in Houses. In Houses he's characterized by caution and planning, his whole thing is gathering information, sometimes in lieu of taking action and he continues to support Rhea, seeing the Church as a stabilizing element in Fódlan. In Hopes he does not - if anything, the character flaw he's meant to be overcoming in Golden Wildfire is a sort of recklessness, and he turns on Rhea pretty much as soon as he has the chance, recognizing it as the main barrier to Fodlan's improvement. I just can't reconcile the two takes on Claude as the same person, which is why I think Three Hopes sort of bungles his character, turning him from his own person into a sort of Edelgard-lite, especially when so much of Verdant Wind was centered around rescuing Rhea and restoring her position specifically. Hopes Claude is a contender with Edelgard for best path forward (especially if they can form an alliance rather than turn on each other), but I simply don't see him as the same character as Houses Claude.
I do need to get back around to playing Hopes - I'm much colder on it than everyone else seems to be, and it seems like Golden Wildfire is the consensus worst route, so I may have just picked a bad starting point. I didn't find Golden Wildfire that bad as I was playing it - just sort of dull - , but as more time passes and I think back on it more and more the more I convince myself it was just sort of a badly written mess, and I don't know if that's me catching onto flaws or projecting back my disappointment. The fact that I find Warriors-style gameplay pretty tedious probably didnt help either, I was basically slogging through fights to get to story bits (and doing every fight possible to ensure I'd max everyone's support and get all the dialogue... Maybe not the optimal way to play)
@@masterplusmargarita That's a really interesting point about Claude's character differences across both games and I'll have to keep that in mind once I get around to Golden Wildfire. Even with the milquetoast reception towards GW, I'm still super curious about it, since I find Claude wanting to kill Rhea to be a really cool development and I was really excited when I first heard about the pact between him and Edelgard before I even bought the game. (I refuse to play Azure Gleam because I hear they turn Edelgard into a psychologically-regressed puppet of Thales, and I'm *very* *much* not into that.)
In the end, of the three main lords, I feel like Claude is probably the most difficult to pin down when it comes to characterization, since he holds his cards close to his chest and is always concocting some kind of gambit or scheme. I find characters like that super interesting, but they run more of a risk of not feeling as concrete as characters with clearer motivations (like Edelgard or Dimitri). I'm guessing that they wrote Claude that way in Hopes because they wanted to show off another side of his personality in the same way the other lords already got in Houses; plus I think the "too headstrong" angle is something that was written in there to showcase how maybe Byleth and the Academy helped rein in some of that part of his personality in Houses.
In any case, I still see his *political* characterization as more compelling after playing through Hopes and reassessing Houses. Analyzed together, I do think that his "enlightened centrist" vibe is *a* *bit* of a front and that he does want to see something fundamentally similar to what Edelgard fights for. ("A bit" being the operative phrase there, since while I do think he is personally committed to change and ending racism, he's also very much an opportunist and willing to side with the status quo when he deems it necessary for his plans.) Dimitri, on the other hand, still remains pretty firmly conservative in my eyes, even if there are times when he says he vaguely agrees with Edelgard's ideals in theory. I don't know if you experienced the scene in the same way in Golden Wildfire, but in Scarlet Blaze there's a scene in Zahras where the three lords are transported alongside Shez, and it's very clear that Edelgard and Claude are mostly on the same page about their worldviews when they have a one-on-one conversation, whereas there still seems to be enough of a rift between Edelgard and Dimitri for them to never come to a peaceful solution. You could make the case that there are three broad ideological factions in the Fódlan universe: the disruptors (Edelgard and Claude), the status quo (Dimitri and the Church), and the Obligatory FE Evil Guys (Those Who Slither In The Dark). Thematically speaking, *these* three factions are the real "three houses" of Fódlan.
i will preface this with saying i havent watched the video in full yet, i was just glancing at the comments first just in case. i only wanted to respond to the VW/Claude section of this comment, if thats alright.
re:rhea, while shes only mentioned in one of the vw endings, lets say we take for granted she assumes her position again no matter what. this time though, its important to recall two things:
1. Rhea owes her freedom to both byleth and claude
2. I would argue byleth has even more power than Rhea at this point, not only as the monarch of Fodlan but as the bearer of the Goddess' crest stone.
the importance of byleth in this scenario is not to be understated. we should assume that whatever changes claude wants to implement, byleth will probably agree to, and they will have the upper hand on rhea, and prevent backsliding as well. byleth's now longer lifespan will also be helpful with this, beyond claude's life. on a more personal note for me, i believe that the reason claude supports rhea at all is because byleth's existence lets him use the knights to hold out against the empire instead of having to submit to them.
and while i talk about claude, there's a few things i usually see go unnoticed when talk arises.
we must remember as well that claude says about edelgard that hes got a pretty good idea of what shes trying to do (unlike dimitri who just... doesnt see it), and in his combat dialogue with her, he says that he'll finish the job for her. now we dont *see* this pay off we dont rightly know what he meant, but not the point.
that was all without taking into account that in 3 Hopes, we see even further that claude is, more than anything, open minded when it comes to progress and different government systems. while we wouldnt expect a destruction of class system entirely within his lifespan (nor do we see it in edelgard's, she mostly enables class mobility by merit + ensures the "nobles"/government officials are there to work and not bleed the people dry), we see in claude's interactions with lorenz that he'd be very much open to electing leaders by popular vote, for example. naturally while people who are nobles would come up on top at first because of the difference in education and influence, this is a topic of nuance which im not about to get down to the details of, thats not my point.
im also not gonna get into hopes claude's different stance on rhea, aka "yeah we can kill her so lets do it" i just think its pretty cool and it shows to me that rhea surviving in VW is just bc its whats most beneficial to him at the moment, hes very well aware the church is the source of the problems in fodlan and aims to change it using byleth's divine link in the og game, and he wants to use defeating rhea as a bargaining chip so that edelgard has to at least listen to him in GW.
the point is. claude's goal isnt just Ending racism, its opening people's eyes and minds. showing them that things *can* be different, and that one shouldnt just brush things off because theyre different from oneself. and not just in race! claude's ideal is pushing to reject narrow-mindedness, conformism, and things like tradition and the status quo holding society back. theres a whole world of ideas, government systems, faith... and this opens the flood gates for any of these new thoughts to be expressed and combined into birthing new ideas.
and while my sentiments for real life politics echo more with edelgard's side of things because things are just getting ridiculous, i still think claude's ending opens a wealth of great possibilites for fodlan (and almyra) in the long run, and i think thats praiseworthy.
we can try to put labels on him if we want, but rather trying to pin him with any one known system, its more accurate to see he represents freedom of thought and a rejection of what is considered to be set in stone. just because he will go with x or y system now it doesnt mean he didnt do the ground work for the future to adopt a better one too even beyond his lifespan.
Edelgard: sends 2 friends to gronder, ordering one to retreat upon defeat
Dimitri and Claude: Sends almost all friends to Gronder and still only has one retreat
This is what confuses me so much about Three Houses. Edelgard's actions never come across in-game as bad as they are described as, and yet the game is trying to make her seem that bad when she really isn't.
There might as well be no split paths or anything because the game takes what you think for granted, no matter what it may be.
You know who else started a COMPLETELY JUSTIFIED war of aggression in order to put a permanent end to an objectively evil system of oppression that clearly was NOT going to end peacefully anytime soon? Abraham Lincoln himself, among many other historical figures, but he is the first who comes to mind. I rest my case. Also, I have seen some quality videos get nowhere near the number of views that they deserve before, but under 1,000 views for such a well structured video essay? That takes the metaphorical cake.
The difference is that you know slave owners weren't superhumans with standing armies that could stage a coup the day Lincoln was dead and elections were held.
And even then discrimination still happens today in the US, a democratic country where equality is supposed to be a keystone of the country's foundation. In a medieval feudalistic empire where a 16 year old with a crest could crush barehanded fully trained career soldiers wearing full plate armor what would happen? If merit is all that counts then shouldn't the Agarthans or the Nabateans be included in positions of ruling since they are citizens of Fodlan and have lived for centuries? Is morality a merit in the new system? Will Edelgard go to war with her own supporters to protect freedom of religion or will she let innocents die ? What about her successors? If a person without a crest and a big devotee of St. Seiros born in Dagda and raised in the Empire is the best successor wil they be allowed to ascend? These are the questions that we are never given the answers for and make me as much as I love El as a Lord (she is up there with Dimitri for me since I think both of them are amazing characters) to consider her route to be the worst for Fodlan as a whole, even thought it might be the best for Byleth.
God, we have failed teaching history. Lincoln didn't go to war with the South because of slavery. He even stated it himself. It was to keep the country united under the Union. He tried what he could to appease the South from seceding from the Union. But once it was clear they had no intention of compromising, he went to war. He eventually added slavery to his list of reasons to fight the South as many Northerns didn't care if the South seceded. We need to remember that most soldiers in wars are young men. What better way to entice young men to join the fight to "free" slaves. This also enticed many "free" black men to fight to "free" their brothers. Even after the war, not every slave was set "free." Blacks continued to face discrimination in both the South and North for many more decades.
or you know, france and the uk declaring war on nazi Germany.
The only negative thing I can say after watching this incredibly good video is, why do you only have 4 videos on your channel? Seriously, thank you for making this. I really enjoyed it!
I'm just going to send this next time I feel too tired arguing one of those people. Great work!
Just small corrections: the Crests don't disappear as Rhea dies, it's only Byleth's since it was tied to the Crest stone in their heart, not blood. However the game implies that the Crest bloodlines are thinning and the glorified genetic mutations are set to die out eventually. Also Rhea is very much implied to die in VW, leaving Claude free to install Byleth as a leader who's favourable to him.
To me, Edelgard is more of an Anti Hero. Even though she does a lot of questionable stuff in the story, she does have good intentions. Not everyone has to be a goody two shoed hero or a mustache twirling villain, there are some who has to do some horrible stuff for the greater good. And that’s one of the reasons why Fire Emblem Three Houses is great in terms of writing, not everyone is good or evil, they’re just trying to change the world for the better, look out for their loved ones, seeking revenge or pursue their dreams of a better life.
In CF only the crest stone in Byleth's heart dissappears.
