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Gee Edelgard, what do you want to do tonight?

You ever look up Fire Emblem characters randomly online, but then you stumble upon people arguing about Edelgard and think “what the fuck am I reading”? So, what I’m going to attempt today is to simply go over Edelgard as a character.

Now, a part of what makes Edelgard so interesting is that she’s a complete departure from the protagonists of all the previous Fire Emblem games. One of the problems with discussing Edelgard is that she’s essentially just the bad guy in every other route, but in the Black Eagles, now she’s become a warm and friendly person, despite her cold exterior.

As a child, Edelgard and her literal ten siblings were all part of a genetic experiment, to create a person with two crests. Over the course of these experiments, however, Edelgard had to watch all of her siblings die one by one, but in the end, the experiment was a success, but Edelgard was alone.

Crests have caused a lot of suffering, basically every character in the game has suffered in some way because of crests, whether they lost control of their futures because they had one, or never even had a future because they didn’t have one. Crests are the cause of most of the suffering in Three Houses.

Edelgard firmly believes that, had crests not existed, everything that caused her suffering would never have happened. So, logically, they’ve got to go! If she can create a world where crests, as well as the nobility that’s obsessed with them, weren’t powerful, she could create a happier place for everyone!

The problem? Well, it’s kind of hard to get people onto your side, so what do you do? Try and take over the world! Then you can make everyone listen to you! Even after you murder their families, burn their homes, and force them to worship you.

Left to her own devices, Edelgard’s ruthlessness overcomes her and her humanity falls by the wayside. Which is where you come in, the silent protagonist! With your help, Edelgard can avoid walking down a dark path where she forgets why she started fighting in the first place and becomes a heartless killer.

You can’t save the world, but you can save Edelgard, and by saving her, you can ensure the weird meritocracy she creates all goes perfectly fine.

So, umm... yeah. Do you see the problem?

These are all very interesting ideas, but the game doesn’t seem to be very interested in exploring them in a thoughtful way. On the one hand, she’s a straight up bad guy in all the other routes, but during the only one she isn’t, it’s left uninteresting because this is “Waifu Emblem” now. Edelgard’s growth isn’t tied to like, a real character or anything, it exists just so you can romance her.