#but i've read arguments from both sides (people who are supportive of his decision vs people who aren't)

[jyleshay]

September 2021 - The Broken Ladder

This month I read The Broken Ladder: How Inequality Affects the Way We Think, Live, and Die - by Keith Payne. Payne is a social psychologist who presents a great deal of statistical evidence and studies for us to use in the discussion about inequality in America. His arguments are well-researched, persuasive, and also nuanced. I've picked out a few highlights that I found particularly interesting.

- A 2014 study asked people from across the political spectrum how much more a CEO should make than their average worker. People from the right and the left agreed (without knowing it) that a CEO should ideally be paid about 4 to 5 times more than their average worker. They also thought that, on average, CEOs in the United States actually make 30 times more than their average worker. The perception of inequality in America is clearly there, from both sides of the political spectrum. In reality, the average CEO made 350 times more than their average worker in America in 2012 (it's probably higher now).

- For developed countries, higher average income does not correlate to better health and social wellness among their citizens. Countries and states with greater levels of income inequality have higher rates of serious health problems, mental illness, and crime, as well as lower life expectancies.

- Inequality leads to increased feelings of insecurity and triggers physical stress reactions in the body. The lower on the social ladder a person falls, the greater the physical reaction marked by inflammation and higher levels of stress hormones. The author's research indicates that it's not poverty in and of itself that causes these negative effects; it's a person's perception of where they stand in relation to others in society. Feeling poor matters--not just being poor. And when people feel poor, they make decisions differently than when they don't.

- Inequality affects our behavior, and differences in behavior can magnify inequality. People are less likely to make the economically advantageous choice when they feel poorer than the people around them. They are more willing to take increased risks like buying lottery tickets, taking out payday loans, or dealing drugs, in an attempt to escape the feelings of poverty and the stress that it brings. A person's actual income is not as predictive of this behavior as much as their income relative to others around them. Several fascinating studies that are referenced in this book show even temporary inequality leads to riskier behavior in the participants. Our brain is constantly comparing our situation to the others around us and subconsciously telling us to adapt.

We still need to take a nuanced approach to the outcomes of inequality. Why don't more people achieve escape velocity from their negative situations? America is one of the richest countries in the world, there is opportunity here. It isn't just nature (character flaws) or nurture (environment) that determines outcomes. Both have an effect and work together. We have an incredible capacity as humans to adapt to our environments and part of that environment is our relative standing to others. Where are we on the ladder? If a person realizes that they have much less than those around them, they will think differently and act differently.

Inequality has to exist to some extent, in smaller amounts it provides motivation to achieve success and incentivizes hard work and other positive behaviors. However, the rungs of the social ladder have to be close enough together that one can climb upwards without taking insane risks. When evaluating what fundamental ideologies we should follow regarding wealth and poverty, government and politics, economics and society; this book's assertions should be thoughtfully considered.

In current events...

Texas has banned abortions after 6 weeks without any exceptions for rape, incest etc. It feels like this happened months ago, but it went into effect in September! This is really important as the law goes directly against precedent set in the 7-2 Supreme Court decision on the case of Roe vs. Wade in 1973. Texas has avoided the law being struck down immediately by having enforcement of the bill come from private citizens; most people have heard about the $10,000 bounty that citizens will be paid for suing anyone involved in an abortion after 6 weeks.

The bounty provision is pretty crazy but this law is bad for everyone because it undermines the Supreme Court's ability to protect constitutional rights from scheming legislators. Regardless of where you stand morally on abortion, if you support this bill you are supporting your rights established by the Constitution and the Bill of Rights to be toyed with by any party that comes into power. This new law directly undermines and negates the previously established right to privacy and body autonomy for women that was established in Roe vs. Wade.

Anti-abortion advocates will argue that this right for a woman should not apply when another person's life is at stake. That is an argument that we need to consider, however, the Court has done so already, hence their rulings, which we collectively accept in most every scenario, outside of a woman's right to an abortion of course. Take the following example:

Let's say that a person is dying and the only way to treat them is to get a donation of bone marrow. You are the only match as a donor. If you don't donate the bone marrow, the sick person will die. No matter who the person is that you'd be saving, you have the right to choose whether or not you wish to donate. You cannot be forced by the government to donate your blood or bone because you have that right to privacy and body autonomy. Regardless of your reasons, you can choose not donate and the sick person will die. We can argue that you are morally wrong, but you are within your rights to control what is inside of your body. The same principle applies to a woman during pregnancy.