Not crests in general
Yeah, that one confused me. My assumption was that Byleth's crest stone was only functioning because of some magic enforced by Rhea. Even if the two aren't actively linked, it would be a case of killing the caster kills the spell.
Either that, or it's a case of them going against Rhea's intentions for them. Even if she died in other routes, those ones didn't see Byleth actively oppose her, and thus defy the purpose for which they were given the crest stone. That would make it a case of breaking the rules breaks the spell.
@@Neutra77I think it’s more likely the second option because as you said, Rhea dies in multiple routes. I think it’s mostly because it would make no sense for Byleth to keep being the vessel of the goddess despite overthrowing the church and her children haha. That also makes this path where Byleth isn’t doomed to immortality but gets to grow old with her students :)
Love the video, and a lot of your points are neat.
I found your take about Dimitri to be interesting. That Dimitri could become a good king, but due to the values of Farghaus and its devotion to the church his Fodlan would have the least change. I do differ on one aspect on Dimitri though. You said Dimitri doesn't take out Those Who Slither in the Dark. In Blue Lions Dimitri takes the most TWSD commanders in his main story. You could say that they could recover eventually since Dimitri doesn't attack Shambala directly, but Myson, Thales' generic Warlock lieutenant, acts like those that are there on Blue Lions final map are all that is left of the Agarthans since Dimitri took out Cordelia, Arundel/Thales, and their personal armies before the final map. I always found it funny in Blue Lions main story that Dimitri killed all of the major TWSD commanders without even knowing who they or their organization actually were.
This video deserves more views. Great analysis of a fantastically written character!
Exactly, the amount of work behind a video like this one is just amazing and deserve more recognition !
Great video. It is always frustrating to see the hate for this character, especially when the hate blatantly doesn't bother to engage with her character in a meaningful way.
I find it uniquely frustrating. I get having different perspectives on the game, but a lot of time the criticism feels like it comes from a place of not even understanding the most basic aspects of what's going on.
Starting a new comment to continue from your reply. Discussing this game is always fun! And yeah as you said the beauty of Three Houses is that nobody is unambiguously in the right, so you can create different interpretations, draw different conclusions about the characters.
However, I do take issue with your conclusion that because Claude and Dimitri simply maintain the status quo, Edelgard is better ending. You give Edelgard's route the most charitable interpretation of how it impacts society, so I implore you to do the same for Dimitri and Claude. And in this interpretation, we'll assume the best part of Edelgard's ending is that it replaces feudalism with a new system of government and thus grants more social mobility. It also genuinely selects for competent leaders. I argue that Dimitri and Claude's endings achieve similar endpoints, even if in a more subtle way, and certainly do not leave the status quo intact. To support my point, I will use the solo ending cards for Claude and DImitri as well.
In Dimitri's ending, he "spent his life reforming and ruling justly over Fodlan. He focused particularly on improving living situations for orphans and improving foreign relations." It explicitly states he worked on reforms. Additionally, you pointed out in your video that Fodlan had problems with isolation and intolerance of other nations, xenophobia. The reason for this xenophobic attitude in Fodlan is likely the clerical nature of the nation (their land has the blessing of the goddess, so it makes them superior). In other words, opening up the borders already fundamentally defies the church's teachings/rulings (Lorenz actually says this in his supports with Claude). Wanting to tackle this issue is a large part of his character, because of his relationship with Dedue, and Dimitri follows through with it. Dimitri already carried his own desire for change, and it is a disservice to his character to say he maintains a status quo or has no revolutionary desires, even if he is more conservative than the other two lords.
You touched on the implications of him instituting a new form of government, and while it surely isn't a pure democracy, it is still a lot better than what Fodlan previously had. It seems like perhaps this is only a superficial, small change, but what I want to focus on is this line: "He lived for his people and alongside them." The words "alongside them" is what is most revealing of his new system. First, we know his government allows all people to be active participants in their government. And he created a society in which a king can live "alongside" his people. Taken together, this suggests at minimum a loosening of social divide thus granting more power to commoners, and at best a society that no longer is shackled by birthright, crests, and lineage as the condition for power. In both cases, this is social mobility, something Edelgard strives for in her system. Perhaps Dimitri's approach isn't as drastic as hers, we don't know how he tackles the nobility system itself, but I doubt he would leave it as is, knowing how his friends have suffered from it and his willingness to listen to suffering of the people (in many of Sylvain's endings, he convinced the nobility that crests are unnecessary). Still, his leadership changes Fodlan in substantial ways, by defying the church's old doctrines by tackling xenophobia and at least letting all people have the ability to partake in their government in some capacity. In allowing all people to have a voice in their government, this does lead to far more competent leadership than Fodlan's nobility system that can take a corrupt noble's word as law. This new system carries the promise of further change. While a feudal system is possibly not fully removed in Dimitri's route, there is certainly a break in the status quo with his going against the church's attitudes towards other nations, and in reforming the government so that the people have more power. This would make the worst aspects of the nobility system less impactful. Taken this charitable reading in comparison to Edelgard's charitable reading, there is enough overlap: social mobility, defiance of the church's teachings, and the potential for things to further improve. At the very least, Dimitri's rule over Fodlan isn't nearly as bleak as you depicted in the video.
Claude's solo ending is less vaguely wording than Dimitri's, but perhaps not detailed enough. Still, what we can glean from it is that Claude leaves Fodlan to lead Almyra and create open borders that eventually leads to peaceful coexistence between people. Given Claude's distaste for crests/nobility as is, I sincerely doubt he'll bring the problematic aspects of Fodlan to Almyra. In VW, Rhea resigns from her position as Archbishop, by the way, so her going back into power is a nonissue. She either dies from her illness (as she does in SS without S-support), which you can conclude because Catherine leaves the Knights of Seiros in VW solo ending, or retires to Zanado with Catherine. Claude only wanted her alive because he was looking for answers. I would concede on most of your other points on what Claude brings to Fodlan, and with the knowledge that he does not let Rhea back into power, surely you can agree that what he created is not simple a rehash of the status quo. He hopes to address much of the same issues as Edelgard, with greater emphasis on foreign relations than the internal politics of the nobility system, but he still desires to reform both. His method is more slow than hers, yes, but I think there is a great wisdom in not forcing change too quickly. In waiting for greater, longer-lasting rewards.
Edelgard's methods and her stubbornness/tunnel vision lead to her taking very extreme and violent means to achieve her goal-- including implicitly finishing off a genocide. I get Byleth regaining their heartbeat is meant to be a triumphant moment for humanity in the CF route, but it strikes me as saddening too. Edelgard wants for humanity to thrive, and her vision of "humanity" explicitly does not include the Nabateans or Agarthians. Of course, the Agarthians are depicted as the aggressors, so wiping them out can perhaps be morally justified. But the Nabateans are able to be reasoned with (in VW, Rhea is willing to forfeit her power), and though not humans, they are, under our modern day understanding of it, a sapient species (i.e. people). Edelgard's vision leaves no room for an entire species that fits our definition of personhood to live. She knows what Rhea is and wants her dead, she kills Seteth and Flayn, and in Linhardt's paralogue he does not want Edelgard present when he is looking for Saint Indech. Byleth becoming human again is a miracle as they defy fate with Edelgard, but it also means the Sothis (Nabatean) part of Byleth has to go (god is dead and edelgard killed her, ig?), because that part of Byleth's identity has no place in Edelgard's world. It's part personal, because I am upset about the attempted genocide of the Nabateans in Fodlan's history, and it seems history is doomed to repeat itself in CF. But it is also poses an ethical concern. Is the extermination of a species of people worth the peace afterwards? Compared to that, Claude's way is a more morally palatable path to change. Even if it takes longer, it truly does welcome all people and best embodies that spirit of unification, including non-humans. Rhea is able to live the rest of her days in relative peace, while not in a position of power.
Speaking of Rhea, though, the crest system is absolutely defunct and even when she reclaims power, she does NOT reinforce it. She tells the the truth about the crests, and is tired of humans fighting for power, aware that the crests are a primary cause of the recent war. In her paired ending with Byleth in SS, when Rhea regains her title as archbishop, she puts efforts into redemption and "applied herself to rehabilitating the church and helping those who had suffered because of the war." Most importantly, she "[forged] new policies and [achieved] progress for Fodlan" with the game describing her work as "nothing short of miraculous."
Rhea's work on Fodlan's government isn't specifically described, but it's incredibly obvious the crest-based nobility system is gone. Having Rhea back in power isn't the most revolutionary thing you can do, I suppose, but even in SS she is able to own up to her mistakes and improve Fodlan.
(part 2 in reply)
PT II:
Edelgard's desire for change is absolutely justified. It took great courage to do what she did, and it set off the start of reforming Fodlan to something better in all the routes. However, when you look at the very best each route has to offer, I don't see any particular ending unambiguously coming out on top. All three of the main lords' endings achieve greater social mobility. They directly oppose the church's old teachings in some form, and Rhea loses power in all three. The influence of the nobility/crests are reduced, to varying degrees. Most importantly, they all shatter the status quo and sow the seeds for long-lasting change.
Also this doesn't fit into my argument anywhere but Lorenz! The game directly contradicts your assertion that Lorenz does not change his stance on the nobility-commoner relationship. In his A support with Byleth, Lorenz word for word says, "bloodline alone is insufficient to gauge a person's worth" and that Byleth is so much more than the abilities the crest grants them. Like Ferdinand, Lorenz still wants to embody the ideal of nobility but eventually comes to conclude that the crest/bloodline-based nobility system is not the best way to foster those ideals (he has a monastery dialogue saying so in CF). Additionally, you can look at Lorenz's solo ending card: "His political talent yielded revolutionary policy changes, many of which were of particular benefit to the commonfolk." The text outright describes his political career as revolutionary. He almost certainly has a hand in completely changing the way the nobility operates, even if unspecified, and the changes he brought were specifically designed to improve the lives of commoners. If you take Lorenz's character growth as a whole, you can see how his attitudes towards marriage mirror/parallel his changing attitudes on the nobility. Pre-timeskip, Lorenz's "suitable spouse" had to be a noble. Post-timeskip, he becomes open to accepting a commoner as his wife, i.e. bringing a person of non-noble birth into a position of power. His personal journey reflects his stance on the concept of social mobility, and he thinks it is a good thing.
