raxistaicho

[raxistaicho]

Settling into the morning routine.

[raxistaicho]

Today is Edelgard from Fire Emblem: Three Houses' birthday!

[raxistaicho]

Chapter 118 jump out!

Hey there! I just posted chapter 118 of my fanfic, On Black Wings :)

It’s a ludicrously in-depth retelling of the Crimson Flower storyline of Fire Emblem Three Houses, focusing on character moments, tactics and strategy, and the day-to-day life at Garreg Mach.

The dust only begins to settle over Arianhrod before a new catastrophe takes place…

[raxistaicho]

Nabatean oc anon again, hello. They're against the church because of the relics actually. It's always bugged me how that's handled by the church so I guess it's all a bit of wishfulfilment on my part. I think I just needed a second opinion after reading too many bad takes about that "obliterate" line, so thank you

Oh nah, that totally makes sense, I think if Edelgard knew about the Relics she'd be furious at Rhea for making them "holy".

[raxistaicho]

“I need your opinion how do you think things would have turned out if Rhea kept the baby told Jeralt to kick rocks and let herself be more open with her feelings to Seteth and Flayn?”

Well I need people to remember Byleth’s Jeralt’s kid and he had every right to remove them from a place he didn’t feel was safe for them (through extreme arson) - specifically because Rhea refused to be transparent about what she did to his child that resulted in them having NO HEARTBEAT!!

That's so weiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiird, why does Rhea get to decide what happens with Byleth? T_T

[raxistaicho]

Would it be too mary sue-ish to ship edelgard with a nabatean oc? Also how do you think edelgard would react to learning the true nature of the relic weapons?

First question, not at all, just as long as you set it all up properly. What's the Nabatean OC, like? If they're being shipped with Edelgard, I'm guessing they're against the Church of Seiros.

For the second question, Edelgard would definitely be horrified, but also vindicated. If "was created by slaughter" isn't as clear a sign as any that the Relics and Crests have to go, I don't know what is. She'd probably also be furious with Rhea for keeping up the charade that they're holy weapons.

[raxistaicho]

Even reading the "obliterate" line in the light least favorable to Edelgard, it does absolutely nothing to prove that she is a genocidal anti-Nabatean racist.

The ones Edelgard says she wants to "obliterate" are "[Rhea], as well as those around her who use the church's power to control Fódlan." Which is a distinct set of individuals that does not include all Nabateans (Indech and Macuil both fall outside of it); is not exclusively comprised of them (at minimum the Cardinals would be included in it); and is defined by conduct, not race or species.

In short "Edelgard wants to obliterate Group A; some members of Group A also belong to Group B; therefore Edelgard wants to obliterate Group B," is not a valid syllogism.

-

[raxistaicho]

Note: Just running off the information I dug up on this. I am not very eloquent, so apologies if my argument feels weird at some point. Sounds easier to say in my head.

Not a problem!

Impulsive and short-sighted kinda go hand in hand in that she makes plans off of feelings and/or limited information, requiring Hubert to fix them in order to make them work.

What do you mean by this specifically?

And -> this <- is what I meant by easily manipulated, specifically about the part where she gets played by the Agarthans.

Oof, making me debunk two whole posts at the same time, lol. I'll just rapid fire the important stuff. Note that I'm going to be a lot more terse in this next segment because I want to get through it quickly, I apologize in advance if I come across as rude.

It's ignorant to blame Rhea for the existence of feudalism when it has existed before she was born and it exists outside of fodlan.

Irrelevant. Feudalism as it exists in Fodlan exists with the Crest-based aristocracy at its heart. If a new form of feudalism springs up in the wake of Edelgard's reforms, which is unlikely, given their humanist and meritocratic focus, they can be dealt with in the future. Edelgard's reforms will also make it easier to throw down future oppressive social structures, as she's removing the magic weapons the elite of her time use to maintain power.

Plus house Gonerils is allowed to have the head of the house be a crestless heir over the crest bearing child with a heroes relic to her name

Exceptions don't unmake the rule.

The coups that created the Kingdom and Alliance? The Agarthans did that.

Rhea benefited from them in a clear quid pro quo.

She grants Loog legitimacy, he lets her proselytize her fake religion as she pleases.

