CG for short
Can you add what you wrote in the doc on the thread itself? You can put it and/or separate it by folders. It's more convenient that way.
Victor of HGS S320 | "There's rosemary, that's for remembrance. Pray you, love, remember."
Sure thing :)
- “Argument in the description”: When a description reads like an Edelgard fan and detractor (or visa-versa) have been taking turns arguing about whether or not the trope befits her. Usual suggested response is to just clean it up and keep the important bits. I will generally be bolding the sections where it feels like the definition has devolved into an argument.
- “Edelgard doesn’t know the true history of Fodlan”: A recurring element of anti-Edelgard discourse is the assumption that she started a war against the Church of Seiros out of an incorrect understanding of Rhea’s history with Nemesis. Edelgard only very briefly alludes to her understanding of Rhea’s past with Nemesis, and her reason to fight is not because of the past but because of the suffering of Fodlan in the modern day. Notably, examples of this tend to be inserted into the middle of completely unrelated matters. I will generally be bolding the offending line. Usual suggested response will almost universally be to just delete the bolded section.
- One interpretation of the ending of the Azure Moon route. Dimitri offers her a hand and tries to reconcile with her, but Edelgard just gives him a smile and throws the dagger he gave her at him. Dimitri promptly runs her through with Areadbhar. Whether or not she knew this would happen or indeed was counting on it is purposely left ambiguous; in other routes she implies that she feels as though her actions have made her irredeemable in the case that she loses, subverting this trope with the additional context.
- Concern: Argument in the description. Given how she asks for death in other routes where she loses, this scene is unambiguously a Suicide by Cop moment.
- Suggested response: Either delete the example or delete the bolded, leaning toward the former.
- Of the series' "action lord" archetype popularized by Hector, Ephraim, and Ike. Like many such lords in the past, she has no qualms about using military force to get her way. Unlike previous lords, she is actually willing to incite a war to achieve her aims, and her actions turn her into the unquestioned Big Bad of the Azure Moon route and a major antagonist on the Verdant Wind and Silver Snow routes. Even in her own route, there's a serious argument to be made that she's a Rudolf archetype who just happens to be the POV character this time around.
- Concern: The last bit was just a random dig at her character to try to imply she’s a Villain Protagonist.
- Suggested response: Delete bolded.
- Played With. Ultimately, Edelgard is correct that Rhea's grip on Fódlan, plus the focus on nobility and the various Crest systems, etc. were stagnating the entire continent and that change needed to happen. Additionally, her war is at least part of the reason why the eventual winner (whoever they end up being) is able to acquire enough power to make meaningful reforms to the status quo. What she's wrong about is that she is not the only one who can bring such changes. At the end of her route, she ultimately does lead Fódlan into a Golden Age, but at the end of the routes that aren't hers, each new leader is also able to reform and usher Fódlan into a Golden Age via their own principles. Even Rhea herself can help bring about reform on the Silver Snow route, as Edelgard's knowledge of Rhea's intentions and influence on Fódlan proves to be incomplete.
- Whether she was justified to even start a war is something hotly debated, even in-game. Edelgard strongly feels that in order to do away with the Crest and nobility system, she must get rid of the Church for perpetuating the systems, but both Claude and Dimitri note that her way is too bloodthirsty and costs too many lives and try to find alternatives. That being said, due to the nature of the game, whether Edelgard is “right” is a matter of perspective. While the game's other factions believe Edelgard's way of bringing about peace is wrong or evil, she ultimately is just as capable of bringing Fódlan into a peaceful and prosperous time. And in the routes that aren't hers, her war is implied to be at least partially responsible for shaking the status quo enough for strong reforms to happen. If nothing else, her alliance with those who slither in the dark leads to them losing their influence on the continent in one way or another, and with it brings an end to their efforts to suppress progress and foment chaos.
- Concern: Argument in the description. We don’t see a Fodlan that exists in which the war didn’t happen, so most of the arguments against her is speculation.
- Suggested response: Condense.
- Edelgard believes Children of the Goddess are merely creatures in human form and that they "lack humanity". Part of why she opposes Rhea is that she feels that humanity must decide its own fate without the Children of the Goddess (mostly Rhea) manipulating them through the Church despite Rhea's benevolent intentions, and charitable actions. On Silver Snow and Verdant Wind, if Seteth and Flayn confront her, they ask that she release Rhea and Fódlan; Edelgard responds, "I cannot permit what you desire. You are a child of the goddess. You must not be allowed power over the people!" Heroes does elaborate her conflict with the Children of the Goddess as something that has less to do with them being not human, and more of their attributed godhood, as her Forging Bonds interaction with Lissa states, and how her dialogue in My Castle has her uncomfortable with the idea of gods and mortals working together, while not expressing dislike over the non-human members of the order or how they have to work with them, as in her home game, Rhea has used her Church and influence over the people to paint Sothis, the Children of the Goddess, and the Crests as of divine nature, which is Edelgard's main point of contention with her and the source of her biases.
- Concern: Argument in the description. Edelgard’s issues have less to do with race and more to do with whether the divine - which she appears to regard the Nabateans as - have a right to lord over mortals. Her issue is more Rage Against the Heavens than Fantastic Racism. Her Fallen form’s Forging Bonds with Mila in Heroes points more toward this.
- Suggested response: Cut the description down and move it to Rage Against the Heavens.
- Her determination. Though admirable to a degree, her stubborn belief in her own ideals and refusal to countenance others, as well as her inability to question her own knowledge of the world, leads her to her death at the hands of either Byleth (Verdant Wind/Silver Snow) or Dimitri (Azure Moon).
- Concern: Edelgard doesn’t know the true history of Fodlan.
- Suggested response: Delete bolded.
- Her hatred towards the Church prevents her from seeing Rhea and her kin as anything more than ambition-driven monsters masquerading as humans and makes her see those siding with the Church as enemies. This causes her to refuse to consider other viewpoints and helps lead to her death in any route but her own. Though to be fair, other than Byleth, the only lord that manages to learn most of the Church's truth (Claude) does so thanks to first learning information that Hubert gave him and using it to pressure Rhea. Despite disliking the Church of Seiros, however, she suggests that she favors stripping Rhea of her power instead of outright killing her (which she ends up doing so on default routes by keeping her jailed in the Imperial Palace), an action quite similar to what she does to Duke Aegir in all routes, a man that she has every right to hate (though her intentions with Rhea are eventually revealed to be quite different from with the Duke, namely she keeps Rhea alive on default routes because she intends to use her as insurance against the Agarthans, and unlike the Duke's standard albeit restraining house arrest, Rhea is kept in quite poor health in a hidden cell).
- Concern: Argument in the description. See Fantastic Racism above. Lastly, while she thinks those who are guided purely by their faith have a “weakness of spirit”, she does not hate the faith in and of itself, just the political apparatus of the Central Church.