What's so impressive about his character, to me, is that this is a conclusion he comes to independently, after observing the world around him more carefully. People typically have a hard time changing cherished beliefs, because they don't want to be wrong, or perhaps that belief grants comfort. Lorenz values reason and truth far more than being in the right, so he is able to see the errors of his ways through his own introspection. There is no one support or turning moment that changes Lorenz. Rather, Lorenz responds to the ideas of his peers in good faith, while defending his own stance, and then, off-screen, he changes his mind and admits where there is a flaw in his thinking. It shows that he gives the other perspective serious consideration in his own time, and thinks about how it could be a better way to achieve his goals. Not many characters-- and real people-- are capable of completely discarding a cherished belief in this way, and he has my respect for that.
And while I do not defend the real life feudal system, the one in Fodlan is a) fictional and b) formed in a way that is different from ours (magic, crests, dragon-people). So while the oppression and abuse of power is there and we can use our own history as a baseline for comparison, it is not the same as the system in our real world history. It's less complicated in Fodlan, and the game seems to suggest that the nobility system can be quite functional with the right changes, given that the noble characters in the game who choose to rule as a noble genuinely make improvements to society without compromising the power or well-being of commoners.
OK whew that was a long one! I hope this doesn't create the baseline for another video lol
Thanks for taking the time to read this!
I don't like the nabatean genocide being framed like it was something edelgard went out of her way to do, she did kill seteth and flayn but the thing is they went onto the battlefield and they knew the risks that come with that though I haven't played her route so maybe things were different, while in verdant wind rhea can be reasoned with the circumstances are very different, claude got lucky because despite wanting to get rid of the church he incidentally ended on the side of the church meaning rhea was more friendly to him and she later stepped down due to nuke poisoning or something I think, anyways edelgard is in a very different position she directly opposes rhea and rhea is very unwilling to talk to people who oppose her
as for the agarthans, well this is just a writing problem in three houses, they are basically just simplified into evil cult despite the fact that futuristic mole people bodysnatchers is a really cool concept, as far as we know every agarthan is evil with the possible exception of shez's mother since I think she was implied to be an agarthan and seemed nice from what they said about her though maybe I'm getting shez's mothers mixed up, why do they have two sets of dead parents again
Honestly it’s amazing how nuanced the world of foadlan is. Our discussions here echo real discussions people had during the 15th century aka the early modern period.
I however have an aversion to Edelgard though I’m very attracted to her as a person and a leader. Dimitri is defined by a desire for revenge-while Claude is defined by his desire for peace. I believe Edelgard is driven by fear; fear of the ancient peoples, fear of an uncertain future, fear of being weak. She looks to her trauma and the suffering the “ancient peoples” have caused on normal humanity and her family, and declares “Never again!” That is what gives her the strength and desire to plunge the continent into war, in her mind it is safer to do so rather than be manipulated by dark forces.
This is unlike claude who ultimate desire is peace while also being considerate with people. Although he is not above forcing his ideals upon people, he knows that his way is not the only way, he bends and negotiates for what he wants.
Claude is the leader who actually knows how to play politics. Dimitri is your standard crown prince who rules through feudalism. Edelgard is an absolutist Emperor who ruled through blood and iron.
In conclusion, the other house leaders should shut the fuck up and listen to Claude, at least he won’t kill everyone.
Edelgard is a good waifu tho, the ultimate “I can fix her.”
Finally! Someone who actually gets 3H! Thank you for this!
The big issue with Edelgard is that she's the villain in three of the four paths. Two of which don't teach you much about her origin.
Dimitri by contrast never comes off as flawed in most of the paths.
Thus there's an error of storytelling in the four paths you can take, in that they aren't treated equally. If you ask me, there should have been a form of square conflict going on. Maybe Dimitri is blaming the Alliance for the Duscar masacre, Claude is suspicious of the Empire, the Empire attacks the Church, and the Church goes after the Kingdom. (As an example)
Maybe in some of the paths you ally with one of the other houses etc. That away we avoid Edelgard coming off as the villain in every damn path.
Three Hopes helps a bit with with Edelgard not being the antagonist in 2/3 routes.
I personally quite enjoy Edelgard as a character since she kind of embodies the idea that, if you have the means to (at least try to) change aspects of the world that are bad, you owe it to everyone and everything to go for it.
She knows what she has to do will in some aspects be incredibly terrible, but any inaction would just work as a form of endorsement for the Church and its ways.
Awesome video man. When I first played Three Houses, I was too politically niave to pick up on the themes of the characters and thought of the routes in very black and white terms. Especially since I only played Claude's route. Coming back to the game a little wiser and a little more politically mature has been such a fun experience.
Something I noticed and think is really interesting are the ways in which each of the main three lords address the status quo. Dimitri wants to embrace the status quo in the best way possible. Claude wants to take a revisionist approach to it, using the systems currently in place to make long term improvements with as little bloodshed as possible. And Edelgard wants a violent revolution to address the problems in as swift and efficiently as possible.
As himself a member of the upper class without any discrimination, Dimitri sees the fewest issues with the status quo, and so his resolutions are the least drastic. Claude has experienced more and recognizes more of the problems with the status quo, but his methods still are long term and passive. Edelgard is the direct and explicit victim of the status quo and has seen the worst of it, and so of course her resolutions are the most radical.
It's a very interesting dynamic and I'm happy to see people discussing it. Great video!
Exactly! The Lords' positions on what direction to take Fodlan in are direct consequences on having seen what Fodlan's current system is capable of doing first hand. I also think it's importang that Dimitri's big trauma - the Tragedy of Duscurr - is the system failing to do the that it's designed to do, so it makes sense that he'd see shoring it up and reinforcing it as good.
At the same time, Claude is shielded from a lot of the worst consequences of Fodlan's racism by his position as a noble son of house Riegan, so it makes sense for him to not want to get rid of that entirely on a subconscious level - I don't think he calculatedly thinks "if I get rid of the nobility people will be able to be racist to me", but there's probably some positive feelings toward the concept of nobility that stem from that.
It's such a good game.
Edelgard did nothing wrong.
She does some things wrong but in general it's not her fault
Edelgard based
I think one of the things which really hurts Edelgard's path is the fact is just isn't complete. I maintain that we should have ended with Edelgard destroying the Argahans. The lack of proper cutscenes also hurt it, making it seem rushed. Honestly, it was one of the things which really put me off the game and made me very hostile towards it. Good video though.
I can sympathize with that. I think Crimson Flower's criminally unfinished, which is why I hesitate to call it my favourite path - as much as I love Edelgard and I think CF has some of the more interesting storytelling, it also just... abruptly ends, and then says a bunch of stuff happened off-screen.
I do think it'd need to be restructured a bit if it were complete, tho, because I don't think *ending* it fighting the Agarthans would've been quite as thematically satisfying as having Rhea/Seiros as the final boss (since she stands for everything Edelgard is opposed to - she's the one who's molded Fodlan into what it is, she's the closest thing we have to the source of all Crests etc etc), so I'd personally probably slot the war against TWSITD between conquering Leicester and turning northward toward Faerghus.
@@masterplusmargarita Sorry for my late response and thank you for taking the time to reply to my comment. I agree that the emotional weight of fighting Rhea (Seiros) is the stronger ending - a sort of truly entering a new age.
To be completely honest, the Golden Deer (despite having some amazing characters in it) feels like it shouldn't be here. The lore and history of Fodlan is very much between Faerghus and Adrestia - not to mention the connection between the two kingdom's leaders.
I think if you were to cut the Golden Deer path and add it into Crimson Flower, it would make the experience feel complete. If I were to do the events - it would be.
Defeating the Church and Faerghus, but not killing Rhea or Rhea managing to escape. While she is away, Hurbert begins his campaign against TWSITD, launching strike forces to dismantle their ability to use the light spears. You could have your units replaced with the generic models of their chosen class, so it plays to the themes of this being covert. Once the ability for the Agarthans to use the spears of light (which I do think is a dumb plot point) then you can have Edelgard mounting a full war against the Agarthans, exposing them for all the misery they caused Fodlan. You can also give the player the closure of watching Edelgard slay her uncle - something we are criminally robbed of in CF.
Have Nemesis revived and then destroyed by Edelgard and in the final chapter, Rhea, now completely and utterly insane (as Dragons tend to become in Fire Emblem lore) attacks either the Church (turning it into ruins) or the Adrestiain capital. Personally, I think the church makes more sense and you could have it so you fight through the school ground (really give that emotional payoff) before you confront Rhea in the church. You could even make this final map like the Serenes Forest from Path of Radiance. Once you being, the map is split up into different sections, and at the start of each one you have the option to call in reinforcements. Perhaps if you allowed Dimitri to live (because the professor's bond with him was high enough) we could arrive and offer his strength to the fight.
This all leads to the slaying of Rhea. While bitter, this allows Fodlan to truly enter a new age with no lingering ties to its past.
I can further expand on these ideas if you're interested, but this is pretty much how I think the developers should have handled the story. The reality is they were spread too thin and all the rich and fascinating lore (some of the best in the series) is lost in some very clumsy stories - which leads to people making really, really stupid and shallow conclusions about the characters and their motives.
Unless there's something I'm missing (please correct me if so) you're straight up wrong about Rhea coming back into power in Verdant Wind, since it's Byleth who takes over and I'm pretty sure Rhea willingly steps down before the battle with Nemesis. Three Hopes also shows that Edelgard could've begun to enact reforms in Adrestia without provoking Rhea, but I know that she wouldn't know that and it's not a risk that makes sense for her to make in the Three Houses timeline. The rest of this video is very good though
Yeah, most of this video is good, but he kinda fumbles the ball in the “Why Edelgard is the best ruler” section. I have no problem with him believing she is the best, I just disagree, but he (probably unintentionally) misrepresents a lot of things regarding the other leaders. I’m a Blue Lion sympathizer though, so I’ll just be laying out Dimitri’s side. (Fair warning, this is probably gonna be an essay lol)
1)”Never intends to enact sweeping change” He says multiple times in AM that he is against the crest system as it is now, he’s just trying to change it through persuasion and reasoning rather than legislation that can be easily changed with the new monarch.