The introduction of Crests and "Hero's" Relics? Agarthans did that.

Rhea's the one who called those things holy, she made them a quantifiable mark of the goddess's acceptance and blessing when they would otherwise have just been a superpower born from slaughter. Again, she granted them legitimacy.

Also, it's ironically Rhea's own fault that Edelgard doesn't know that.

It would have eventually collapsed on its own; it was already getting there. Crest blood was thinning.

That's a reason to get off Crests immediately, not to wait for them to go away. Noble families are resorting to producing as many children as possible to get better odds of one of them having Crests. When they get even rarer, catastrophes like the experiments on House Hresvelg and Ordelia will become more common as Nobles become desperate.

The people's belief in the church was waning

There's no evidence of this, at least not among the commoners.

and critique was becoming more prevalent.

And we all know what Rhea does when she's critiqued.

The heirs of all three thrones were questioning everything and wanted the same exact goal.

They absolutely did not. Dimitri and Edelgard's goals are incompatible, Dimitri thinks Crests, Relics, the nobility, and the church are worth preserving, she doesn't. He thinks he can somehow bring people with competing goals into harmony.

Rhea sees no need to reform Fodlan or the church because mommy's totally coming back any day now and will fix everything. She needs to keep the church standing until then. Again, she and Edelgard have incompatible goals.

Claude, meanwhile, has very little real power over Fodlan and it's hinted he was planning to subvert Fodlan's defenses against an Almyran attack so he could force his view of the future at swordpoint. All that talk of cutting mountains in half? What mountain could he want to destroy other than Fodlan's Throat? His plans were in ruin because Edelgard beat him to the punch at executing them.

Anyways, back to the primary post:

Taking things too far as in turning herself into a Hegemon Husk to fight the war - sacrificing everyone and everything and effectively becoming the very monster she was trying to destroy in the first place -

Turning into the Hegemon Husk was Edelgard at her worst, or at least her most extreme, no questions there, though it follows from the other routes showing the characters Byleth didn't pick at their worst, as well.

Rhea burns down a city in a desperate bid to force the Empire into the flames, Dimitri allows his forces to go through with Dedue's plan to turn them into Demonic Beasts.

along with her roping Leicester into the war when they had no reason to be part of it. Her war was on the Church and the system they had put in place, which only had a real foothold in the Kingdom and Adrestia. Leicester's version of the crest system was on its way out the door anyway, and those without crests such as merchant families were already making it higher up the ladder than they would have in the Kingdom or Adrestia. Commoners toeing the line of nobility.

There's the funny thing, on most iterations of the story between Three Houses and Three Hopes, she goes more for diplomacy with Leicester. In Scarlet Blaze she just negotiates with Gloucester and Acheron to cross through their territories on the way to Garreg Mach, for instance.

In all the non CF routes in Houses, it's Claude who attacks the Empire first, when up until that point it seems like all the Empire did to Leicester was to hold their end of the Great Bridge.

I can't agree with the Fodlan Crest Obsession being "on its way out" in Leciester, though. They're certainly more pragmatic about it than Faerghus (being a richer country with fewer Relics certainly helps in that regard), but Crests still carry a certain weight.

But Edelgard insisted on fighting a battle on 3 fronts (technically 4 if you count TWSITD), taking on the church, the Kingdom, and the Alliance all at once. It was only in FEW3H, another game with debatable canon, that she even considered making allies of Leicester to fight her actual war instead of killing Claude or forcing him to leave Fodlan.

Edelgard turning on all sides at once is really only a thing in Three Hopes, and she predictably pays for it in the first half of Scarlet Blaze and Golden Wildfire.

In Houses she avoids antagonizing the Agarthans as much as possible, and she focuses on keeping the Alliance out of the fighting until she can launch a swift and efficient decapitating strike in Crimson Flower. Further, she was already planning this even before Byleth returned.

Granted, in that game, she still fully intended on annexing the Alliance after the Kingdom had already severed ties with the church,

Could you rephrase this one, please? I'm having a little trouble understanding. Edelgard keeps her word with Claude in both Scarlet Blaze and Golden Wildfire. He's the one who can betray her.

At some point, a war becomes conquest when your only good reason disappears, and history had shown that a war of conquest is always going too far.