- Suggested response: Retool the Fantastic Racism elements to deal more in her issues with the divine interacting with mortals, and condense the description.
- Her obsession with the future, while ignoring the present and completely disregarding the past. Her need to create a better future, no matter how off in the distance it could be, leads her to brush off the pain and torture her war causes in the present time on everyone as long they eventually lead to it, especially the commoners, ‘’’while her disregard for the past leads her to ignore how it was the past that shaped her and others into who they are now’’’. At the end of the Azure Moon route, her transformation into Hegemon Edelgard shows her complete discarding of both, which has left her so thoroughly changed that she has willingly abandoned her very humanity — a fact Dimitri will tell her directly to her face should they engage in battle, and Edelgard makes no rebuttal when he does. Finally, though the Crimson Flower route does vindicate her vision, whether things would (or should) still go the way she hopes they will after she dies remains a hotly-contested question.
- Concern: First bolded section is Edelgard doesn’t know the true history of Fodla. The second bolded section is just a completely random dig that, yet again, feels like a different troper wanted to argue against whoever wrote the rest of the paragraph.
- Suggested Response: Delete bolded.
- Choleric. Edelgard is one of the most headstrong and stubborn characters in the game, refusing to allow her path to end without either her victory or her death. She can be cruel on some occasion, but is incredibly diligent, and values the same trait in others.
- Concern: She has traits of both Choleric and Sanguine. The most notable issue with calling her straight up Choleric is that it ignores how compassionate and people-oriented she tends to be.
- Suggested Response: Either delete the example or acknowledge she has traits of both.
- One of her Fatal Flaws is stubbornness and a refusal to admit potential wrongdoing; fitting this, she reacts poorly to being criticized if she gets a Bad result in class, unlike the other two Lords.
- Concern: If anything, this is more a case of her being softer than she lets on. She’s sensitive to being critiqued harshly; she admits to failing to focus after the bad result but before the critique/console choice.
- Suggested Response: Delete sub-example.
- She's one of three characters to learn Monster Breaker, the Axe's monster-targeting Hunter Art, and despite having a weakness in Faith she gains the Seraphim spell, again getting bonus damage against monsters. This is because she carries Fantastic Racism against the Children of the Goddess, who she sees as monsters and indeed take bonus damage from monster weapons/attacks.
- Concern: All of the lords have an anti-monster combat art.
- Suggested response: Delete sub-example.
- In Three Hopes, Edelgard clarifies to Balthus in their B-Support that she is not compassionate, rather she is "hopelessly committed" to her ideals. She makes it clear on many occassions that while she sees the end goal as worthwhile, she does not regard the actions she takes even indepedent of the Agarthans as "good" in any typical sense, and even acknowledges (or at least doesn't argue against Shez saying it) that the world she is seeking to build may not even end up any better than the current Fódlan. ‘’’After all, at the end of the day she did instigate a massive war of conquest and is on threat of death forcing subjugated nations in Fódlan to do what she wants, and she does not expect many who suffer from her actions will ever forgive her, nor should they necessarily do so.’’’
- Concern: Random moralizing at the end.
- Suggested response: Delete bolded.
- Several of her comments indicate that Edelgard has a habit of speaking her mind without much care for what others think, though not because she has ill intent. For example, she doesn't seem to realize the implications of a statement she makes about how the other nations are all offshoots from the original empire when said nations’ future leaders are right next to her.
- Concern: The bolded section is an invention of the localization; it does not exist in the original version.
- Suggested response: Specify that the bolded section is only in the localized version.
- Her war speech at the end of Chapter 11 on default routes becomes this in hindsight after the release of the Wave 4 DLC, as one of the books in the abyssal library states that "those who slither with the dark" were behind splitting the Empire into 2 more nations in an attempt to sink Fódlan into chaos, rather than the Church as a means to keep their influence and power over the continent as Edelgard herself speculates.
- Concern: The Church of Seiros was involved in the formation of the Kingdom and the Alliance. In Three Hopes, Rhea considers the goddess to have created the original Alliance in contrast to Claude’s Federation, and she compares the church and the Kingdom to a mother and child.
- Suggested response: Either delete the sub-example or specify that the church had partial credit.
- At the end of the Azure Moon route, after she is defeated, Dimitri grants her mercy and offers her his hand. Edelgard reaches for a dagger instead and throws it at Dimitri, forcing Dimitri to kill her anyway.
- Concern: She did not indicate surrender prior to throwing the dagger. This is also strongly implied to be Suicide by Cop.
- Suggested response: Delete.
- Her criticism of the crest system and of nobility are both salient, and she's the only character with a clear and stated plan to fix them. Outside of Crimson Flower, however, she still works closely with the Agarthans and makes uses of Demonic Beasts, humans forcefully transformed into monsters. The trope is in full force in Azure Moon, where she eventually herself transforms into a monster and attempts to backstab Dimitri. Many characters lament that she has some good ideas, but they believe she's gone too far.
- Concern: Turning herself into a monster is not an act of unquestionable evil. J Ot SS is when a morally ambiguous character wholly embraces evil.
- Suggested response: Delete.
- Edelgard staged the bandit attack at the start of the game to allegedly kill the nobles at Remire (herself plus Dimitri and Claude). In Three Houses, she comes closer to dying in it than anyone else.
- Concern: Three Hopes strongly implies she had no intention of killing Dimitri or Claude in that attack. I’m not sure if LGK actually counts if nothing directly bad happened because of it.
- Suggested response: Delete.
- Has great Strength and Speed bases and an excellent Strength growth. However, her Speed growth is merely average and her unique classes do not provide any bonus to its growth. She still manages to be this trope with her unique Combat Art Raging Storm, which lets her move again if she so much as connects her attack. She can do this as much as 5 times with a fully-repaired Aymr.
- Concern: Old understanding of in-game meta.
- Suggested response: Rewrite description: “Has great Strength and Speed bases, an excellent speed growth, and abusing skills and reclassing - such as obtaining Weight-3, certifying for armored classes without actually using them, and making her a Pegasus Knight - can make her frighteningly fast and durable as well. Finally, she has her unique Combat Art Raging Storm, which lets her move again if she so much as connects her attack. She can do this as much as 5 times with a fully-repaired Aymr.”
- In their A-support, Ferdinand has to explain to Edelgard that for her idea of meritocracy to truly become real and to have something to replace the nobility system, there should be free education for the masses. Edelgard's reaction reveals that the thought hadn't occurred to her at all.
- Concern: Her B support with Constance goes into greater detail of her plans for the reforms. MSP requires for a plan to have no middle steps at all, not just for the planner to have missed some things in their considerations.
- Suggested response: Delete.
- On the flipside, during her speech on default routes, Edelgard claims that the Church split the Empire into the Kingdom and Alliance, when notes of dubious validity from the Abyss library reveal that the Church suspected that Loog's mysterious allies and the forgery of the will that led to the creation of the Alliance, were in fact the result of Agarthan manipulation.