2) “No real qualms about the nobility system, just wants people to treat commoners better” This is fair to an extent. He doesn’t mind the separation of nobles/commoners but he views the job of nobles to be to serve the commoners. He sees them more as government officials who should use their power to better the lives of their subjects. (Much like Ferdinand)
3)”Firm and devout believer that works with the church” This is just false. Dimitri isn’t fond of the church, he just isn’t openly hostile to them like the other two. He allies with them in Crimson Flower, not out of loyalty, but because they have a common enemy in Edelgard.
4) In regard to his government structure. He doesn’t create a democracy, it’s more of a republic. The other noble houses act as senators who listen to the wants, needs and concerns of their people and bring them to the king. The king then makes the final decision, but if it isn’t in line with what the people want or the king starts being corrupt, the people are far more empowered to instate a new king.
5)”Faerghus is toxic”…Yeah, but that’s kinda the point of the game. The way the countries are being run currently is bad but the rulers plan to change things. I could see this point if his belief that Dimitri was content with how the kingdom is currently was true, but as I’ve already stated it just isn’t.
6) Kingdom citizens hyper-glorifying honor, duty, loyalty and self-sacrifice to the point of needlessly throwing their lives away. Dimitri says on multiple occasions that he is against this idea both before and after timeskip. (His supports with Ingrid and Gilbert, when Dedue returns after timeskip, and when Rodrigue dies to name a few). During his madness he says he’s willing to sacrifice people for his goals but, as we see with Dedue and Rodrigue, this isn’t actually true. In fact most of what he says during his madness is an act to try to convince others and himself that he’s this cold and uncaring monster but there is a few times when the mask slips and we see the vulnerability that he’s trying to hide.
7)”Agarthans are never defeated” If we just go off what the base game explicitly tells us this is true, But all the big names are dead. Kronya, Solon, Cornelia and Thales(Arundel). There was a small splinter group led by Myson left but they are severely hindered after Myson is killed in Edelgards palace. If we add in speculation or DLC though, this is completely nullified. In both her own ending or her pared ending with Dimitri it says that Hapi wipes out the rest of the Agarthans, and even if Hapi isn’t involved it’s entirely possible that Hubert left the same note that he leaves in SS and VW leading them to Shambala. Without any speculation they are as defeated as in SS(only a sleeping Nemesis left), with a little speculation they are completely defeated like in VW.
Thank you for coming to my TED Talk
@@coreyklaustermeier5692 Massive respect for that lol. I think a lot of people are way too biased about the Fodlan games, basically only seeing their original lord as correct when the entire point of the game is that no one (except the Agarthans) is completely evil or unjustified, and that not even people like Rhea have the full story in mind when they make decisions. People also act like the Three Hopes timeline is objectively worse for everyone involved when that isn’t true at all (a lot of the playable characters do get pushed aside there, but in terms of Fodlan as a whole, the war ends in like half the time). Literally no ending for Fodlan is straight up bad, but which ones are better are up to you. That’s the entire point.
I LOVE this video. It’s a very well thought out video and it is very intelligently written.
i was already enjoying the video so far, but as soon as you said ferdinand was your favorite character in the entire game, i knew all of your opinions were going to be based
Before I watch the video, I would like to say that some of the same ppl who mindlessly view Edelgard as some villain or fascist are also some of the same ppl who cry “we need more complex women in our video games!!!” Like. Yeah. I agree. We do. One note characters are only fun and interesting to a point. But I’m just saying, when they did that, you weren’t able to handle it 😂
I suppose for me the difference between Edelgard and the other two lords is that I think genocide is a more terrible thing to do than feigning indifference and being mentally Ill. Nobody thinks Edelgard is really evil. I think she’s irrational though.
Finally someone can put my thoughts into words
I like Edelgard but I would say she's my least favorite of the three lords. I think her biggest flaw- and you touched on this a little- is her arrogance which, paired with her shortened lifespan, cause her to make really drastic and violent decisions like allying with TWSITD and starting the war. (Granted there is an argument that this is the only way to make real lasting change but that's a whole other topic and this is a video game) Maybe it's not the most realistic but I really think that there is a chance that she could have worked WITH Dimitri and Claude to create a better Fodlan without starting a war. I at least wish she would have tried although she admittedly would have lost the element of surprise in that scenario. At the very least I'm pretty confident she could convince Claude that Rhea has caused a lot of harm for Fodlan and I think even Dimitri could be swayed if he found out about a lot of the really shady things that Rhea had done. This could just be me grasping at straws for a happy ending/golden route but idk
It's not difficult to understand. She is doing bad things for the greater good.
Ah, someone who understands the story. It is frustrating how many fail to do so.
this game has a lot of morally grey characters, morally grey characters are a bit of a mess as they are often hard to write properly, three houses does this very well, but there is a second issue, they are also hard for many audience members to understand, this also goes for villains who aren't meant to be completely sympathetic but also not completely evil, I think silco from arcane is a good example because many people just don't get his character, he genuinely loves jinx like a father wich is a good trait, but one good trait doesn't make up for being evil the rest of the time, anyways morally grey characters are often a tin line to walk, you want to make them do some things wich ad the grey aspect but also have to be careful to not make them hateable and even if you do everything right some audience members still won't get it
Great video. Edelgard is Baedelgard.
edelgard is wrong to try to establish a meritocracy independent of the church but right to offer dimitri someone to spar with if he ever changes his mind.
I still think she's too justified to be called "morally grey". Like, instead of showing the events of the game and letting us realize for ourselves if Edelgard ha sthe best ending, it shows how it actually is the best ending and goes "Eh? Eh? Get it?". And then it has the gall to still act like it is "ambiguous".
Prior to the events of any timeskip she engages in the following
1. Orders the assassination of Dimitri and Claude to likely force a war between the nations
2. Assists the Agarthans in kidnapping Flayn (a Nabatean) in order to steal her blood.
3. Allows Kronya and Solon to go completely unchecked at the Monastery, an action which led to Jeralt dying.
4. Allowed Byleth to run headfirst into a trap set by Kronya in order to lock him in Zahras.
5. Ordered Imperial troops to kill Byleth AND the entire Black Eagles house.
It's very weird how people talk about the scene in the Holy Tomb like Rhea was ordering you to murder Edelgard as she was bawling on the floor crying about a broken foot or smth. "She was unarmed", yeah homie bc she was *defeated*.
She's not the only good guy that IS came up with for the entire game. She, just like Rhea, and just like Claude, and just like Dimitri, does a LOT of fucked up stuff in the name of her beliefs.
The status quo is always seen as good so the ruling class can keep their power. Any sort of change is seen as bad and in media the change is often seen with evil intent as if the current society isn't already unjust. The villains usually are bad, but that's justification for keeping the status quo. Until you look at the current society and see how they are actually the same as far as bad things, it just looks different
So she’s like white glint from armored core I’m i correct
edelgards side really resonated with me, even if she did some bad things to reach her goal.
i didn’t not care for dimitris edgelord arc at all
Funnily enough, Edelgard is more of an edgelord to me. Dimitri sinks pretty low in Azure Moon, but before and after he's a very open and amiable character. He hides from girls in Sylvain's room, he tries to learn how to sew from Mercedes, and teases Annette with embarrassing stories from her dad. Dedue even mentions how Dimitri's flaw is that he cares too much for people, living or dead.
Edelgard meanwhile cosplays as her edgy "Flame Emperor" persona, hangs out with her vampire simp and a guy with a skull mask, and has a whole arc revolving about her trying to wake up the world to atheism. She also never tells her classmates about her affiliations to the dubstep mole cult or the truth about Arianrhod because "They could never understand..."
Dimitri's ending image has him surrounded by smiling children, Edelgard's has her stomping on the flags of the territories she conquered while a bunch of nobles look on in horror. She's way more edgy than Dimitri to me.
@@greendemon905Yeah yeah we heard you Dimitri fanboy. You're always there whenever Edelgard is discussed and people don't put your His Majesty on the same pedestal as yours. The exit is over there.
@@fz_dracohart1255 Lol, it seems I'm getting a reputation it seems! I take it you're an Edelgard fan?
great video and I agree on what you say about edelgard. it ok if I ask you some questions?
Thanks, much appreciated! Sure, go ahead.
@@masterplusmargarita ok one out if the three lords to romance byleth witch one do you think is the best. out of the three lords witch one do you think is the strongest in the lore both pre and after time skip. three is byleth never return to the war after the time skip witch side would edvegliey win. and four I hope you make another video covering a nother commen miss comsepsion that being the realaship between byleth and rhea for not being a incest realaship. if you chose to romance her. what do you think?
I've never done the Claude romance, but I think both Dimitri and Edelgard feel like they're set up as romantic interests for Byleth (Edelgard pretty much explicitly has feelings for Byleth in Crimson Flower), so I think either of them work, though slight preference for Edelgard just because there's more groundwork there.
I guess in terms of lore Edelgard is probably the strongest? She's got the dual Crests going on after all, and stuff like the Hegemon form. That said, Dimitri is always said to be inhumanly strong as well, which is never explained in lore but definitely backed up by the stuff he's said to do during the timeskip. My brain says Edelgard, but my gut says Dimitri. Edit: This is assuming we're not counting Rhea - she wins by a landslide for being a Child of the Goddess - I don't think individual humans can stand up to that.
Who'd win the war without Byleth is really tricky to say, because the conditions that the war starts with depend on Part 1 - stuff like how much Edelgard is willing to trust TWSITD, who wins the battle of Garreg Mach, who controls Garreg Mach after five years, even whether Dimitri loses his mind. Assuming we're more aligned with the Blue Lions and Golden Deer routes (as opposed to the more drastic changes of Black Eagles), my guess would be the outcome would be most similar to what happens in Silver Snow - a sort of neutral force spearheaded by old Knights of Seiros and Church officials would eventually be able to gain build up enough support across Faerghus, Leicester and even anti-Edelgard bits of Adrestia to slow bleed the Empire out of resources. I think the main difference would probably be how long the war takes - Byleth's main contribution (aside from helping make their Lord a better person) is being able to win battles consistently enough that they steamroll their opponents - without that consistency the war becomes a bloody back-and-forth and goes on for many more years. After all, the timeskip is 5 years into the war, and it's still a stalemate.