I simply have to disagree that Edelgard's good reasons disappear, I'm afraid.

Anyways, thanks for replying! I really enjoy these kind of back and forth debates, I find them interesting.

I don't hate Edelgard. Her route and classmates are my favourite.

I think she's genuinely kind, struggles to create and maintain friendships because of trust issues built from a traumatic childhood but tries anyway, has great tastes in food and flowers, cares for others in a selfless way, can be very relatable at times, tragic in a way that makes you want to give her a hug, and has the capacity to be a good leader. She also looks great in red.

I also think she's short-sighted, stubborn, arrogant, has a saviour complex, impulsive, can't take criticisms to her face which is why most of it is done behind her back, takes things way too far, and is easily manipulated. I also happen to think her actions get excused too much because her reasons for doing it are understandable or because those actions are based in "good intentions."

Both things can be true at once.

[raxistaicho]

"What if Byleth lived in Garreg Mach" has really always been a pretty neat question. Alternate Universe scenarios are like that. Not sure how I feel about anon speculating if Rhea "kept the baby", as if Byleth was some thing that belonged to Rhea, but... oh well?

and let herself be more open with her feelings to Seteth and Flayn?

That would require a complete change in personality from Rhea. Rhea's just not an emotionally open person, even with the people closest to her. Also we definitely know Flayn is a new addition to Garreg Mach by the time the game began, and Seteth wasn't there at the time that Byleth was born (though judging from his bio, he arrived about 3 years later, so he was there for most of the intervening time).

If we're assuming Rhea even allows Byleth to learn to fight (already a big "if"), the only realistic route we get is Silver Snow, and hoo boy what a change that would be for Three House's longterm appeal. It'd go from the most celebrated game in the franchise to a footnote in its history, Silver Snow being the least-liked route in the game.

There's no particular reason to assume Sothis would awaken in Byleth any earlier. We know that Byleth had been having dreams of her since before the game began, but the skirmish at Remire seemed to trigger something inside her, coaxing her awake. The most logical possibility is that close proximity to Edelgard's Crest of Flames had some sort of reaction, it fits the general themes of the game and we know from Hopes that their Crests resonate in some manner. Hopes instead had Sothis awaken in response to Shez's attack on Byleth.

From there, Byleth might tell Rhea about Sothis, it depends on how prompt Sothis is to get her not to. Even Sothis with all her memories (Hopes) has no issues with Byleth fighting to kill Rhea, so it's unlikely Sothis would be any more predisposed to her daughter than she was in the canon Three Houses. Really, it all depends on whether Byleth tells Rhea. She would, unless Sothis told her not to, and if she does it wouldn't take Rhea much to figure out what happened, at which point she'll try to haul Byleth off to the Holy Throne to "restore her memories". Or as Hopes puts it:

God, Hopes Sothis is the worst...

Of course, how Rhea reacts to Sothis depends on how Sothis acts. I'm going to go on her acting as in canon, in other words, not trusting Rhea. I can well imagine that Sothis not living up to Rhea's expectations would not end well for any of the three involved in that little snafu.

As for what effect Byleth would have on Rhea... probably minimal. It's not like Sitri noticeably changed Rhea as a person. And would Sothis have an effect on Rhea? Well that depends, again, on how Sothis behaves.

I need your opinion how do you think things would have turned out if Rhea kept the baby told Jeralt to kick rocks and let herself be more open with her feelings to Seteth and Flayn?

It depends anon, do you want a silly answer, a serious answer or a "serious but working within the boudaries of the script" answer?

Like, imagine bby!Billy grew up like Sitri, and then, when they turn 15, they see a loli gremlin in their head.

Serious answer that breaks the game in two : Billy immediately tells Rhea about the apparition in their head, Rhea and Sothis connect 1+1=2 and, well, either the plot is averted (idk, can Sothis pinpoint mole people around?) or Rhea realises her mom's worth moldy peanuts way earlier than she does in SS, or much like what happens in Nopes, Sothis remembers about her fam without plot convenient amnesia...

If incomplete!Sothis (but gradually recovering her memories) is around, I can see Rhea being a bit more open with Seteth and Flayn when she wakes up because, hey, Sothis' back, so the world is supposed to return on the right tracks now and the world will be fine and dandy.