- Concern: See above under Irony. Also, she specifically says the church split the Empire to form the Kingdom and then split the Kingdom to form the Alliance. She wouldn’t care about the latter if she was only complaining about the Empire being broken up, so her issue is less that the Empire was broken up and more that Fodlan was broken up.
- Suggested response: Either delete the sub-example or specify that the church had partial credit. Also specify that the Alliance was a break-off from the Kingdom.
- Concern: The “bastard” part of this trope name is important. It’s not just somebody who takes advantage of opportunities. Edelgard doesn’t fit the description of the trope.
- Suggested response: Delete.
- As a consequence of her trust issues and feeling she needs to do everything herself, Edelgard ends up hiding everything from the people around her, to the point where she will do morally questionable actions to achieve her vision. Unfortunately, this also means she doesn't explain her motives or reasons behind her actions, and she ends up becoming an antagonist in all default routes because no one understands what factors are motivating her.
- Even over five years of war in the default routes, it's heavily implied Edelgard never tells her enemies anything about her goals in the war and the good she seeks to accomplish, leaving them in the dark as to why she is trying to conquer them and drastically reducing any possibility of peaceful resolutions to things. Claude is able to reason out that she wants something similar to his own goals but with a much higher body count, while on Azure Moon Dimitri has to arrange a meeting and directly ask her why she started the war to begin with (and even then she is rather vague in her answers). On Silver Snow it's a point of conversation multiple times that Seteth and Flayn have little idea why Edelgard started the war or what she specifically hopes to accomplish, though Seteth remarks that he has been able to theorize she wants to remake the social order in some way. Just how in the dark they are is further illustrated when after conquering the Great Bridge, Seteth is surprised to realize that Edelgard did not hold her soldiers in a vice grip of a cruel emperor but that they were driven by "something else."
- So this is a strange one; the game itself clarifies that she distributed a manifesto to explain her reasons to fight, yet indeed several of the characters express confusion about why she fights.
- While ending Rhea's control over Fódlan and destroying the current nobility system is her main reason for going to war, she also demonstrates revanchist leanings in wanting to conquer the Holy Kingdom of Faerghus and the Leicester Alliance, holding the church responsible for splitting those territories from the Empire in the first place.
- Discussed in Golden Wildfire. Claude suspects Edelgard's accusations for the Central Church being corrupt and perpetuating the Crest System are partly an excuse to have her unify Fódlan by force, and considers the possibility she might try turning Leicester into an Imperial vassalage after the Church's defeat so Fódlan can be "one big family" once more.
- Concern: No, and this is a very common misinterpretation by those who disagree with her. During her war proclamation, Edelgard mentions the fractured state of Fodlan, yet she does so to accuse Rhea of going for Divide and Conquer on the continent; she specifically mentions how the church later split the Kingdom up to create the Alliance, which she wouldn’t care to mention if she was only upset about hte Empire having been broken up. Also, Pretext for War the trope is for when a character has no good reason at all to start a war, so they make one up. This is not the case with Edelgard, whose primary reason for her fight against the church is to usher in social reforms for all of Fodlan.
- Suggested response: Delete.
- A Fatal Flaw of hers. Edelgard admits that some see her as arrogant, but she personally thinks she's just the one best suited to doing what must be done. This is one of the factors that causes her to start a war, as she believes she's the only one capable of reforming Fódlan and that violence is the only answer. Because of this, she refuses to work with anyone who does not share her methodology, which puts her at odds with Dimitri, Claude, and potentially Byleth. She also does not question whether her understanding of history might be wrong or distorted and takes what she knows as fact, whereas Claude actively seeks out information.
- Concern: Edelgard doesn't know the true history of Fodlan.
- Suggested response: Delete bolded.
- Edelgard is convinced that Rhea and her people have manipulated and subjugated the humans of Fódlan. The trouble is that, depending on how one looks at it, she's not entirely wrong: Rhea has been trying to revive Sothis while limiting/slowing technological progress in Fódlan, and her bloody history with technologically-boosted humans definitely means she has the motive to not trust them with ruling the continent on their own. The sticking points include that Edelgard (or anyone not named Byleth, for that matter) couldn't possibly know that Sothis would not necessarily go along with it, and that her beliefs about what Rhea has done to Fódlan include a number of things Rhea is innocent of, while most of the things Rhea has done were not for the purpose of subjugation or to claim power but rather out of the desire to keep the peace.
- Concern: Argument in the description.
- Suggested response: Condense.
- In Three Houses, there are a few warning signs she might be the Flame Emperor on her route; she is conspicuously nowhere to be found the first two times the Flame Emperor confronts you in person, she's open to the idea of Byleth allying with the Flame Emperor as long as the latter is willing to reveal their identity and goals, and she is seen hanging out with a woman who's revealed later to be working with said Flame Emperor. Then she reveals to Byleth and her classmates that she's actually the Flame Emperor, and that idea quickly becomes a reality.
- Concern: Does this trope count, given she is the Flame Emperor?
- Suggested response: Delete.
- Believes in Three Houses that Byleth won't side with her against the Church of Seiros. Ultimately, her refusal to explain her motivations for the unprovoked attack on the Holy Tomb massively contribute to them becoming enemies later on. This can be averted if Byleth attends her coronation and you choose to protect her from execution.
- Concern: Given we have no insight into Byleth’s thoughts regarding this incident, this is speculation.
- Suggested response: Reword it to be more general about Edelgard breaking the peace in Fodlan.
- Should Edelgard confront Rhea as the Immaculate One at the end of Crimson Flower, she will claim she never believed nor trusted in her and the Children of the Goddess from the beginning. However and as shown above, if her parley with Dimitri at the end of Azure Moon is any indication, there is the likelihood this wasn't always the case.
- Concern: This just requires a small addendum; Edelgard views the person she was from before the time she was experimented on to be a case of That Man is Dead, so when she says she never believed in Rhea in the context of discussing with an enemy in the heat of battle, she’s likely referring to the person she is now, rather than the person she once was.
- Suggested response: See above.
- Believes that everyone should rise and fall by their own merits and that the weak are only weak because they rely on others instead of themselves.
- Concern: While she believes those with talent or work ethic should rise, she in no way advocates for straight up abandoning the weak; see her supports with Bernadetta, Petra, and Linhardt for examples of this. It would be more accurate that Edelgard believes in daring people to strive to become their best selves.
- Suggested response: Delete.
- Deconstructed. Of the three lords, she is convinced that she is the most logical and rational. She puts more emphasis on her own objectives and goals over forming bonds with others and analyzing the situation before acting. She even goes to the extent of suppressing her own emotions after killing Dimitri with her own hands. The problem is that she does this to the point where she can't see anything else outside of her one goal which makes it impossible to negotiate with her. She is also incapable of seeing Rhea as a person or understanding what drives her, which inadvertently burns the only bridge that would let her learn the truth of Fódlan's history, as Rhea is the only person available who possesses such knowledge.