Finally - I wouldn't say romancing Rhea is incest, since Byleth isn't Sothis and Rhea's not related to them by blood (unless I'm misremembering some of what was revealed in Cindered Shadows), but I don't think that there's quite enough there to justify a video about - sorry.
@@masterplusmargarita thank you for answering my question. I would like to add more to the questions if you don't mind. one why do you think that edelgard have a atleast a crush on byleth from breaty much from the beginning and still having the same filling in other routes. two I was not counting rhea I was counting Claude in the three lords but I think we can agree that he's the weakest of the three right? but speaking of rhea who do you think would win byleth and rhea in a one on one battle. that all right if you don't want to make a video on it I was wondering what you thought of the relationship because I've seen people say that rhea is byleth mother,grandmother sister aunt. nuts righr?
I think Edelgard's infatuation with Byleth comes from a couple different places: Her and Claude are both really good at seeing people for what they are and recognize Byleth's ability to be someone that they can draw strength from. Byleth's whole role in the narrative is basically to be someone who can an equal to the Lords, who are otherwise isolated in their positions of absurd power as well as just how clever they all are. Claude's too self-assured and self-reliant to feel instantly drawn to that though, and his arc is largely about accepting Byleth as a friend and in the process learning to let people close to him. He's confident he's in the right and has no qualms about following his path either way.
Edelgard on the other hand really wants someone to lean on who can understand her - while she's convinced she's right she also feels constantly guilty and isolated because she has to lie to everyone around her (other than Hubert, who's not exactly the kindest person out there). It's why she turns out pretty badly in routes other than Crimson Flower, she ends up having to just rely on herself and breaks under all that pressure that she's unable to shoulder alone - she turns into, as she says herself in her A support with Byleth "a cruel ruler with a heart of ice". Byleth is the only person who she feels she can entrust herself to, the only person she doesn't need to be the Emperor for and she can be just Edelgard with, and that makes Byleth incredibly special for her. I think it's a similar case with Dimitri, but he's a little worse at evaulating people than Edelgard is, so it takes him until Act 2 to get there.
I would say Claude's the weakest of the Three Lords, but only in a direct fight. He may have the least combat strength, but he's possibly the cleverest and definitely the best politician out of any of them, and I think he'd be the one who'd thrive the most in peacetime. He's in a tougher position than either Edelgard or Dimitri - both uncontested heirs to positions of absolute power where he basically just has a bit extra leverage in a council - but he's basically as in firmly charge of Leicester as either of them are of their respective nations. That takes incredible skill. To come back to your previous question about who'd win the war if Byleth wasn't there, the only reason I didn't say Claude is I think the pro-Empire side of the Leicester Alliance would prove too big a roadblock for him to overcome. If Leicester was unified against Edelgard he's cunning enough I don't think there'd be any way of stopping him.
1v1 Rhea wins against Byleth easily. Byleth has Sothis powers, but they don't seem to translate to being strong in combat other than rewinding time. If they couldn't even prevent Jeralt's death I don't think they stand a chance against an Immaculate One (also, they definintely can't solo her in the in-game combat system).
(Sorry for the massive comments - I enjoy writing and thinking about this game, if you couldn't tell :) )
Well Duh, literally the point of the entire game is that(other than The Arghatans) there's no Real Villain,and in all Paths you fight for whom,and what you Believe in.
Tell that to people unironically thinking Edelgard is the BBEG villain. Sure by design wise she's traditional bad guy (the red lord of FE) but the thing is the fked up world of Fodlan is really grey, imo with exception of Dimitri when you put aside his mental illness, dude's really the least grey or even straight typical good guy in 3Hopes, which making him less appealing to me. I guess being the least grey and added layer of trauma is why BL route is the most easily accepted by people (and tbh to me Dimitri fanboys are even more annoying than Edelgard fanboys saying him is perfect. Well duh he's written as the closest thing to typical FE main protagonist lords/crown prince)
@@fz_dracohart1255 well it is True Eldergard is the one to take the most extreme choices,but even that it is somewhat justified by her whole context. That say,I think people think that way because she is the pictured one of,if not the Villain in every route not her own and how out of all the entire Cast her Actions are the most Trickier to defend and Justify. She Wants a better future for Fodlan,yet intents to Build Say Future upon Mountains Corpses. CF further sour ppl opinion by being An objectively badly written route that on top of being bad Depends on Demonizing The rest of the cast(Rhea for obvious Reasons being the worst out) to try to shy away from everything moraly wrong on the route.
Imo,there's much I dissaprove of Eldergard but I admit she ain't the Devil. I Also think CF would have been better if it didn’t Shy away from the fact Eldergard Is willing to go any length necessary for her better Future instead of beding over backwards to make it seems you’re still ultimately the good guy no matter what. For once, you’re playing with the Red Emperor in a FE game I don't say that you Threat me like a monster but don't try to play it off like I'm the Hero still!
I also haven’t meet anyone that Thinks Dimitri is Perfect but yeah that's a Great disservice to his Entire Charather and Most of all to his Path During his Route that it's about Forgiving His Wrongs and Find the way fortward. Literally the Entire Charather's charm lies on his Flaws so yeah idk what's up with the ppl u say.
Your right, shes not the villain, shes one of the villains
Thales is the Mastermind
Nemesis is the Creator
Rhea is the Tyrant
Edelgard is the Rebel
Arval is...idk
@@axonymous_thevoice The Rebel who allies herself with the Mastermind and the Creator in your analogy?
As much as I love El, I believe that of the four lords she is the most idealistic and naive. She tries to force a social reform that while good on paper will lead most likely to a collapse of the Empire in a few generations (much like the real world Roman Empire) and then it will most likely be back to petty Crest empowered kings untill either someone unites them in a second empire or Fodlan becomes colonised by Brigid, Dagda etc while it has no form of central leadership.
Ironically the CF route is the one that needs the most an immortal SotC wielding Byleth to act as an arbiter to Edelgard's meritocracy after her inevitably early death from the experiments she had happen on her and is the one that the Crest of Flame is broken.
That's an interesting perspective, but I just don't think what you're saying would happen is set up. Throughout the game there's no real implication that the Empire's at any real risk of falling apart after Edelgard passes. Sure, she's currently the unifying force, but that can be said about any Emperor, and while the system she sets up is a meritocracy, it doesn't actually look like she's changing all that much about the organization of the Empire. She's still leaving the backbone of the system intact, with the positions of the seven great families still in place - they're just no longer decided by birthright, but instead by merit. The only real problems I can see are a crisis of succession, since Edelgard is sort of the figurehead of the entire movement, but her solo ending card specifically says "In her later years, she entrusted her life's work to a worthy successor, before finally vanishing from the public eye" (there's also a similar thing in her ending card with Hubert), which to me implies a pretty smooth transfer of power - if we know Edelgard at all, she would not just sit back and chill outside the public eye if her successor was unable to command power in a way that threatened the stability of the Empire.
I'm sorry, but as much as I rake my brains looking for one, I just don't see a reason to believe that Edelgard's system would collapse - it might, but so might all of the other forms of rule the game can end on, I don't see why Edelgard's Fodlan is any more likely to splinter apart than Dimitri or Claude's. If anything, I think Dimitri leaving TWSITD unopposed and keeping the status quo that led to Edelgard starting this war to begin has much more potential for a societal collapse, since it leaves the situation primed for another Edelgard figure to rise up (maybe a few generations down the line, when the King is someone less competent than Dimitri, since all they have to do to be King is be Dimitri's relative), but this time potentially as a full-on puppet of TWSITD who doesn't have Edelgard's good intentions. Claude's might do a bit better, but I also think his reforms are unlikely to succeed and eventually bleed back into the status quo.
And like... don't you think it's a bit weird to say that you need an immortal God being with a sacred artefact to enforce meritocratic rule? The whole idea with CF is that beings like Byleth, who are divinely empowered to rule over men are unnecessary - it's not up to the Gods to rule men, it's up to men, and people like Edelgard are more than capable of doing it. This is a bit of my real world ideological bias seeping in - which given the game's nature I think is fair -, but I just don't think societies collapse if they're not led by a single strong leader. If anything, the way Edelgard seems to intend to keep the position of Emperor after her reforms is one of my least favourite things about the way she organizes her society.
Sorry for the long message - I get pretty passionate about this game, who knew?
@@masterplusmargarita Your third paragraph here is so important and reminds me why I love CF so much. As far as I'm concerned, Byleth losing their god powers and regaining the humanity Rhea stole from them is maybe *the* most poetic ending in 3H, especially once you pair it with Edelgard eventually defeating *her* abusers in the post-game (though I'll always be bitter that we never got CF DLC involving the battle with TWSITD) and especially once you remember that it's the only ending where Byleth doesn't become the new pope or monarch of Fódlan (though I guess they could become the latter if they marry Edelgard....which, if you're doing CF right, is what happens anyway I guess 😅😂).
I'm also kind of miffed that Edelgard retains her emperor status in the post-game too. Even if they do a good job showing off Edelgard's ideals, I think there's still a lot of socio-political details open to interpretation in the CF ending. I like to believe that Edelgard was fighting for a classless meritocracy, where no one has ossified/class-based/top-down control over land or the productive forces but also where individuals who show merit and determination are able to secure more of society's resource surplus after everyone's core needs are met -- i.e. the "from each according to their ability, to each according to their contribution" of Leninism. This is probably some of my own political bias creeping into my interpretation, but like you said it *is* inevitable with a game like 3H, and I will maintain that a system like that isn't far off from the ideals Edelgard speaks of in her dialogue throughout the game. I don't think it's a stretch to say that Edelgard gets real-world influence from Marxism and anti-clerical left-wing perspectives, at the very least, with those influences then grafted onto a feudal world where you're still expected to preserve *some* of the old Fire Emblem tropes (having a monarch figurehead, being the obvious one).
I like your passioned dive into Edelgard, @@masterplusmargarita and I agree that Edelgard is justified in her actions. But I think there are a few flaws in her plans that you overlooked here, and I am hesitant to say her path is the "definitive best" option for Fodlan. I reply to this comment chain because the original commenter pointed out the naivete in her ideals, and I want to elaborate on why I agree with that sentiment.