Serious answer that has to work with Fodlan's writing and inability to cook something for more than 10 minutes : Billy for some reason never tells Rhea about Sothis, and yet, given how Sothis has time to recover her memories I guess Billy'd come to understand everything about relics, the nabateans and maybe they'll ask Rhea about their creation -> it ends like it does in the first situation, Rhea learns about Sothis either being incomplete or taking time to wake up, is more or less chill with it, opens a bit to her bro (?) and waits until Sothis feels ready to take Fodlan's reins or guide some humans if she feels like it (or, according to Nopes, I guess she could also become a bit pissed and insist on recovering her fallen kids, which might piss Faerghus a bit and all).

---

For all those answers though, bby!Billy grows to become Billy without any major changes, save that maybe they can emote was faster than they do in canon and are, bar some oddities, someone as "normal" as Sitri was, hell maybe they developed friends in the Monastery and the Officers Academy, or graduated, or became a Cardinal, or a nun, etc etc...

Still, we know canon-wise Billy is very protective towards the ones they see as family or close ones, so in a serious setting, I guess, they'll lose patience or have more of a reaction than TV static when some people will start to cry fraudulously about crests creating nobility or the CoS creating racism, or crests being the reason why everything is BaD (tm) in the world.

Fraud trying to sell some "I wonder what the world would look like without Rhea" would either be meet with a punch in the face, or at least, a serious frown - and depending on how many bedtime stories Rhea told them about "Great Emperor Wilhelm's Heroic Fight against the Forces of Evil", they might be a bit annoyed at the Hresvelgs.

For Rhea though, I suppose she'd have welcomed a new addition to the family - Billy is, regardless of them being Sothis' souljar or not, Billy, someone she cares and values as their own individual, let them be some asleep!Sothis or, just, Sitri and Jeralt's kid.

Add to the mix maybe 20 years of raising them? They'd be family and maybe help her open a bit more to the world and her family, even if she's ashamed or having worked on the res Sothis project

(I'd like some scene where Billy's annoyed when Rhea apologises for trying to resurrect Sothis, because regardless of her endgoals and what not, she still is the reason why they, and Sitri, are alive, so if she apologises for trying to res Sothis it's also as if she apologises for giving them life, which is something a Billy who was raised with a higher sense of self than being a mere sword might not find pleasant).

[raxistaicho]

and the only way the could sort of doing it was by reducing Rhea to near Duma levels of insane

That's the neat part, they didn't. White Clouds is all about the masks people wear. Edelgard pretends to be a simple student while living a double life as an anti-religious terrorist, Dimitri pretends to be a proper prince while harboring a bloodlust he struggles to control, and Claude pretends to be a friendly guy while he's actually very manipulative and pragmatic.

And Rhea pretends to be a saintly religious leader while secretly harboring an explosive temper and a need to control her life. We see part of who Rhea is under the mask right in the intro of the guy, where she repeatedly stabs an already dead man, screaming at him to die.

And then there's Edelgard not even being very smart, like, does she really believe her troops would hear "the church has nukes" and not either, question why they only dropped the one on the one location and why only now or just….lose all morale???

I don't see how you could argue pinning the blame for Arianrhod on the church was a stupid move when by all accounts it worked. Also, the Javelins aren't nukes, the concept of a nuke would mean absolutely nothing to the people of Fodlan (for a comparable example, Lelouch in Code Geass immediately brushes aside Suzaku's attempt to threaten him with the first FLEIJA as a bluff because nobody would realistically believe a weapon of such destructive capacity would exist before seeing it in action), and Edelgard doesn't even say the church dropped Javelins on Arinahrod, she said they unleashed "forbidden practices" on it.

And she actually foresees the issue of morale by dropping the lie that they wouldn't be able to use such an attack again for at least a month.

If anything, the Arianrhod deception was a case of Edelgard being very pragmatic, clear-minded, and being willing to engage in Realpolitik.

And then there's the battle at the Tailtean plains and the good old conversation between Dimitri and Edelgard, "must you continue to conquer?continue to kill?!" "Must you continue to re-conquer? Continue to kill in retaliation?"