- Concern: Edelgard doesn't know the true history of Fodlan.
- Suggested response: Delete bolded.
- She has a habit of speaking passive aggressively during White Clouds, hiding insults behind her words and even passing it off as jokes. Notably if Byleth shows interest in Adrestia, she admits to seeing the Alliance and the Holy Kingdom as mere offshoots of the empire, dismissing them as nations with their own sovereignty. This also serves as subtle foreshadowing that Edelgard believes the Church is the reason why the Empire was split into the current three nations in the first place; in her mind, they should still be part of the Empire, not individual nations.
- Concern: See Innocently Insensitive.
- Suggested response: See Innocently Insensitive.
- In the tapestry of Crimson Flower's ending, she is shown desecrating the flag of the Leicester Alliance, stepping upon it as she stands proudly, hinting at Edelgard's dislike for the nations she conquered.
- Concern: This just comes across as petty complaining and groundless speculation.
- Suggested response: Delete sub-example.
- Subverted with those who slither in the dark's goal of making her the second coming of Nemesis. Despite having access to the Crest of Seiros along with the Crest of Flames, Edelgard is much weaker than him, and even attempting to awaken the full power of the Crests as Hegemon Edelgard gives her little advantage. In comparison, Nemesis himself ends up being the most powerful of the four routes' Final Bosses upon his revival in terms of raw stats. And double-subverted in Crimson Flower, where she succeeds in killing Seiros where he failed, avoids being a pawn for the Agarthans by destroying them afterwards, and continues to rule after the war with her own allies.
- Concern: Nemesis, today, is widely regarded as the easiest of the final bosses, to the point that he can pretty reliably be one-turned without even killing any of the Ten Elites to weaken him first.
- Suggested response: delete bolded, just leave the bit about how she succeeds where he failed in Crimson Flower.
- Without Byleth's influence, this is what Edelgard can become at her worst. Because of her firm belief that she must destroy the Crest and nobility system, she views herself as righteous. Therefore, she believes that anything she does, no matter how evil, hypocritical, or bloody, is justified by default.
- Concern: Edelgard views her actions as a necessary evil, knows she’s causing suffering, and suspects future generations may not look kindly upon her. She’s very clearly not this trope.
- Suggested response: Delete.
- Played with. Edelgard is fully aware of those who slither in the dark's ulterior motives behind helping her and her co-operation with them in ‘’Three Houses’’ is Teeth-Clenched Teamwork at best, and she ultimately ends up betraying them after winning the war. Though she does seem aware that she is fulfilling part of their goals, such as dethroning Seiros and dismantling the Church, removing Children of the Goddess to ensure human supremacy, due to mutual interest, she stops them from achieving their main goals: killing Byleth, who is Sothis's current vessel, complete domination of Fódlan, and genocide of the surface dwellers.
- Concern: Trope is misapplied, following the logic of its own description.
- Suggested response: Delete.
- Much of the conflict in the game comes from Edelgard targeting the Church of Seiros. While she never learns the real story behind Seiros and Nemesis/the Agarthans, Edelgard is right about Rhea not being suited to rule Fódlan (one irony being that Rhea agrees with this, seeing herself as merely a proxy who can't hope to rule as well as Sothis did): the Crest/caste systems she endorses (albeit also preaching against the ways it is abused) is stagnating the continent, and her scheme to resurrect Sothis has colored Rhea's views on what is best for Fódlan (it doesn't help that Rhea made some decisions that actually ended up stagnating the continent even more besides the Crest system, mentioned in Cindered Shadows and confirmed by an interview). While Rhea does love Fódlan dearly, Fódlan changing for the better after Rhea cedes the level of authority she wields is the one constant in all of the routes (even in Silver Snow where, if S-ranked, she returns to being Archbishop but Byleth is indisputably the leader of Fódlan).
- Concern: Edelgard doesn’t know the true history of Fodlan.
- Suggested response: Delete bolded.
- She starts off as this, as despite her good intentions, she is willing to have two of her fellow students killed by bandits just to make her plans of unifying Fódlan easier. Also, despite her hatred of them, she still works with those who slither in the dark, who commit, and have committed, countless atrocities. However, with Byleth's help on her own route, Edelgard is able to reduce the influence of those who slither in the dark (and she makes sure to eliminate them, once Rhea has been dealt with), and she generally tones down her more extreme tendencies, which makes her more of an Anti-Hero.
- Concern: Argument in the description; in the only route where she is a protagonist, she’s decidedly not a villain.
- Suggested response: Either delete or specify that this is only in the Black Eagle version of White Clouds, and not in Crimson Flower proper.
- Her ending mural depicts her holding up Aymr proudly as she tramples upon the flags of Leicester, Faerghus, and the Church of Seiros that she conquered..
- Concern: Edelgard never pretends her way is anything but bloody dirty business.
- Suggested response: Delete.
- On the Crimson Flower route, she is welcomed back into the fold with open arms despite being revealed to have been the Flame Emperor the entire time.
- Concern: Edelgard doesn’t “come back”; everyone else joins her.
- Suggested response: Delete.
Edited by Raxis on Sep 24th 2022 at 10:49:25 AM
Calendar enthusiast
Ooh, an Edelgard thread!
I should probably state up from that a while ago, I did a series of giant edits on all the Three Houses subpages with the intention of removing bad examples. This is the one I did for Edelgard
. Here is the discussion.
I'd also like to offer an observation. Silver Snow is the default Empire route; the intended plot is, after you spend so much time learning and bonding with your top student, she then betrays you and becomes the villain of the story. Crimson Flower is the secret hidden route where you team up with the villain and conquer the land. However, CF is absurdly easy to unlock and the player has just spent so long bonding with Edelgard, and dialogue choices rarely make any actual difference to the story; as such, when players choose the option to protect Edelgard and get shifted over from SS to CF, they assume that this is how the story is supposed to go. The assumption there is that we're supposed to take down Rhea, who is supposed to be the main antagonist, not realising they're on the secret route; this then colours their entire perception of the game and the story. Examples are then written through that lens.
So anyway, now I've declared my own biases, on to Raxis' post. I'll start with the straightforward ones.
- Backstab Backfire: I don't think this even counts as the trope. Edelgard never begs for mercy; Dimitri offers it, but Edelgard rejects it. It should probably be deleted.
- Deconstructed Character Archetype: Definitely delete the bolded part. Also, the example should just refer to her as the Big Bad, since those who slither in the dark are secondary antagonists who happen to be defeated later.
- Fatal Flaw: Condense down to "Her determination and laser-focus on the future, coupled with an insistence that she and she alone can fix the world and refusal to countenance other points of view, ultimately lead to her downfall if Byleth is not on her side".
- Four-Temperament Ensemble: Remove as she is not part of an ensmeble.
- Gameplay and Story Integration: Yeah, just delete those who subbullets.