In Edelgard's own words, she wants people to "rise and fall based on their merits". We assume "rise" refers to someone being able to obtain a position of power. That sounds reasonable enough, but what does she mean by "merits"? Who gets to determine what are these merits? It's unclear what this means, and more disturbingly, then, is how far will she let people fall if they do not meet these undefined merits she is looking for. If the lows are poverty, then under a meritocratic system, does a person in poverty deserves their place there, because they couldn't rise on their own merits? These are some problems Edelgard's system brings. She definitely means well, she wants to do the right thing. She does not want people to suffer because of poor leadership, but without defining what she means by "merits", and who gets to decide on those merits, it does leave her new system vulnerable to failing to end the suffering she wants to berid of.
One of Edelgard's defining traits-- her strong resolve-- creates a critical flaw that leads to problems: it is the fact that she struggles to see other perspectives when they don't confine to her narrative, which means she does not have the ability to see reality objectively. This is even by her own admission, in her supports with Manuela. She operated under a very false presumption that people of faith used religion as a crutch to avoid owning up to one's own self-sufficiency, and because of these unfounded beliefs, Edelgard avoided talking to Manuela on a personal level. This was until Manuela joined her cause and explained what her religious beliefs actually meant to her. There are two unsettling conclusions you can draw from this support: firstly, that Edelgard is prone to unfairly dismiss the "merits" of other people's choices without giving it a proper chance, and second that "self-sufficiency" is a quality that she values, and perhaps would consider a merit in her system. In that vein, where does a person who isn't so self-sufficient go under her system? They won't have positions of power, presumably, so where will they fall? Her judgement as a leader can run into dangerous territory.
Another major point that Edelgard overlooks, and you do as well, is the value the current nobility system DOES bring to Fodlan. Ferdinand, Lorenz, and I'd argue Dimitri, all aspire and embody this ideal function of the nobility system. As a Lorenz enjoyer and defender, I will use Lorenz to elaborate on the positive points a nobility system brings to society, as I think your reading of his character is as one-note as the anti-Edelgard YT comments you despise. You say Lorenz sees commonfolk as subhuman and never grows beyond that, citing him not punishing Acheron as evidence of this. But that Acheron paralogue happened in the pre-timeskip, so that evidence has no bearing on Lorenz after the time skip. In the actual post-timeskip, when Lorenz actually has both the authority and means to kill Acheron, he absolutely relishes in doing so, so I rest my case (see their unique battle dialogue on the Myrddin map). Secondly, in Lorenz and Catherine's B-support (which IS pre-timeskip), Lorenz says explicitly that commonfolk have a right to revolt against the nobility, as it is their way to express that they need better leadership to maintain their livelihood. That is emphatically Lorenz seeing commoners as humans who have an innate right to a healthy, safe life. In his supports with Leonie, it's clear that Lorenz lives as he preaches, because while he does see a "social gulf" with her, it is not meant to be dehumanising. Rather, he earnestly looks after her well-being and considers it his duty to make sure a commoner from his territory is safe and well, and his house was the reason Leonie met Jeralt. Yes, the nobility system is flawed, yes the crest system is becoming obsolete in Fodlan, and people are suffering. However, functioning at its best, the nobility system neatly solves the flaw I see in Edelgard's meritocracy. It shouldn't let people "fall", because even commoners play a vital role in keeping society running smoothly. Nobles provide leadership and security to commoners in their land, while commoners provide food, labour, and make up the backbone of society. The core growth in Lorenz is realising the divide between nobles and commoners based on upbringing to be arbitrary, while still retaining values on the ideal purpose of nobility: a good relationship between people who have the right skillset and attitude to govern, and the people they are leading.
This is something Edelgard does not see, as in her A-support with Ferdinand, he has to point out to her that the nobility system provides rigorous training and opportunities to create capable leaders. Ferdinand suggests that if Edelgard were to carry out with her plan, she needs to instill a new system that serves the same purpose as the nobility, a means to provide an upbringing that brings out the potential in people so that they have the necessary skills to govern. Edelgard at first takes this reasonable critique as him saying she is "wrong", which indicates she did not think of this point at all. Nobody can see all the angles, of course, but it is alarming that a leader, a product of the very nobility system she intends to unravel, does not consider a way to actually replace the old ruling system after unraveling it. Simply undoing the nobility system and then letting people rise on "their own merits" will still undoubtedly favour the former nobility because these are the people who are most used to having positions of power, and have had years of training in the right skills.
I think this is what the original commenter meant by Edelgard being naive. Sure, saying nobility is bad and creates problems, so it must be gone sounds good on paper, but untangling the reality of that and implementing a truly better system requires a nuanced type of thinking that Edelgard does not possess. In CF, she is only able to implement her vision precisely because she has friends to rely on and had the opportunity of opening up to people she normally wouldn't want to get close to, to help her see beyond her one-track determination. But even after coming to power, I think we're still left in the dark about what are the "merits" people are rising and falling based on, and who gets to decide that. Fuzzy criterion leads to fuzzy results. Additionally, Edelgard herself, while a capable individual, struggles in the realm of nuance and so it is hard to trust how she defines those "merits". These points put together, I am very hesitant to say that Edelgard's meritocracy is truly the "best" ending. In Claude's ending, the true history of Fodlan comes to light, so the crest-based system of nobility (the main problem) would naturally lose its sway. In Dimitri's ending, while the underlying system doesn't change, you have two leaders who can facilitate change in a peaceful way (Dimitri and Byleth wouldn't let people suffer from the crest system). Perhaps it depends on what you value more, as each ending provides its own ups and downs, but the risks of Edelgard's system still leading to inequality to me kind of isn't the big reform that I'd consider worth all the sacrifice. It's still a good ending, but compared to the other two I don't think it unequivocally comes out on top. Nevertheless, Edelgard was the visionary who catalysed change in Fodlan, regardless of who took up the mantle. She's a great character whose conviction is truly unforgettable, however misguided it can be depending on the route.
@@EeveeFlipnoteStudios Hey, thanks! I really appreciate honest, well reasoned disagreement, considering the whole reason this video got made was my frustration at how short-sighted a lot of the anti-Edelgard stuff online was. Because of the sheer size of your comment it's a little tricky to answer everything you've got to say without accidentally writing another whole video script, so I'm mostly going to answer at a general level rather than going into super-specifics. It's also been well over a year since I engaged with FE3H at all, so I might misremember specifics.
Your 1st paragraph, about how Edelgard's meritocracy is a maybe worrying system, is actually something I've thought about a decent bit. My intuition just tells me that she'd set up some sort of social safety net because ultimately she have the best interests of the populace at hand, and I don't see her as the sort of person who lets people fall into absolute squalor. I don't think she's a straight-up objectivist because that's simply incosistent with the way we see her legitimately worried about the fates of those in need throughout the game. When she talks about "merit" I take it to be something like "competence", especially because a lot of the time when she talks about "merit" she's talking about government positions. Effectively, I see Edelgard's change of system as a stepping stone away from feudalism into something more akin to mercantilism (which itself is a stepping stone toward capitalism). It's quite likely Fodlan under Edelgard is still not a great place to live, especially for the unskilled, but it's a far shot better than Rhea's Fodlan, as it's run by more competent people and it's designed in such a way that fortunes can change - a peasant is not necessarily forever a peasant, and a lord is not necessarily forever a lord. It's not ideal, by any means, but it's the only system I see that moves Fodlan closer to a modern-day society. It's not a panacea to all of Fodlan's problems, but I'd take Edelgard actively reforming the system over Claude and Dimitri maintaining a thoroughly disfunctional status quo any day.
No issues with the second paragraph - Edelgard's stubborn as a mule and has a hard time seeing other perspectives. I do think having friends around her in CF - and the version of her at the end of CF is the one I want ruling Fódlan - makes this weak point of hers a little less weak (especially having interactions like the one with Manuela, which is one of my favourite support stories, incidentally), but it's still a character flaw that she's likely to have for the rest of her life.
Your third paragraph I really, really disagree with. There is a dehumanizing element to the nobility-peasantry system by nature. When Lorenz has conversations like the ones he has with Leonie, he's still patronizing and positioning himself over her. The noble's job is to protect the commonfolk, because the commonfolk aren't capable of protecting themselves, because there's something about the noble that makes them capable of what the commoner isn't. Sure, it's a nice sentiment, but it's also lessening the commonfolk. It reminds me of the way women were treated in the Victorian ages, as delicate flowers who men - by virtue of allegedly being stronger and smarter - must treasure and protect. It IS dehumanizing, you're lessening the other in order to position yourself over it, the implication of the commonfolk needing someone to look after them is that they can't look after themselves, entirely because they were born as part of the commonfolk. For what it's worth, I think Lorenz does mean well and I do think he's a kind person, but I don't think he ever shakes that perspective (in 3 Houses, anyway, he sort of does in 3 Hopes), and I think that ultimately doesn't make him a good person.
The thing that really bothers me is that your third paragaph is an almost explicit defence of feudalism. You're saying that we need to install powerful people over us, so they might watch over the weakest of us. I could not disagree more. Not only has this system failed in Fodlan, it has failed in the real world, it's fallen apart because it leads to the masses becoming disenfranchised as the "protectors" gorge themselves. The disenfranchised can't break out because their "protectors" have all the power, and keep it to themselves. It's got the greatest possible fault of Edelgard's system - the disparity between the rich and poor - while not having any of the benefits. It doesn't let people "fall" because most of the population is already "fallen" by default, living in poverty. The extreme worst case scenario - and I do mean extreme, I don't think this is nearly how it'd work out - of Edelgard's system is exactly this, but at least those who are the top have earned it, and those who are at the bottom can conceivably make their way up. All this talk about "the nobility keeping people safe" is just the excuses they give to maintain their power over everyone else. The difference between Ferdinand's arc and Lorenz's arc is that by the end of his conversations with Leonie, Lorenz is agreeing with Leonie when she says that "nobles and commoners have their own roles", while at the end of his conversations with Edelgard, Ferdinand is effectively conceding to Edelgard that "nobility" as he sees it is not birthright, but merit. "If you insist upon undoing the nobility, then we must build something in its place. We can provide free education for all, and then select the highest-performing students for more intensive training and tutoring. I truly believe that people are products of their environment." Ferdinand, as someone who's waaay into the idea of nobility, still wants a system along the lines of the noble/commoner system, but he doesn't think the role of noble has to be something you get from birth, but instead something that can be earned through performing well in education, an idea which Edelgard seems to really like, and which is sort of objectively better than "I am Lorenz, I must protect you Leonie, because I am noble and you are not". Fun fact: I wrote this bit before re-reading the part of your comment where you use the Edelgard-Ferdinand support to prove her stubborness, because that support's always stuck in my head as one that makes Edelgard look really good. Really cool how we pulled different bits of that and saw different things. This game's so good!
