flamemask

[butwhatifidothis]

Things to think about that the 3h devs never did and that would’ve been FABTASTIC to include imo: Edelgard’s duel-crested ass is bound to have a short lifespan, which makes her a perfect tool for TWS because? Short lifespan means less time to set up a legacy, less time to stabilise the empire she’s built off of the bones of dead innocents, just less time in general. TWS exploiting this fact to set themselves up to swoop in after she dies in like a decade or less would’ve made for some TASTY writing and idk actually make TWS seem halfway intelligent and dangerous? Where’s my smart villains, IS? Where did you store them this time?

Actually!

Edelgard may be considered "perfect" because she doesn't have a shortened lifespan. Think about it - when has she ever mentioned something like her having a short life? When has she ever shown physical health issues that pertain to her two Crests? Who in her support point out any health issues she may be facing? Where in her stats can you see the direct effect of her being forced to wield two Crests? Her growths? Her banes and boons?

Because Lysithea shows off all of these. She's constantly worried about completing everything she feels she has to do before her clock's run out. She has multiple supports that have her full on faint, or come close to it, after exerting an amount of effort that doesn't correlate with the other characters. You can see in her stats that she is fragile as fuck - the lowest HP, tied for lowest DEF (she ties with Hanneman, a man in his mid fifties), tied with Marianne and Dorothea for lowest STR (tho imma be real wtf girls y'all ain't dyin' get to liftin' lmao), and her growths in those areas are similarly ass. Her banes are Swords, Lances, Axes, and Heavy Armor, as well as the Clearing Rubble group task, all of which require a good amount of physical strength to handle (and her Budding Talent in Sword has her unlock something that allows her to use her RES stat instead of STR... which mind you, her RES actually isn't that much better than her STR).

Her character is fuckin' drenched in the fact that she is going to die relatively soon. You literally can't escape that about her - even her want to not be seen as childish can be very easily seen as her wanting to be taken seriously now, so she can get her shit done now, while she still can. Nearly every aspect of Lysithea, understandably, is linked to her shortened lifespan.

Edelgard? Any mention of her needing to do the shit she's doing now are all in the context of her (supposedly) wanting to help the people now, not about her own life being shortened. She doesn't even make such a mention to Byleth. Her signature weapon is the axe and she defaults to an Armor class, making her the heaviest she could possibly be - and mind, she herself admits that she thinks it's her two Crests that allow her to do this as effortlessly as she does, something Lysithea never does. Even though I rag on how her default kit shits on Edelgard from a gameplay perspective, she has some of the best stat spreads in the game when looking at it on an objective level, and her banes have nothing to do with any physical obstacle she's have to overcome. She's consistently shown to best her classmates when training with them and is often praised for her physical prowess, whereas Lysithea is always praised for her magical capabilities - the only thing she can realistically be good at.

Hell, I've seen a few people make an good argument about Edelgard not receiving any training prior to her experimentation and it's directly because of her two Crests that make her as good as she is. But even if they're wrong, nearly everything points to Edelgard being completely unaffected, on a physical health level, by her having two Crests. While what you say is definitely an interesting iteration on Edelgard's relationship with TWS (and would make TWS halfway intelligible), I don't think it can be extrapolated from the canon game due to how little Edelgard having two Crests actually affect her.

Though this does bring into question just what the fuck TWS were planning to do with Edelgard since they gave her OP Juice, especially with her being like "I am going to kill you when I am done using you" directly to their faces. Almost like TWS weren't thought out with the intent of them being anything other than a big bad to topple and we probably shouldn't put too much thought into their motives because of that lmao