- I'm Not a Hero, I'm...: Agree with deleting the bolded part, if not everything after the first sentence.
- Innocently Insensitive: The example looks OK to me, but there's nothing paricularly wrong with specifying it comes from the English version.
- Irony: First of all, this should probably be moved to Dramatic Irony. I would suggest rephrasing it to "In her casus belli, she denounces the Church of Seiros for splitting the Empire in two to create Faerghus. Documents added to the DLC reveal that Loog's rebellion was actually fomented by those who slither in the dark, with the Church only getting involved when fighting was already underway." (This assumes that Edelgard is not intentionally trying to deceive anybody).
- I Surrender, Suckers: Agree, delete.
- Jumping Off the Slippery Slope: Agree, delete.
- Laser-Guided Karma: She does not suffer any karmic consequences as a result of this action, so the trope doesn't apply. Delete.
- Lightning Bruiser: Your rewrite looks good.
- Not Me This Time: Delete. Edelgard is indeed angry that there are parts of Fódlan which aren't controlled by the Adrestian throne.
- Opportunistic Bastard: Agree, delete.
- Poor Communication Kills: I think this one can be deleted. Edelgard still starts a war of conquest without even considering diplomacy, and it's not like Dimitri would think "Well the person trying to conquer my country and my people has some good ideas so I'll just let her do it then."
- Pretext for War: Agree, delete. She openly states that she is conquering Faerghus and Leicester because they're supposed to answer to the Adrestian Throne.
- Pride: Agree, delete bolded.
- Properly Paranoid: Delete. The trope is about a character correctly believing that there is a sinister group out to get them, not what the example describes.
- Red Herring: This is a tricky one, since it's actually a parallel to the same trope used on Dimitri and Claude's pages. Each one says that there is some indication they are the Flame Emperor, but then we see they aren't. In the case of Edelgard, it's built up as a subversion, since we get evidence she is the Flame Emperor... and unlike Dimitri and Claude, this turns out to be correct.
- Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: This one can probably be deleted. There aren't any prophecies or prophecy-like proclamations, and Edelgard using diplomacy is simply out of character.
- Self-Serving Memory: Looks OK.
- Social Darwinist: Agree, delete.
- The Spock: Honestly, I think this one can also be deleted completely. The Spock isn't about believing oneself to be the most logical, it's about actually being logical. This example looks like misuse.
- Stealth Insult: Delete everything after the first sentence. Also, the ending tapestry is in no way stealthy.
- Superior Successor: Looks good.
- Tautological Templar: Agree, delete.
- Unwitting Pawn: Agree, delete.
- Villain Protagonist: See observation a couple of paragraphs up. Not sure what to do on this one.
- War Is Glorious: Agree, delete.
- Welcome Back, Traitor: Agree, delete.
OK, on to the more complex ones.
Hoo boy.
An issue Three Houses shares with Fates is that no matter which route you pick, characters tell you that you are a good person doing good things even when invading and conquering their own countries, and everything is sunshine and rainbows afterwards. It makes sense that Edelgard would not consider that she might be going about things the wrong way, but the only people who say she's wrong are those who CF frames as enemies who need to be eliminated, which goes back to the issue of people playing CF first and having their perceptions coloured.
As to the example, delete everything about the war shaking things up to allow for a new golden age. Those are unforeseen consequences that are completely counter to Edelgard's plans.
Also excise the phrase "Rhea's grip on Fódlan". Rhea has as much of a grip on Fódlan as Pope Francis has on modern Italy. People certainly listen to her, and she has a great deal of influence, but no actual temporal or political power. I could also say stuff about how Fódlan isn't actually stagnated, but that gets into issues of showing vs telling, which the Fódlan games both have a problem with.
Maybe change it to something like this:
- The Extremist Was Right: Edelgard is correct that Fódlan needs to change, and removing the existing status quo allows for a new and better world. It's just a shame she's only willing to resort to diplomacy after first exhausting every possible military solution.
Heroes is not a valid source. Heroes is inconsistent with every single Fire Emblem game, including itself. Nothing in it can be taken as applicable to any other game.
Humanity is a problematic word to use in this context due to the potential for equivocation. In the biological sense, humanity simply refers to being a member of the genus Homo. In fiction, however, particularly in science fiction and fantasy, it instead refers to a set of psychological or mystical qualities which, in the real world, are thought to be unique to humans. As such, I am going to use the Zulu word ubuntu to mean the more abstract sense, because Bantu philosophy has a specific word for that concept.
Also, they're not called "Nabateans". That word is never used in the game; the closest we get is Nabatea, which refers to either a location or a polity, but not a species. The term is Children of the Goddess.
Anyway, let's look as Edelgard's dialogue.
When describing the war between Seiros and Nemesis, she says
- The Relics were created by the hands of mankind. Seiros collected them after killing the 10 Elites.The church maintains the false history that he was corrupted and turned evil. However, it was little more than a simple dispute.
Edelgard does seem to be aware that the Heroes' Relics are made from the corpses of dead Children of the Goddess. With that in mind, this dialogue indicates that she sees nothing wrong with killing the Children of the Goddess for the purpose of turning the corpses of the victims into weapons, the same way people in the real world kill animals to eat their flesh and fashion their bones into tools.
But, even if we assume that Edelgard doesn't know about Nemesis' genocide, her very next line of dialogue in that scene is telling:
- Should the one leading the people of the world be someone with humanity or a creature that can merely masquerade as a human at will?
Edelgard here is equivocating, possibly unintentionally. However, she clearly states here that Seiros, being a Child of the Goddess and not a human, is inherently incapable of exhibiting ubuntu by her very nature. She also claims to be all about merit and the idea that power and authority should go to those who deserve them, yet casually mentions that certain people are not worthy of authority due to their species, regardless of actions of character.
Her choice of the word creature is illuminating, since it is a very common racist trope to refer to people of other races as "animals" to deny their ubuntu. This is the same term that Thales, AKA Fantasy Hitler, uses:
- We used the defiled beast's blood as the fuel to your flame, that you may burn even the gods.
There is a direct parallel here with Claude's experiences:
- That's why I came here, to see Fódlan with my own eyes. I thought I might be able to find a new perspective that could help me change things. And what did I find? That the people here view anyone who's an outsider as a beast of sorts.
Claude, the Almyran prince, uses the same word as Thales to describe how Fódlish people view gaijin. That word, beast, is synonymous with creature, and is a case of racists dismissing those from outside their arbitrary human groupings as not real people, as lacking ubuntu. Claude's entire goal is to bring an end to racism and prejudice in both Fódlan and Almyra, and yet Edelgard matter-of-factly refers to the Children of the Goddess in the same terms that caused Claude (and for that matter Cyril, Dedue, Petra, and liekly Shamir) so much suffering.
So yes, Edelgard absolutely does exhibit Fantastic Racism.