I've sort of unwittingly provided my answer to your 4th paragraph in my 4th paragraph, and I'd say this whole video is the response to your 5th paragraph, so I'll stop there. Thanks once again for the good-faith disagreement!
@@masterplusmargarita Do you think Edelgard's ending completely invalidates the other routes, and entire gimmick as a whole? Because I don't see how I, as someone who didn't pick Edelgard as my first route, can argue against any of this. I basically made the wrong choice the game wanted me to make.
I... I think Edelgard is flawless.
Another point in defense of starting the war is that the agarthans literally have a gun to edelgards head the whole route and she can’t show her hand too soon and has to keep them somewhat placated. The chaos also gets the agarthans to come out of their hiding holes enough that they are able to track them better. Hubert and his Gestapo are the only ones capable of finding and rooting out a covert force like that
sorry but ur audio is bad like i have it turned all the way up and i can barely hear you.
It's hard to take El simps seriously bc she can apparently order the assassination of 3 fleeing teenagers, kidnap what everyone perceives as a child, permit experiments on students, abide the Slithers' actions at Remire Village, assisted in sneaking Kronya into the monastery (which btw got Jeralt killed. Ya know, the guy El simps praise for being doubtful of Rhea), and can attack her fellow students, Byleth, and Rhea in the holy tomb completely unprovoked.
But the mere INSTANT Rhea goes "hey yo kill this bitch" suddenly she did nothing wrong.
"She ordered the assassination"
Not even close to what happened
"Kidnapped a child"
Wasn't her order
"Permit experiments on students"
You can't "permit" something you don't know is happening
"Abide what happened at Remire"
Same as above
"Sneaking Kronya in"
Not her plan
"Attacked the Holy Tomb"
Sure, you can have that one
And yes, Rhea was wrong to one-sidedly order her execution.
Edelgard was in a similar position during her coronation, when she had Duke Aegir, the man who ruined her life and murdered all her siblings, at her mercy, and yet spared him. That to me shows she at least has more moral integrity than Rhea.
@@stickfigure8416
She hired Kostas as the flame emperor. That’s exactly what happened.
She’s Allies with TWSITD. She is responsible for their actions in the monastery bc she knew of it and did nothing to stop it.
She knew they were going after Flayn, bc the Death Knight was there. She knew they were plundering the Holy Tomb, bc the Death Knight was there.
She literally ordered the empire to kill the black eagles (including Byleth). And when you defeat her, Rhea goes “yo what the fuck is wrong with you? You did all this shit?? Bro…kill her ass”.
And then she magically did nothing wrong. She allied herself with the slithers. She’s responsible for their actions by doing so. If you allied yourself with the Nazis in WW2, you might not have built the camps or sent anyone in them, but ur sure as shit responsible for what they did there since you aided and abetted them.
Edelgard knew they were evil and worked with them anyways because the idea of peaceful reform was too sour in her mind. She started a war because she was spoon fed lies by the very people who tortured and experimented on her, and she swallowed up every last bite. She was a war criminal, a tyrant, and an idiot
@@pickcollins9910
TL;DR: The assassination argument makes no sense.
Her ability to openly oppose the Agarthans was there, but limited.
And opposing the church is not the result of believing some "lies", they have way too much power and influence that would hinder peaceful reforms.
"She hired Kostas" So? What exactly was the plan?
If it truly was an assassination, it'd mean she expected a bunch of random bandits to overpower the Knights of Seiros, and kill two specific targets amongst a group of students that she herself was a part of.
The only reason they end up in danger is because Claude decided to run off, and Dimitri to follow, which she chastises him for. If she truly wanted them dead, all she had to do... was nothing, just stay with the other students under the protection of the knights and wait for them to get killed in the forest. Instead, she ran after them, putting herself in danger, and even guided them towards Remire where they could get help.
Again, if it was an assassination attempt, it'd mean she was handed the perfect opportunity, and then decided to sabotage herself for no reason.
So if you want to convince me she wanted them dead, you're gonna have to detail what the plan was and how it was supposed to work, because as it is it makes no sense at all.
What makes sense, though, is to use the attack to scare away the professor candidate, which is a much more predictable and safe result, in order to plant Jeritza within the academy's faculty.
She did not know, by the way, what the Agarthans were doing with the Death Knight. While yes, he is her servant rather than theirs, after the attack of the mausoleum, we can see a cutscene where she lends the Death Knight to Arundel. Is she responsible for that? Yes, but that doesn't mean she knew what they were doing with him.
I don't excuse her choice to aid in the Agarthans' plans, but it's false to suggest she had an "equal" relationship with them.
All it takes is looking at the political situation in the Empire during White Clouds: it's stated that during the Insurrection of the Seven the Prime Minister and others took power from the Imperial Household, taking control and leaving the Emperor as a puppet. Then, following the Agarthan's suggestions, they took Edelgard and her siblings to experiment on.
At the start of the game, she hardly has any power or political sway on the affairs of the Empire. It is only when she negotiates with the other ministers and pulls the rug from under the Prime Minister during her coronation, that she finally has the power and authority to control the Empire. Which happens practically at the end of White Clouds.
So yeah, it'd be like allying with Nazis during WWII... if the Nazis had conspired with some of my own generals and ministers to take all power away from me, so I don't really have the strength to say "no" and win and instead chose to bide my time. Does that make me partially responsible? Yes, but it's much more productive than having myself killed and let them run rampant.
And claiming she opposes the church because she "bought into the Agarthans lies" is ridiculous. Why would you take the word of the people who ruined your life?
The reason is much simpler: everything that transpired was the result of the political structure based around Crests, which the Church itself set in place and supports through its dogma. If you want to get rid of it, you have to get rid of the Church. Had she tried to forgo war and simply fix things within the Empire, she would've found extreme opposition from believers, both local and foreign, and she would still have the Agarthans to deal with. And the events of the Holy Tomb pretty much confirm how much power and influence the Church has: no matter what the reason was, Rhea "shouldn't" have the authority to execute a head of state without trial, especially not after being disarmed and captured. The fact that she can do that, unchallenged, speaks volumes.
So yeah, chalking her faults, which there are, to her just being "dumb" is making a huge disservice to the writing of the game as a whole, which is some of the best in the entire series.
@@stickfigure8416 “Even if she hired Kostas”
This is not up for debate; she did. End of story. She was the flame emperor, the flame emperor hired Kostas. Ergo she hired Kostas.
“It means she expected a group of bandits to overpower the knights of seiros and kill 2 specific targets”
First: she did not lead the bandits to Remire. Edelgard said “they attacked us while we were at rest in our camp”. There’s nothing to indicate Edelgard led the bandits to Remire purposefully.
I don’t need to detail anything for you. The game confirms the flame emperor hired Kostas to attack the knights of Seiros, and they went specifically after Claude, Dimitri, and Edelgard. Claude ran off, and Dimitri followed, and so did Edelgard. Likely because the flame emperor (hint hint: Edelgard) told them to kill all 3 nobles so, were they to get captured, they wouldn’t be able to rat out Edelgard and imply they were hired by the empire.
She hated the Slithers so much yet she gave them the Death Knight? I guess this is another one of those “she was powerless to say no” situations, right? Bc she can’t do anything wrong?
“Why would you take the word of the people who ruined your life”
Literally trusts their own words and buys into the nonsense shit about Nemesis that they helped peddle.
She would also have not found opposition to reforms within the empire from the church, as the Adrestian church was independent of the central church, peaceful reforms don’t spark violence with the central church (as 3 hopes proves: Rhea is amiable to reform), and it doesn’t do exactly what the slithers wanted.
She fell hook, line, and sinker for all the Agarthan lies so they could throw Fodlan into war, kill Rhea (the only person they were actually afraid of before Byleth became the fell star), and take control for themselves.
And look at that! Because of Edelgard they accomplished 2/3 of those goals and nothing confirms that they didn’t accomplish the third!
Ergo: yes Edelgard was a fucking idiot.
@@pickcollins9910
I did not say she led the bandits to Remire, she arranged the attack on the camp, where the knights would fend them off.
She led Claude and Dimitri to Remire, this is plainly stated in Three Hopes that she was the one guiding them to safety. The bandits chased after them because Claude splintered from the group and became an easy target. This was something not accounted for and she calls him out on it.
"She hired Kostas" hardly explains anything when she went out of her way to help the people you claim she wanted killed. And kidnapping? An unlikely scenario considering the bandits were told to "kill rich brats at random"
The Southern Church did split from the central, but there was no change in its teachings, the same teachings that prop the nobility of Fodlan simply because of magic blood. The same teachings that embolden nobles to abandon crestless children, or reduce women to pieces of meat meant to churn out crest babies. Emperor Ionius tried to challenge it, and it resulted in the other nobles banding against him because they feared it'd call the authority of their sacred bloodline into question.
Saying Edelgard is abetting the Agarthan's actions is comparable to saying Rhea is responsible for the atrocities of the nobility, as she put those rules into play and had a much better position to change them. "Rhea was open to reform"? But apparently she was in no hurry either.
Not that I don't understand Rhea, the current system allows her to hold onto power so she can pass it on to Sothis when she successfully revived her, fully convinced she'd make everything better and solve all the problems. And she's probably not wrong about that.
She "echoes the Agarthans' claims about Nemesis"? Even though she also questions those same Agarthans' calling Nemesis a "thief"?
The only argument she makes on the subject is that he was a king of men and that Seiros campaign was not a "holy crusade against a fallen hero" but rather a struggle for power between both sides. These claims, while severly lacking in context, are not untrue. And, as per her account, these claims don't come from the Agarthans, but have been passed along the imperial line, started by Wilhelm, who was actually there.
I never said she could do no wrong and that she bears responsibility for her actions, all I argued is that she tried to play the best hand she could with the shitty cards she was dealt.
