#first strike would make it able to attack without fear of getting multi-blocked and killed

[auburnflight]

Edelgard’s War Phase Design and Peripheral Vision in Crimson Flower

I looked closely at Edelgard’s post-timeskip character design as I was working on a drawing of her the other day, and had a thought that initially felt like it came out of nowhere: “Those horns seem like they’d block her peripheral vision. Wouldn’t it be hard to see?”

At first I thought it was kind of an off-handed, random and unfounded reaction. (I’m in the furry fandom and I wear a lot of fursuits with restricted fields of vision, so I end up thinking about that sort of thing tangentially in cosplay and such--maybe it came from there?) But as I thought about it more, I realized that this idea of a narrowed field of vision resonates with Edelgard as a character, specifically her intense focus on her ambition and on moving forward no matter the cost.

Visually, the horns on her crown give her a forward energy. And temporally, her focus is always on what’s ahead. But it’s not just that. The shape they create around her face, and the fact that if this design was physically put into reality (Post-ts Edelgard cosplayers, maybe you can confirm for me here?), it would intrude at the edges of the wearer’s vision, both suggest Edelgard’s almost exclusive focus on what she considers to be the fastest, most efficient course of action in order to achieve her goals.

(Of course, spoilers for the Crimson Flower route, and brief/slight ones for Azure Moon, below the cut)

Throughout Crimson Flower, she’s set on pushing forward with her plans, but visibly fails to consider many peripheral ideas--environmental factors, possible other courses of action, aspects that might shift the flow of the current situation to her advantage or disadvantage even if it’s not the most “efficient” route. Hubert brings up Lord Arundel as a potential point of concern after their victory at Derdriu, but Edelgard chooses to let Arundel do as he pleases until the very end, even though she will have to rise to meet TWSITD sooner or later. At another point, Edelgard states that if they will have to fight a given enemy eventually, then reducing their numbers is advantageous either way, although strategically, this is not always true. And throughout their battles,Edelgard sees that her allies are exhausted, low on morale, and maybe even losing hope. But she avoids addressing this directly, instead preferring to press on in order to end the war as fast as possible. 

It’s not that she’s following the path of blood that has been laid out before her and committing violence without any consideration at all. She does her best to bolster her allies’ spirits where possible and celebrates major victories. She still sees her opponents (e.g. Claude) as human. And she doesn’t aim to kill where she doesn’t feel she needs to (see the citizens of the port in the Derdriu chapter, and Cornelia in “The Siege of Arianrhod”). In her paralogue, we even see her desire to ally with the Almyran troops who attacked Fodlan’s Locket: 

Instead of Edelgard being simply predisposed to violence as the fastest way to her goal, my impression was more that this constant forward motion on a narrow path was out of desperation. I think it’s more about fear that if she loses this momentum, the weight of everything that she’s done (and still has to do) would catch up to her. Her initiative proves her greatest advantage at the beginning of the war, and she references in her B support with Ferdinand that in some cases, it could be her only advantage. To lose this could be to lose everything that she’s worked for up to this point.

To me, the tragic thing about this is, in rising to meet your future head-on, you fail to see who and what is around (and behind) you.

She makes decisions (such as the one to let Lord Arundel do as he pleases) that are noticeably rushed and uninformed. She repeatedly leaves her closest allies in the dark about her true plans, fearing that she can trust no one--and then misrepresents the situation to the rest of the Black Eagle Strike Force in order to be able to push forward on a faster path. Because she relies so heavily on her forward momentum, she neglects many other things that are nevertheless critical. While she emphasizes in her A support with Ferdinant that she needs those around her who will force her to consider perspectives contrary to her own, Edelgard’s lack of peripheral vision in the later chapters of Crimson Flower becomes a massive blind spot. 

Therefore, I get the sense that she starts to lose touch with the reality of the situation and retreat back into the mindset that she has to do everything alone. She even seems to retreat from Byleth’s healing presence, where being able to open up to them was clearly important early on in her route. Before the last battles, Edelgard goes from merely confiding in Byleth about the troops’ morale, to pleading them to restore it for her if they’re feeling so confident. She shuts herself in her room to draw a portrait of Byleth, but feels that she failed to capture their likeness--I think this could be due a lack of artistic experience, but also possibly symbolic of having clouded or incomplete perceptions in a wider sense. Out of fear that she’ll lose her momentum, she is unable to consider anything outside of her immediate course of action, and it starts to wear on her mental state and distort her perceptions of reality.

I think it’s interesting comparing this to Azure Moon, where Dimitri comments on how being able to move forward no matter what isn’t necessarily true strength--being able to take the time to grieve and address your own feelings is strength as well. Further, he declares in his final battle with Edelgard in that route, simply but effectively, “All we have is the present.” In his own route, Dimitri gets dragged down by his past--in contrast to Edelgard, who gets swept up in her ideas of the future. The two are complements and opposites in many ways, and I could go on for a long time just about what we can learn as viewers from their interactions. 

Edelgard gets her own (sort of) happy ending in Crimson Flower, and in a sense, I’m relieved that she does. But there’s also a part of me that’s surprised that the issue of Edelgard addressing her fears (or not) never really came to a head, because I spent a lot of my time playing Crimson Flower fearing that it would happen. After all, her inability to confront those fears, and the way in which Byleth becomes a central presence to Edelgard when she realizes she’s able to confide in them--something she doesn’t have in the other routes--are central to Edelgard as a complex, multi-layered character. Her route doesn’t have a true tragic ending, and ultimately she is able to acknowledge that she needs to share her burdens with others (including Byleth) and incorporate alternate perspectives into her own. But I feel like the cautionary message characteristic of tragedy is still readily there: The future comes whether you are ready for it or not--but also, in rushing to meet it, it’s also easy to forget to stay grounded in the present.