I am not advocating for late stage abortions without cause, and Roe vs. Wade does not protect the right to an abortion at any stage of pregnancy for any reason. The Supreme Court case of Planned Parenthood vs. Casey established fetal viability as that limiting factor, which is certainly much later than 6 weeks. You can make arguments for when that viability occurs, but it's nowhere near when Texas lawmakers are saying it is. Anyone arguing that a 6 week fetus has the same rights as a person is not arguing in good faith.

Consider another hypothetical: You find yourself in a fertility clinic. The clinic is on fire. As the building burns, you see in a room there is a station that has 100 viable fetuses that are in the process of development. You could rush in and grab them and carry them out of the building. Across the hall, however, you see a 4 year-old child crying, trapped behind fallen debris. As the building burns, you know you only have time to grab one and carry them to safety. Which do you save? Anyone who says they'd save the fetuses is lying to you.

The Texas bill is bad for the rule of law in America and should be struck down. Unfortunately, it looks like it will succeed in what it set out to do.

Favorites:

Favorite Series: Squid Game - This show connects well to the theme this month of inequality and the behaviors that it can cause. However, viewer beware, this show is dark and violent. I don't recommend it lightly, in fact I thought about quitting this show before it was over. I did finish it though. Its story and characters cut to the core questions of humanity and morality; even though it was an uncomfortable journey I'm glad I watched it through.

Favorite Movie: Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings - Surprise surprise, Marvel made another good movie.

Honorable Mentions:

Music: Cold Heart - PNAU Remix - Elton John, Dua Lipa, PNAU

Podcast: A Righteous Strike - The Daily

Podcast: We're on the Precipice of a Post-Roe World - The Ezra Klein Show

Video: 9/21/21 - Demi Adejuyigbe

Let's have a very spooky October, thanks for reading.

[letmetellyouaboutmyfeels]

Okay, if it's too much, don't answer that's fine. I'm not American and I've read so many different things about the political stuff that's going down over there, some saying Biden is the same as Trump, some say he's even better than Bernie. I got not clue how to sort that Joe Biden guy, sooo... Could you help us non Americans out a little? So far it's just looking like everyone is standing around a dumpster fire, shouting stuff that's not really comprehensible

Jesus Christ this was something to wake up to this morning. I’m gonna be honest, it’s not my job to educate you or anyone else on this matter, you’re all adults (supposedly, I’m doubtful about a lot of you) and Google exists. But I also understand that it can be intimidating to dive into the wide world of the internet and it feels easier to ask someone you trust or feel that you know, so I’ll do my best to be concise and explain.

Everyone is standing around a dumpster fire shouting stuff that’s not comprehensible because people, my darling, are idiots.

“No, Mads, people aren’t idiots!” A person is not an idiot. But people are. Put us in a group and we’ll happily self destruct in the most spectacular fashion possible.

Biden is nowhere near the same as Trump, people just live in an echo chamber and refuse to look at the facts. I’m sure I don’t need to tell you how awful Trump is. It baffles me that people are saying Biden, who happily supported Barack Obama and played second fiddle to him for eight years, is the same as the man who’s putting children in cages.

Here is a breakdown of Biden’s policy plans should he be elected. Very different from Trump’s, as you can see. To quote this post here:

“It's important to be critical of political figures, especially during a primary election. Joe Biden has been in politics for a very long time, and his record is by no means spotless. There's lots to criticize, politically and personally. But having Biden in the big chair instead of Trump changes the entire game.

Look at it this way: if Joe Biden wins, a democratic Congress gets a clear path to passing real, lasting progressive laws. If Joe Biden wins, Ruth Bader Ginsburg gets to retire, and be replaced by a young firebrand who will make Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh's lives a living hell for the next 40 years. If Joe Biden wins, all of the horrible executive orders Trump has enacted are gone, on day one: family seperation, abortion bans in VA hospitals, EPA funding gutted, global warming denial in NOAA, removal of LGBT+ protections, all GONE in January 2021. If Joe Biden wins, all the Trump shills in the government disappear: I'm talking about new people in the CPB, the Justice Department, the FTC, and everything other federal agency. With Biden instead of Trump, we're going to be fighting for Medicare for All vs. Obamacare, instead of Keeping Obamacare vs. Stripping Away Any Kind of Federal Insurance. We're going to be fighting for the Green New Deal vs. Having a Functional EPA, instead of Gutting The EPA or Having No EPA At All. The fight is way different, and we get to pull the conversation further left - where it belongs.