This is also not an example of Rage Against the Heavens. That trope is specifically for making war against actual deities, but Edelgard is actually fighting against religion, not the Goddes per se:
- Their foul belief system must be torn asunder so that true wisdom may finally prevail!
Indeed, she denies that Sothis actually exists:
Edelgard's A support with Ferdinand.
Edelgard's A support with Constance.
I think this example fits, but could do with some rewording. Edelgard's support with Constance doesn't actually show that she's thought about how to achieve her goals; rather, that she has thought a lot about how the world will work when she has acheived them. However, she still assumes that removing the Church of Seiros, centralising all power with the Emperor, and delegating authority as the Emperor sees fit will lead to a more equitable world, and needs Ferdinand to point out that without mass education, a whole lot of deserving people will still be excluded from consideration for authority because they never get the change to demonstate their merit to the Emperor.
This example is predicated on the idea that Rhea rules Fódlan, which she does not. At all. In any way. The biggest part of Fódlan is ruled by the Emperor of Adrestia, another chunk by the King of Faerghus, and the remainder by a council of five Leicestrian nobles. Rhea has influence but no actual authority.
The idea that Fódlan is stagnating is also not supported by the text. We get to visit Brigid and have a good look at Almyra in both games, and in both cases, they seem to be about on par culturally, socially, and technologically with Fódlan despite lacking the Church of Seiros. Dagda also appears to be on par with Fódlan; they didn't appear to have a technological advantage in the war, and the only difference Shamir brings up is that Dagda has coffee.
I think this trope does apply, but the example needs to be completely rewritten to be about the problems with hereditary nobility.
Ukrainian Red Cross
Quintesson Prosecutor
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
"Heroes is invalid because it's inconsistent and therefore we should not apply any characterization given there to the main games. Source(s): I said so."
Guess we should delete Ullr despite everything we know about her coming from Heroes. What a shame.
(I jest, but I find that logic flawed)
Edited by snowfire on Sep 25th 2022 at 1:43:36 AM
All universes shall be judged.
Shocking Gun!
Agree on Heroes not counting feels like a poor statement. It definitely isn't without its problems, but it also gives chance to look into certain characters who otherwise didn't have any or next to no screentime in the original games. Like in the context of Edelgard, Hegemon Husk basically was a endgame twist in Azure Moon that just happens in the end of the route to justify a final boss fight (not saying that it doesn't make sense, just that there is hardly any build up to it). Heroes meanwhile at least gives Hegemon Edelgard an identity with Fallen Edelgard. Maybe some can argue about other stuff (such as pairing up Edelgard with Altina and not doing anything with it), but that is besides the point.
Plus, saying that "Heroes doesn't count" with Edelgard would mean saying the same thing with all of the other Fire Emblem entries. Heroes is already hard enough to trope in its own subpages for multiple reasons (character page being only for FEH OCs, the trope pages are really cluttered mainly due to gameplay tropes), so where are we meant to discuss the game?
Continue the bloodline, Fujimaru!
Nabatean's is used in Three Houses.
https://fedatamine.com/en-uk/scenarios/259#event-157
And dismissing Heroes as a source because you dislike it is bad form. Especially since it's revealed Fodlan lore at least twice. Heroes revealed what the taboo that Seteth was concerned Rhea broke was, and Solon had a line revealing the Agarthan's immortality well before Three Hopes came out.
I do recall that an IGN article talking about complaints that contractors had about Nintendo of America mentioned that Nintendo was not exactly the best at documentation, and had this choice bit (with most significant part bolded for emphasis):
For more context, this article was originally brought up by another user in the Fire Emblem Heroes thread in regards to inconsistencies between Heroes-related content and the games they are pulling from. Stuff like that probably helped contribute to the idea of "Heroes is not a reliable source."
Regarding Edelgard's The Spock entry, I agree it should be deleted outright, as I'm not exactly seeing how it's a "deconstruction." Edelgard, as far as I know, does not serve as a way for the writers to take apart and examine the trope of The Spock.
Edited by dragonfire5000 on Sep 25th 2022 at 5:21:58 AM
Oh nice, glad to see this is getting some attention now :)
First off, just like to reassure you I haven't only played CF. I've got over 1000 hours logged on this game, roflmao.
Also you agreed with most of my edits, so I'm just hitting the ones where there's more to discuss.
- Deconstructed Character Archetype: I strongly disagree with the Agarthans being secondary antagonists. They essentially created Edelgard: even though her ideology was her own, their experiments on her sparked them. The clearest parallel would be Hardin to Gharnef in Mystery of the Emblem just without out and out mind control.
- Irony: I'll meet you halfway with "In her casus belli, she denounces the Church of Seiros for splitting the Empire in two to create Faerghus. Documents added to the DLC reveal that Loog's rebellion was actually fomented by those who slither in the dark, with the Church only getting involved when fighting was already underway. The Church did grant legitimacy to Loog's rebellion through crowning him, and in Hopes, Rhea criticizes the Leicester Federation for having been "built without the Goddess's blessing," suggesting a hand in the creation of the Alliance."
- Not Me This Time: Disagree with "Edelgard is indeed angry that there are parts of Fódlan which aren't controlled by the Adrestian throne." As I mentioned previously, if she only cared about the Empire being split up, she wouldn't have mentioned the Alliance being split off from the Kingdom. The Empire didn't grow any smaller from that.
- Pretext for War: "She openly states that she is conquering Faerghus and Leicester because they're supposed to answer to the Adrestian Throne." See above, lol.
The last two don't have much to do with the clean-up since you agreed with my points anyways, I just wanted to make sure we're all at the same place.
- The Extremist Was Right: How about instead, "Edelgard is correct that Fódlan needs to change, and removing the existing status quo allows for a new and better world. Unfortunately, the new and better world only comes after five years of bloodshed that she knowingly began."
Also should we spoiler tag that one? It kinda suggests how the story ends.
I'll have to get to Fantastic Racism another time since there's a lot more to that one, apologies.
Moving on to Missing Steps Plan
And again, Missing Steps Plan seems to be more about when a character doesn't think at all about how the start of their plan will lead into the end of it. While we don't see all of the finer details about how Edelgard intends to usher in her reforms (probably because we never get there and Fire Emblem has always been vague about that kind of thing, just see Dimitri's solo ending in Azure Moon), she's clearly thought about the middle steps.
Moving on to Villain Has a Point
Oh, this is a good one; in Three Hopes, Dimitri's council in Faerghus mistakes the Almyran merchant vessels that Nader has lent to Claude for a war vessels, implying Fodlan's naval development is well behind that of Almyra. Brigid's a small island nation that we don't properly see anything of.
That's it for now, I think, unless I missed anything big other than the aforementioned Fantastic Racism?
If you're linking an essay, you should summarize the relevant points in your post; not everyone has time to read through a whole bunch of text, and forum rules state that you should summarize or quote the relevant passages.