I've gotten so tired of explaining why that scene doesn't mean what Edelgard haters think it means... It's the equivalent of Christians insisting atheists just don't want to believe in god because they love their sins too much.

Like…..it's like even she realises she has no moral high ground over him and is just trying some desperate redirection to not be the villain she knows she is.

Yeah it's almost like nobody has the moral highground, and trying to pretend they do is missing the point entirely. The question isn't who is right or wrong, it's who has the ability to see their will to fruition. It's about methods. Nobody disagrees with Edelgard's ideals, only her methods.

And also the entire "king of delusion" scene where Dimitri, in his final moments, swears to avenge everyone who died for her, who she killed, to avenge all his fallen friends and family who died because of her and her ambitions and she basically just calls him a nut job.

Yeah, imagine taking somebody seriously when they're screaming that you killed your own mother.

Please tell me I'm not the only one who feels like Crimson flower did a terrible job of making Edelgard....not a villain

Like, I feel like IS sort of couldn't find a good way to justify siding with Edelgard to the player beyond liking her as a character and the only way the could sort of doing it was by reducing Rhea to near Duma levels of insane, but even then while I won't condone her actions I can understand why she lost it, from her perspective she just saw someone she allowed into her home, break into the burial site of her dead siblings with the intention of desecrating them and robbing their graves and then watched what is, from her sad, broken perspective, her own mother choose to side with the person trying to take all she has left of her family away from her, I too would lose it under those circumstances. And then there's Edelgard not even being very smart, like, does she really believe her troops would hear "the church has nukes" and not either, question why they only dropped the one on the one location and why only now or just....lose all morale??? And then there's the battle at the Tailtean plains and the good old conversation between Dimitri and Edelgard, "must you continue to conquer?continue to kill?!" "Must you continue to re-conquer? Continue to kill in retaliation?" Like.....it's like even she realises she has no moral high ground over him and is just trying some desperate redirection to not be the villain she knows she is. And also the entire "king of delusion" scene where Dimitri, in his final moments, swears to avenge everyone who died for her, who she killed, to avenge all his fallen friends and family who died because of her and her ambitions and she basically just calls him a nut job.

Like??? Did IS just....give up on trying to make Edelgard look good and just hope that off her fucking rocker Rhea and Edelgards tragic backstory would cover that up???

[raxistaicho]

Stubborn and arrogant, absolutely, even Sothis mildly chides her for being arrogant. Can't take criticism, definitely at first, but part of her character development involves growing past that. Savior Complex, you could argue that.

I'm not sure you can call her impulsive given her revolution against the church was between five to six years in the planning before she declared her war. What do you mean by her being easily manipulated and taking things too far, though?

I don't hate Edelgard. Her route and classmates are my favourite.

I think she's genuinely kind, struggles to create and maintain friendships because of trust issues built from a traumatic childhood but tries anyway, has great tastes in food and flowers, cares for others in a selfless way, can be very relatable at times, tragic in a way that makes you want to give her a hug, and has the capacity to be a good leader. She also looks great in red.

I also think she's short-sighted, stubborn, arrogant, has a saviour complex, impulsive, can't take criticisms to her face which is why most of it is done behind her back, takes things way too far, and is easily manipulated. I also happen to think her actions get excused too much because her reasons for doing it are understandable or because those actions are based in "good intentions."

Both things can be true at once.

[raxistaicho]

~ Summer Hilda ☀️ ~

[raxistaicho]

Don’t forget -

Game: *Doesn’t allow you to disagree with ANY of the three main lords or the church if you choose to follow them/lead their house, even for stuff you should have the ability/right to argue with them over (Claude’s attack on Enbarr, Dedue’s paralogue, and all of Silver Snow immediately comes to mind). This is supposed to reflect how Byleth’s decided to support their given faction no matter what and believes in their cause*

Certain Fans™: “OMG I can’t believe the game doesn’t let you tell Edelgard you don’t agree with her if you pick Crimson Flower! It’s so dumb we can’t disagree with her and only her, because this is only a problem with her route and no one elses!”

Louder for the people in the back, roflmao.