This election is just as much about getting rid of the Republican stench in the Oval Office as it is electing a particular person. So yeah, be critical of Joe Biden, but please don't lose sight of what President Joe Biden would actually look like versus President Trump.”

People seem to be forgetting that when you vote for president, you are, supposedly, not voting for One Supreme Leader Who Makes All The Decisions Ever. Putting Biden in the Oval Office is more about putting in a man who will pass the laws that a liberal, democratic Congress will put in front of him. A man who will actually listen to his advisors. It’s about putting in someone who won’t appoint a bunch of judges that will screw over everyone for the next, oh, three decades.

I don’t want Biden in office. I wanted Elizabeth Warren, for fuck’s sake. Whose policies were the same as Bernie’s, by the way, for all you bros out there who say you aren’t sexist. The last thing I want is another old white man, for the love of whatever you worship. But the idea that someone who supported and worked under someone like Obama is somehow the same as a Neo-fascist egomaniac is... ridiculous. It’s truly ridiculous. Not that Obama was perfect, far from it, but under his presidency we were making progress on things and my God, I wasn’t scared for the lives of just about everyone I know.

As for Biden versus Sanders, the argument that Biden is better stems from the fact that while Sanders has helped move the party left with his presidential campaigns and he makes pretty speeches, he hasn’t actually done anything in all his time serving as an elected public official. If you actually go and look at his track record, he hasn’t passed many laws or helped enact a whole lot of others. Everyone’s making a big deal about how he “saved millions of lives” with his big speech but actually, sorry kids, politics are not Hollywood and you don’t save the day by making a speech and miraculously everyone votes on something. Senator Michael Bennet of Colorado and Schumer actually talked to people, convinced them on it, and got the votes that secured the unemployment bill being passed, and that’s what saved lives, not someone yelling (no matter how passionate or eloquent their yelling is).

It’s great to yell about how the system is corrupt etc but you have to actually follow those words with actions, and Sanders, historically, is not good about compromising, working with others, reaching out to others, being on a team. And that’s exactly what you need to be able to do in politics to get anything done. There’s an episode of Leverage called “The Gimme a K Job,” where Sophie spends the entire time running back and forth between politicians getting them to compromise and quid pro quo for one another so she can get them to vote on a law. I recommend watching it. The situation is played for laughs, but it’s also brutally honest. You cannot get anything done in politics (or in a lot of things in life) if you aren’t willing to work together and bargain and give some to get some, and Sanders isn’t, and that’s not good.

Now, Sanders has done a lot in his presidential campaign to move the Dem party left and he’s really stirred up younger voters, and those are both good things. If you look at Biden’s policies in the post I linked, you’ll see a lot of them are more liberal than most people expected, and that’s probably because Biden and his team saw everyone supporting Sanders’ policies and went, “oh, okay, this is what the people want.” Which already shows that Biden is willing to listen to the people more than Trump and his party are.

And then there’s the more personal side of things. Sanders really left a bad taste in everyone’s mouth because some of his supporters were so extreme in their support of him, to the point of acting like he’s the only person who could possibly save us, when honestly that’s not how democracy (or socialism, frankly) works. The whole idea is that all of us, working together as a movement, are what makes change. The people all standing up together and demanding that lawmakers do this, that, and the other thing. Sanders extremists, known as “Bernie Bros,” acting like Sanders is their One True Savior has rubbed a lot of people the wrong way. In my experience, people don’t like being shouted at and told they’re idiots. And in my experience, one single person isn’t going to save you. And nobody’s perfect so furthermore acting like someone is perfect is only going to annoy everyone else around you and set you up for disappointment down the line.

There are a lot of people out there feeling attacked by Sanders supporters, and so frankly, they’re glad to see the back of him and throw support behind Biden, because they’re just sick of dealing with his extremist followers.

If you want to tear the system down completely then gold star to you, but the fact is otherwise you have to work within the system to change it. And I don’t see any of these people yelling on the internet actually doing the work to organize a revolution. It’s fun to yell about your opinions, it helps you feel better, it helps you feel powerful and heard. But the real work is done in volunteering, in protesting, in running for local offices, in doing research and then voting for your mayor, your governor, your senator, your state representative. Those people, as the COVID-19 epidemic is proving, actually often have more direct power to help or harm you than the President does.