Also, having a lot of soft power =/= ruling the entire continent, as pointed out in this post:
Edited by dragonfire5000 on Sep 25th 2022 at 8:15:25 AM
Quintesson Prosecutor
Hey, since Nabatean has canon basis, can I go change the mouthful that is Child/ren of the Goddess back to Nabateans like it originally was?
All universes shall be judged.
Not to get into a sidetrack on this one particular point, but that post is considerably underselling it, IMO. I would say Rhea, appropriately enough, is pretty equivalent in power to an actual medieval pope, or perhaps slightly less so: she does directly control a military force and (technically) land, but primarily exerts influence by being the head of a religion that basically all citizens of Fodlan, - including rulers at the highest level - pay at least lip service to. Indeed even when we see people challenging the church it often involves some kind of breakaway sect intended to supplant the 'Central Church' rather than totally rejecting it. The idea that she is purely a respected moral figure like the modern pope - who has several similar peers like the Dalai Lama - does not hold up.
(Full disclosure, since it seems the thing to do: I don't personally own any Fire Emblem games, and I have seen playthroughs for all four routes, but - in part due to the somewhat convoluted circumstances that led me to watching them - I do believe I lean towards a slight Crimson Flower bias. I also actively shun organized fandom discussion and have not read any meta analyses, pro- or anti- any character, for what that's worth.)
Calendar enthusiast
Oh, I wasn't talking about you, it was an observation I've made about fandom in general.
Deconstructed Character Archetype: Hmm. Those who slither in the dark did create Edlegard, but they don't control her. Calling them the primary antagonists does feel like it detracts from her agency. She really closer to Hardin and Lyon than Ike; as such, I think she's really a straight example of the "conquering emperor backed by shadowy figures with their own agenda" than "military hero", so probably doesn't match the tropo.
Irony: Your writeup looks good.
Not Me This Time: Actually, Leicester originally declared independence from Adrestia in IY 801, and was promptly conquered yb Faerghus. They successfully rebelled against Faerghus in 891, becoming independent. Maybe phrase it as "She blames the Church of Seiros for splitting Leicester off from Faerghus; documents of ambiguous origin in the Abyss indicate the split was actually fomented by those who slither in the dark." Or just delete it, as you suggest; I'm OK either way.
Pretext for War: I'll rephrase. The trope is about declaring war for one reason while actually aiming for something else. However, Edelgard's end goals are united Fódlan and removal of the Church of Seiros, both of which she is completely open about. As such, it doesn't fit the trope.
The Extremist Was Right: Looks good.
Missing Steps Plan: Eh, I'll grant you that one.
Villain Has a Point: As I said, the Fódlan game have an issue with telling one thing but showing another. It should be noted that Dimitri's war countil is actually correct that the Almyran ships currently sailing for their country are war vessels. Moreover, it's not like battleships are more technologically advanced than merchant vessels; the council assuming they are war vessels is more likely due to Fódlan's history with Almyra.
More about Rhea below the divider.
This is what I've been saying from the start. Rhea has a whole lot of soft power; what she lacks is hard power. It's actually a really interesting dynamic that you don't often see in stories; one who exerts influence without authority.
Vatican City actually does have a military force. It's small, but it exists, and is ultimately under the command of the pope.
Second, merely having an army doesn't make one a ruler; Jeralt and Berling have their own armies, but that doesn't make them a king or a queen.
Re Heroes: Can we at least agree that, if Heroes is in conflict with Three Houses or Three Hopes, then 3H takes precedence?
I don't dismiss it because I don't like it, I dismiss it because it's inconsistent.
Huh. OK, turns out it is used once.
No, because their name is still Children of the Goddess. That's how they refer to themselves, it's what Edelgard calls them, it's what Thales calls them, and it's how battle menus refer to them.
Ukrainian Red Cross
Quintesson Prosecutor
Of course you would disagree, you're the one that changed it in the first place.
I was more asking others their thoughts.
Edited by snowfire on Sep 26th 2022 at 5:11:27 AM
All universes shall be judged.
If the game uses "Children of the Goddess" more often than "Nabatean," I don't think it's a big deal to use the former phrase.
I agree with that the Deconstructed Character Archetype entry is incorrect and can be deleted. Even if she was meant to be an "action type hero" like the ones mentioned (given what the game shows, I don't think she fits the archetype), the game doesn't actually "deconstruct" that archetype at all.
And like mentioned, her character archetype is closer to the likes of Hardin and Lyon rather than characters like Hector and Ike.
Phew, missed a lot, sorry about that.
Right, sorry about that.
She's similar to those two but her will is her own. The important thing is she's more The Heavy in VW/SS, particularly VW where the player would have little emotional resonance with her.
I don't think we'll come to an agreement on this one, so if nobody else has any issue with just deleting the sub-example then I'm fine with that.
That's fair.
The Knights of Seiros aren't a "small" force, they're widely regarded as one of the most elite military units in all of Fodlan, answerable only to Rhea and able to operate in the sovereign territory of the three nations without any apparent oversight. During the assault on Garreg Mach, the Knights of Seiros, being caught off-guard and with the Empire concentrating all its weight into striking Garreg Mach, still inflict "great losses" on the invading Imperial force before retreating.
Moving on to Rhea's personal power, Three Hopes makes it plain that the Crown in Faerghus only has authority because the Central Church grants it; Dimitri says he'd be discredited as a heathen if he refused to accept the Church's requests for assistance. Additionally, the Archbishop oversees the coronation of Adrestian Emperors even centuries after the demise of the Southern Church, and that the Eastern Church insisted on blessing and anointing the newly-crowned King Claude in the Golden Wildfire story in Three Hopes, saying that the people "weren't ready" for a King "unblessed by the goddess".
Furthermore, Rhea can unilaterally confiscate Relics from the houses that hold them (Sylvain remarks in his B support with Byleth that there was a real peril that House Gautier would lost the Lance of Ruin to Rhea), these Relics being seen as crucial to the defense of Kingdom territories, and House Gautier being one of the "backbones" of the Kingdom alongside House Fraldarius.
And then there's the fact that Rhea was able to shelter Catherine in Garreg Mach despite her being an outlaw under accusations of regicide in Faerghus (Faerghans literally committed a genocide to avenge Lambert against the people of Duscur). Lastly, the Church's teachings (Crests) define the bedrock of Fodlan's aristocratic system. In Sothis's absence, Rhea is the voice of the goddess - an office she holds in mostly open perpetuity (Three Hopes reveals there's portraits of "past" Archbishops that are noted to look identical to Rhea, meaning she doesn't even bother very hard to disguise her agelessness).
If anything, describing Rhea's power as "soft" was an underestimation on my part.
Edited by Raxis on Sep 26th 2022 at 4:22:34 AM
Calendar enthusiast
I fear we're getting off topic, but there is a whole lot to say about the nature of power. There's a particularly illustrative scene somewhere in A Song of Ice and Fire, while I'll quote to the best of my ability:
- A poor mercenary, of low birth, minimal wealth, and no renown, finds himself in a room with a king, a priest, and a rich man. The king, the priest, and the rich man each order the mercenary to kill the other two.