"Because of Edelgard they accomplished 2/3 of their goals and maybe even the third (take control)". I think the fact that she had them killed after the war would make that kind of impossible. And it's not an if, the end makes it pretty clear, more than the other endings, at least.
excuse me i have a have a nother question if you don't mind?
Yeah of course, go for it
@@masterplusmargarita ok so I know this game hase grey character in it with no real main bad guy or good guy with the exception of Claude being the good person. I think this the case of the other fire emblem games i don't know i haven't played then all I know this that there stand alone games that don't have anything to do with each other with only like two games being a direct sequel to that game. anyway what do you think is the most evil character of the game that would become considered to be the true main vilian. with including all sidchataters.
@@sueflewelling3657 Easily Thales as leader of TWSITD. Those Who Slither In The Dark are the only group in the game with no redeeming qualities whatsoever - their only motivation is hatred for the Nabateans and the surface dwellers, and their only goal seems to be to cause them as much grief as possible. They're at least partially behind every tragedy in Fódlan's history we know of (the Red Canyon Massacre, the war with Nemesis, Loog's uprising, the Insurrection of the Seven, the Tragedy of Duscurr and even Edelgard's war to some extent). They're so one-dimensionally evil that I'd criticize the game for their inclusion if they weren't mostly relegated to the sidelines, and they're thankfully not used as a copout to excuse anyone's actions the way Fates: Revelation used its one dimensional bad guys as a copout.
Plus, it seems like there's a decent chance Shez from Three Hopes is going to be a non-evil Agarthan, which should help give TWISTD some depth.
@@masterplusmargarita ok thank you. speaking of the twsliditd do you think edelgard live span is shorten. we know one girl is i just can't remember her name at this point. she said she was exseremint on and have two crest that chases her live to be shorten and that explains why she hase white hair and while that girl edmeted she hase this edelgard dosent and its heavly implie that she is. what do you think?
@@sueflewelling3657 I'm glad you asked this, because I sort of bring it up in the video but don't go into full detail - I do think it's likely Edelgard's lifespan is probably shortened, but not as much as Lysithea's. Lysithea was TWISTD's first succesful experiment in implanting dual crests, and probably the reason they wanted to do an experiment to begin with is to get it right when creating their Flame Emperor, so Edelgard's operation was probably more refined and less damaging. That said, they'd clearly not solved all the issues seeing as all of Edelgard's siblings did still die from the operations, so I'd guess she does have a shortened lifespan.
Also: conspiracy theory time: Lysithea's lifespan might not be as short as she believes. She's told by TWISTD she has five years left, a few years before Part 1. Part 2 is five years after that, and her body seems to be doing fine still, and she even does stuff in a lot of her epilogues after that. Clearly the 5 year limit is just an arbitrary number her torturers threw out and she has at least 7 or 8, maybe even more than that. If we assume Edelgard has even longer to live than Lysithea due to refinements in the Crest implantation process, she might be able to live out most of a normal life. Truth is there's not enough info in-game to say.
And, preemptively, because I know some people will see this as an incosistency with my argument that Edelgard's shortened lifespan is a reason (out of many others) she can't afford to not start the war: The actual truth as to how long Edelgard has doesn't really matter to how she has to act - what matters is how long she has been led to believe she has, since that's the information she has to act on.
Claims people are brainless who uncritically bash Edelgard yet uncritically buys into propaganda against Rhea and the Church which has for the most part kept the continent at peace. Aside from some random books that could be outright lies we see no direct evidence that Rhea is holding people back in any way. Also Edelgard just straight up adopts the dogma of the Agarthans and does way more damage than any noble or the Church ever did.
"Peace"
yeah just ignore how more then half the cast is miserable for reasons that are a result of rhea's current system
@pandabanaan9208 So plunging the whole of Fodlan to war is the only answer? I understand the story very well and really love Eddie. But she is the villain of the story. A tragic one when you learn what made her decide to go to war. Eddie is rather naive to believe the Church is entirely at fault for all of Fodlan's problems.
The biggest proof of how she has been really mislead is her statement on how the Church purposely split the region into 3 different nations, which we all know is false. The Church let it happen and supported all sides of each conflict to keep the peace amongst the 3 while TWSITD worked behind the scenes pitting everyone against each other so they can come at the very end and claim the land themselves.
Eddie knows she is working with an unforgivable group and plans on taking them down after taking down the Church, but what if she failed. She would've just handed them the keys to Fodlan. She also suffers from a bad case of "savior complex".
Many of her fellow classmates she pittes (is that how it's spelled) understands how the system of the Crests is poor but plan to still fight past it and succeed. Many of them, with or without the war, do accomplish their desired outcome thanks to the help of other classmates and professors (especially Byleth). Eddie wants to help Fodlan. Though she the quickest way possible which leaves so much more bloodshed than was necessary. She could've easily exposed TWSITD to Rhea and played a triple agent to aid the Church. But of course she's been fed lies about the Church for years to be the perfect puppet of TWSITD.
@@GreenWolf2k the church is led by rhea who is not fit to be in such a position of power anymore, the woman needs therapy, her trauma has caused her to be against change in a lot of cases, have a strange obsession with her mother, execute people without any kind of trial, perform human experiments to revive her mother on church followers wich is a pretty messed up power dynamic when you think about it and the whole abyss situation, the church has also not been entirely positive for how people think as catherine goes along and participates in rhea's plan to burn a town with the civilians still there, edelgard might have had a better way of doing things but saying she has been fed lies about the church is a big exagduration when she was litterally around during many of rhea's more quirky moments, like sure the agarthans might have told her lies but the valid reasons to oppose rhea aren't exactly hidden with some of her behavior in white clouds, I think in three hopes she also goes about this a lot better since she is able to break ties with the agarthans early on and even forms an alliance with claude in two routes since their goals are so similar, despite it not being a golden route like people innitially thought it does show the 3 lords probably at their best morally, but rhea did definitly need to be removed from power though maybe you could say claude had the better idea of handling it(but then again he didn't really seem to have any kind of plan prepared to begin with)
@@pandabanaan9208 Oh hell yeah I agree Rhea shouldn't be in a position of power, but she has succeeded at keeping the peace for a long time. She has done many acts that are indefensible. I still say Edelgard is worse in the fact that she chose war. I haven't played 3 Hopes so I have no comment on it's story.
exuse me can I ask you a question?
Sure, go for it
@@masterplusmargarita ok so this is about church of seiros I've seen people say that when the church of seiros kill people who don't believe in there biifes and some people say that they they only do thay to basically bad people and say that edelgard is in the wrong what do you think?
@@sueflewelling3657 I think it's silly. The Church explicitly executes people who disagree with its teachings. Sure, some of those people are bad, but the sole fact of disagreeing doesn't make one evil.
I definitely don't think Edelgard is evil - that's the point of the vid, after all ;)
I have a question have you played three hopes yet?
I'm playing through it. I'm almost finished with Golden Wildfire, which is my first route - I'm in the final Chapter.
@@masterplusmargarita are you going to play crimson blaze next?
I don't think so - I'm obviously a Black Eagles guy, so Crimson Blaze is obviously the route I'm most excited for, but I'm also the type of person who likes to leave the thing he likes most for last. I think I'm doing Azure Gleam next.
@@masterplusmargarita ok here a good one as far as golden wildfire gode do you think is better than golden deer?
I do plan to eventually have first-impressions reviews out of all three of the routes (though not any time soon), because I have a lot of thoughts about GW, but I think it's honestly about as good as VW, but for different reasons. My main problem with VW is that it lacks an identity, it's clearly just SS with some added exposition - it's really good exposition, mind. GW has a super defined identity, and it really looks at Claude as a character way more thoroughly than Three Houses ever did, but I also think it hinges on "oh shit" moments that are really shocking and effective in the moment but don't really pay off - Chapter 9 feels like a massive deal but then doesn't do anything, Chapter 10 feels like it's setting up for character growth that never comes, Almyra doesn't wind up mattering... It's good - I really like VW, and I think this is as good as it - but it didn't hit me as hard as AM or CF did. Then again, I didn't expect the Warriors spinoff to be remotely as well written as the original game, so I'm pleasantly surprised in a way.
Idk why people go on these hour long videos to try and justify stupid writing 😂.
In the end, none of the 3 house masters are virtuous with Cloude being the most mild out of the 3 mostly because in most routes he is always on his backfoot.
I think the main flaw in any story that entails war is that theres no end to it, there is no victory through it and I think most of us can see it in the real world. When one war ends, another ignites somewhere else because so long as humans exist, conflict will follow.
History is plagued with conquerors and tyrants that plunged entire nations and continents into chaos and mayhem for what they believed was a greater good all to no avail.
Even in a more futuristic present like ours, war is still present everywhere and it would be much worse if it wasnt for the massive deterrent that nuclear weapons represent.
What I mean is, Edelgards motivations are fundamentally futile. Even if she does away with one corrupt system, another will take its place.
Edelgard focuses exclusively on the church because that her way of coping and validating her suffering, not because the church is any worse than her uncle, Miklan, a rabid Dimitry, the ones that slither in the dark, etc.
Anyone that unilateraly starts an armed conflict is evil, period. Everyone talks about the house masters but no one thinks of the little people 😂.
What I mean is, every life is sacred in my book, they are not sacrificial pawns for royalty to throw away as expendible for their own convoluted reasons and grand dreams. So, at the end, wheb Edelgard passes away and other tyrant shows up and starts a war of his own is when you can ask the question? Was all the blood spilled worth it?
This is why i categorize loude as the lesser evil simply because he does war in a defensive way, he doesnt start a conflict unilateraly but he does keep on fighting for some reason. So, if the empire was so good, why not simply yield and move on? Especially without Rhea and the Church looming over his head?.
Sooooo because eternal peace is fantasy........we should just give up and not even try to improve
Hot damn an hour long cope session
nonsense
it was probably said but in Azure moon if you get Hapi and Dimitri's support to an A it does confirm that they hunt down those that slither in the dark so yes they are removed in his time line as well (in this one situation only so its not something that always happens)
Yeah only in the timeline where his wife is an explicit victim of the group is when he actively hunts them down instead of killing 2 of their higher ups by pure chance.