[raxistaicho]

Edelgard: This system built on eugenics is fundamentally broken. The Church not only upholds but actively promotes this structure. The very concept of nobility is flawed and needs to be dismantled. To do that, the Church’s influence must be removed. I believe in this cause so strongly that I’m begrudgingly working alongside the very people who killed my siblings and inflicted trauma so severe it left me with memory loss and insomnia. Eventually, I plan to betray them when I achieved my goals and they aren’t useful anymore.

Also Claude: I wonder how the world would look without the archbishop’s influence…. What if she died…… jk jk or …😗

Lorenz: says something about opening all the borders contradicts the tenets of the Seiros faith and seriously wonders if that will get in the way of Claude’s goals.

Ferdie: Edelgard opposes the church but does not deny believers the right to pray. Also! I am Ferdinand Von Ae-

Petra when recruited in another house: Edelgard always encouraged me to follow my own path. She made it clear that she wouldn’t be angry if I chose not to side with the Empire.

Other characters: – “Being born with a Crest made my life significantly harder.”

– “As a woman, I’m expected to have children just because I have a Crest.”

– “I was experimented on and forcibly given two Crests.”

– “My sibling died because of their Crest.”

– “My brother died because his obsession with obtaining a Crest drove him to ruin.”

The church: Executes rebels without trial. Isolates minorities by banishing them to live in an isolated underground abyss. Has a traumatized leader that blocks scientific progress and makes questionable decisions based on grief and fear.

Church enjoyers: The church isn’t that bad! They kept the world stable and don’t have that much influence. Rhea hot (agree)

Seteth: we need to defeat Edelgard to to retake our control over Fodlan!

Fodlan: Not the best place to be if you’re a random villager or poor (Dorothea/Ashe). Even before the war Fodlan has many conflicts due to nobility and being isolated. Oppression, inequality, and systemic violence are normalized. I think I’d rather live in Gotham city.

Random people on the internet: Edelgard is h*tler.?? She’s imposing her ideals onto others! She’s siding with TWSITD what a dummy! Idk why they didn’t just make her a villain only. People only like her because of pretty privilege (this opinion is misogynistic) Her fans think she did nothing wrong (most people are joking and of course people are going to defend a misunderstood character when she’s subject to being called a fascist 😵‍💫) Shes also a war criminal (their favorite character is also a war criminal… most of these characters are war criminals. Almost all of these characters are war criminals)

No matter which route you choose in Three Houses, the only reason Fódlan reaches any form of peace or reform is because Edelgard is the antagonist or ally. She is thee catalyst for change (even in failure), not the obstacle to it. She’s the most important character to these stories whether people like it or not.

[raxistaicho]

Chapter 117 jump out!

Hi, everybody! I just posted chapter 117 of my fanfic, On Black Wings :)

It’s a ludicrously in-depth retelling of the Crimson Flower storyline of Fire Emblem Three Houses, focusing on character moments, tactics and strategy, and the day-to-day life at Garreg Mach.

A lifetime of lies comes to a head as Edelgard encounters the Agarthan witch…

[raxistaicho]

"How does Byleth's heart suddenly start working at the end of Crimson Flower?"

I dunno, you try breathing when you've got a boulder strapped tight to your gut by thick, spidery, organic bands :p

[raxistaicho]

Fantasy Invader doesn't engage with the slightest disagreement, he just instantly blocks.

Moral Ambigiouty: For Dummies

So I got shown another stupid post from our old friend FantasyInvader, the weird conservative guy who dabbles in white boy orientalism, and its barely funny enough to go over it.

I think if Edelgard haters don't want to be considered conservatives, maybe they shouldn't make highly conservative arguments that make appeals to religious morals, especially if we are talking about a religion none of the developers are likely to ascribe to. But lets humor him.

The issue with argueing with the Mandate of Heaven is that it doesn't really just apply to Edelgard here, but to every ruler. Shorty speaking, Mandate of Heaven states that a Ruler gains divine authority through Heaven, aka Tian, a spiritual moral force that will withdraw the mandate if the ruler rules badly. This doesn't just apply to amorality, but also can happen through incompetency or failure to uphold the peoples welfare. It is a very pragmatic concept in its core, because it both offers divine legitimacy to rulers but also justifies rebelions and usurpations, which makes it distinct from the christian divine right of kings, that didn't have such mechanisms, the authority of a king was bestowed to him by gods will which couldn't be challenged, even if the king ruled badly.