"Obey me," says the king, "because I am your lawful ruler."
"Obey me," says the priest, "because I speak for the gods."
"Obey me," says the rich man, "and I'll give you a big pile of gold."
Who lives and who dies?
It's a parable about the nature of power. Ultimately, it comes down to the mercenary in this situation, which might make him the most powerful person in the room, yet he's a random nobody. If power truly rests on who is good at fighting, why do we all act as if kings are the ones in charge? When you get right down to it, power lies where people think it lies.
Law and authority are attempts to codify this power. Adrestia and Faerghus are highly centralised states with standing armies; Leicester is decentralised by design (and even they centralise in Three Hopes), but I also get the impression there are a whole lot more written rules and procedures holding everything together.
Actually, looking up the definitions, I think I misused the terms hard power and soft power earlier, so I will instead use the terms authority and influence. Authority is a formal, documented hierarchy; if someone has authority over you, they get to tell you what to do, and if you refuse an order from somebody who has authority, you are a rebel.
Influence is more subtle and slippery. It is the ability to persuade someone to do something in the absence of authority, which ultimately derives from the esteem in which the influenced holds the influencer. One cannot actually rebel against someone who merely exerts influence; once can certainly oppose that influence, which may or may not be a good idea, but rebellion by definition only applies to a refusal to obey authority.
To illustrate the difference: Rhea has authority over Aelfric, because he is a member of the Church hierarchy, but at a lower level than Rhea. On the other hand, she has influence over Mercedes, because while Mercedes holds Rhea in high regard and considers Rhea worth listening to, Mercedes does not hold any position within the Church.
So all in all, Rhea has substantial influence over Fódlan, but her authority is limited to the Church of Seiros, and she does not have any political authority.
Ukrainian Red Cross
Apparently, Villain has a Ppoint is predicated on the idea that Rhea rules Fodlan, so sorting out whether the game does or not consider her the ruler of Fodlan determines whether or not the the trope is included.
Rhea and Seteth call Edelgard and the Adrestian Army rebels.
https://fedatamine.com/en-us/battles/31/the-battle-of-garreg-mach#event-battle-group-10
https://fedatamine.com/en-us/battles/14/protecting-garreg-mach#event-script-26
Lonato moving to engage the Church and not the Blaiddyd's or Count Rowe is also called a rebellion.
https://fedatamine.com/en-uk/scenarios/28#event-24
Like, if power lies where people think it lies, and Rhea, Seteth, Edelgard and Claude all think Rhea rules Fodlan - then Rhea does rule Fodlan.
I think the word "rebellion," at least if we go by Dictionary.com, can also just mean "resistance to or defiance of any authority, control, or tradition." Which, given the Church of Seiros is the spiritual authority of the continent, means that you can still use the term "rebel" against anyone going up against the Church without it meaning the Church actually rules the entire continent with hard power.
Because, as it has been pointed out before, the Church has a lot of soft power but not a lot of hard power over the other nations, even if they are involved with some ceremonies such as the crowning of the new emperor.
I do think that the entry for The Extremist Was Right should not mention Rhea, as Three Houses does show that Rhea remaining in power in one ending (specifically, the one where she marries Byleth) still helps bring about a more progressive age for the continent, showing that she does NOT have to be removed from power to bring about positive change.
Edited by dragonfire5000 on Sep 27th 2022 at 1:13:06 AM
HoMM Fan
As someone who has not played in ages, I hardly got the impression that the Church is soft power only.
Sure, the Pope IRL has an army, but it's tiny (135 men) and exists purely to protect the Pope.
Rhea's army is much larger and has the capacity to conduct campaigns, not to mention every nation has to submit to her to at least some degree, even if it's not absolute hard power over them.
"Grandmaster Combat, son!"
Like I said, I think Rhea's level of power matches that of an actual medieval pope (albeit not one of the more ridiculous ones) pretty exactly. Surprisingly so considering it's a Japanese game TBH.
HoMM Fan
That to me seems appropriate.
Sure, she doesn't literally physically rule all of Fodlan, but everyone has to answer to her at some level, and she has an actual army capable of offensive uses beyond bodyguarding her.
"Grandmaster Combat, son!"
Calendar enthusiast
No they don't. Edelgard simply decides to attack her, and she can do that. Because secular power in Adrestia is vested in the emperor, and delegated according to the emperor's wishes. Traditionally, ministerial positions have been hereditary, but the emperor still as absolute de jure authority to revoke and reassign those positions as they see fit, as we see in the coronation scene where Edelgard strips Duke Aegir of the position of prime minister and nobody so much as suggests this isn't normal.
But we're getting bogged down in Edelgard discourse. The narrative clearly frames Edelgard as intending to improve Fódlan by any means necessary, so how do ye feel about rewriting the example thusly:
- Villain Has a Point: The story frames her as being correct that Fódlan has major social and political problems, and substantial reform is clearly warranted. The problem is that she jumps straight to waging a war of conquest to force her vision on everyone in the land, even those outside her own country, without even considering diplomacy.
Calling it a "war for conquest," and that she "did not even consider diplomacy," (the latter can't even be proven since we don't have access to her thoughts) is argumentative, "to force her vision on everyone in the land even those outside her own country," gets into the weeds (it suggests the problem is just because of imaginary lines on a map, AKA, borders). How about:
The problem is that she sparks a destructive 5-year war to bring about her reforms.
Edited by Raxis on Sep 28th 2022 at 7:03:02 AM
Calendar enthusiast
How about this?
- Villain Has a Point: The story frames her as being correct that Fódlan has major social and political problems, and substantial reform is clearly warranted. The problem is that she jumps straight to conquering other countries to force reform with no attempt at diplomacy.
(Copy-pasted from https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/query.php?parent_id=116254&type=att)
Perhaps unsurprisingly for a character as divisive as she is, the character page for Edelgard from Fire Emblem: Three Houses has become a mess over the three years since the game came out.
The tl;dr here is people who both like and dislike her are essentially using her character sheet as a vehicle to argue about her, so you get multiple trope examples that read like forum arguments, tropes being applied to her that don't fit at all, and occasional out of nowhere gripes about her in the middle of describing the tropes that do fit her.
Now that the Fire Emblem series is moving on from the games she appears in, I thought it would be a good opportunity to go and clean up her page.
I've compiled a list of the biggest issues here: (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1YWhmfGyXoYzcRZMWkCdYbNfUcz5j3ahhNwOnAYZhVhs/edit?usp=sharing)
but likely more exist. They're organized alphabetically, with horizontal lines dividing individual tropes. If no horizontal line is dividing two examples, it means they're sub-examples of a larger trope. I've left commenting on so anyone with thoughts can share them.
That's about it. If enough people are interested in this, let's clean up the page!