Now the issue is, that if we accept the thesis that the game does invoke the Mandate of Heaven, then it isn't just Edelgard who loses said mandate in most routes. In fact, in this case heaven is represented by the players choice and to a certain extend also Byleth, as their choice of Lord will decide who will creat the new order of Fodlan in the end, therefore inherit the mandate. After all, Claude, Dimitri and also Rhea will lose their authority in the majority of routes as well, as 3 Houses has a strong winner takes all approach Edelgard isn't much of an outlier.

I also don't know what hadou is supposed to mean, someone enlighten me, but I suspect FI is refering to badao in this context, which is correct, Edelgard does represent this concept. Primarily because she seems directly inspired by Cao Cao from the three Kingdom Period, who is often considered an archetype of this concept. Though again, if we operate from a confucian lense, yeah, Edelgard does act amorally through relying on Badao in 3 out of 4 rules, but her successfully uniting Fodlan with the ending strongly implying that her rule is one of peace and benevolence would under a confucian lense mean that she successfully transitioned from badao into wangdao after the war is united.

We also have to consider that many confucian scholars didn't consider badao outright evil, even through it was amoral. Confucianism is an incredibly pragmatic and nuanced moral philosophy and badao was considered a lesser path compared to badao, scholars acknowledged that it may be necessissary to establish order in chaotic time and that a hegemon can claim the mandate of heaven, but the issue is its lesser sustainability and instability compared to wangdao. So FI is leaving out alot of nuances here, nuances that the writing team behind FE3H often dabbles in, as seen in their more positive reception of Cao Cao as the Hero of Chaos, which makes his argument easily fall apart as Crimson Flower Edelgard would, based on its endings, have claimed the Mandate of Heaven and transitioned to wangdao. One could use her ending card giving her the title Flame Emperor over Hegemon as a sign that she archieved a kingly path.

If anything, the endings present Edelgard as representing wangdao the strongest, as she archieves an ending of true piece that results in the final absence of conflict, while Azure Moon and Silver Snow depict conflict waging on and Verdant Wind conflict never having ended. Wangdaos strongest trait is that it leads to sustained societal harmony.

The localization depicts Edelgard as worse than she is in the jp original while favoring Dimitri though, this has been widely discussed already, so dunno what he is on about outside of spreading the typical misinformation. And again, what is it with conservatives and not understanding nuances or the art of storytelling? Yes, the game was created around Silver Snow, because it has been the first route written, but branched out from there, with Edelgards original role being a rival and foil to the protagonist, stories can evolve and change during the process of their creation and in the final product, the opposite is the case. The Black Eagles natural progression is hindered by siding against Edelgard, with their supports with her leading them to the natural conclusion of their arcs.

Don't know what he is rambling about with Hopes, though Hopes would actually contradict FI's view of Silver Snow as the true route for the game because it fully abandons it. And lets not forget, 3 Hopes was written by mostly the same writing staff and Intelligent System still owns the Fire Emblem brand and could have intervened if the Black Eagles route being purely Edelgard focussed was against their intention, they didn't. If anything it shows that while Silver Snow is the original outline for the story, it ended up being mostly abandoned afterwards, with DLC material and Hopes depicting Rhea as more villainous than the basegame did. Also Edelgard isn't ever refered to as the Lady of Deceit, but I guess this has something to do with FI's idea that Edelgard is a homosexual sinful sexual seductress, I feel sorry for this mans mom.

The game contradicts him here, but then again, conservatives. The game frames Edelgard in all routes as a well intentioned morally grey Villain who at the worst faith interpretation the games text, not the headcanon of a guy who has a very obvious and severe madonna-whore complex, is misguided and misled by the agarthans. And Edelgard is symbolically actually very ambigious, she is both tied to darkness and the shadows through her connection with the Agarthans, though the same also applies to Lysithea, while also being linked to Fire and Flame, which symbolizes Sothis. If anything she belongs neither to the darkness nor the light.

In Short, she is Revan.

Birthright is a simple good vs evil story and if anything, Conquest is much more of a clear cut villain route than Crimson Flower ever comes close to, considering how Nohr is basically what if you mix Azure Gleams Adrestia with Faerghus on its most noble days.