People have more power than they think, but they’re just refusing to use it, and they’re refusing to think critically and to do research on the policies of candidates. I’ve seen people calling Biden a “serial rapist,” for crying out loud, which, whether he assaulted a woman or not, is not true. That’s like if I killed one person and suddenly everyone was calling me a mass murderer. People like to exaggerate, to bloviate, and to think in black and white. It’s disappointing, but true.

One final thought, for both you and actual Americans: look at how non-Americans are viewing the United States election. We are not the center of the universe (although we like to pretend we are) but we do have a huge impact on the global stage, and other countries are begging us to elect someone other than Trump. You want to claim we’re not the stereotype of the selfish, self-centered American? Than put your money where your mouth is and look at the non-Americans who are asking us to please, please, please elect someone else. Do it for them, if nothing else. The world is bigger than just us.

Biden isn’t perfect. One could argue one way or another on the Sanders v. Biden debate. It really depends on your personal opinion. But when it comes to Trump v. Biden, it really shouldn’t be rocket science. One of them has allowed racism, sexism, and xenophobia to thrive. He’s literally responsible for thousands of deaths (and counting) through his mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic. He’s backed us out of the planet-saving environmental agreement that everyone else agreed to. He’s enabled corrupt, selfish politicians to have their way. He would appoint judges that will strike down everything from refugees to abortion rights. He’s destroyed our international relations, nearly started a war, and I actually don’t think he knows how to read.

And his name’s Trump.

That’s the difference.

#mads answers things #politics #this is the one and only time I am explaining this #all other questions will simply get a link to this post #yokoo-chan98

[kendrixtermina]

You seem like pretty knowable about Edelgard lore and motivation, so I've been meaning to ask. What exactly was the catalyst that made Edelgard hate the Church of Seiros so much? I know they've done a ton of shitty stuff in general, but what made Edelgard dislike them personally? I looked on the wiki and it either wasn't on there yet or I just didn't understand it. (I want to be able to eventually explain it to my sister who so far thinks Edelgard is evil, she hasn't finished the AM route yet).

IDK if this is something one can be “knowledgeable” about I just played the same game everyone else did, I’m no authority I just like analyzing fictional works for fun.

And whoever added that recent lengthy edit to the wiki article… let’s just say their opinions are discernible.  But they might say the same about me. 

Good vs Sympathetic

First there are some interesting premises hidden in this question - why would a personal motivation be more convincing that a net negative impact on the world at large? It’s the latter a much better reason? 

Like there’s a big difference between saying “they had legit reasons for their feelings/actions” (you could say this even about rhea) and saying that someone’s a force for good. Being understandable and consistent isn’t goodness; IT’s just good writing, and “they can’t help it, of course they acted like this, look at what happened to them” is more an argument for someone being sympathetic/understandable than good. Murder or manslaughter? How much can we blame them for their bad deeds. 

You might have very good personal reasons to hate someone or something, and pursuing that hate at the expense of others could still be a very selfish thing. There are your feelings, and then there’s how you act on them. There are many ways to act on the same feeling. 

Conversely, it is possible to be repulsed by evil or mismanagement just because of its own wrongness/stupidity. If you read about how some evil deed happened to total strangers in a foreign country, you would still be angry and you might even vote, sign petitions or attent protests so it doesn’t keep happening. 

If the Church of Seiros is doing objectively bad stuff, is that not enough to oppose it? Not only does Seiros/Rhea rule everything from the shadows, she’s accountable to no one, and she’s doing a bad job at it. TWSITD are her enemies too but they’re running rampant under her nose and in the recent past, deposed the Emperor and assasinated the king of faerghus to install their own agents.

Rhea may not have intended to let xenophobia, inequality, corruption, obsession with crests and instability to fester but that’s still what happened - and people can’t file complaints because she’s ruling in secret and anyone who complaints in branded a heretic. Almost everyone in the cast has been affected by those issues - the “peace” at the start of the story is illusory. Also, this whole shadow war between Seiros and Agartha is being carried out on the backs of the ordinary people who have no say in anything. At least if you know who the king/lord is you know who to rebel against if there’s no bread.

It’s no good. And as the heir to the largest territory, Edelgard is one of the few people who have a chance to stop it. It’s not easy for her either, given that the empire is thoroughly infiltrated by TWSID agents who would never have let her butt touch the throne if she didn’t play ball, or at least not without a bloody fight that might well end with the empire in splinter factions, aafter all, her father had already been reduced to a puppet ruler (see what happens to Dimitri when he returns to faerghus - Arundel is said to mantain his own personal army)

And since it was one of her ancestors who sold out Fodlan to seiros for power, she might feel that it’s her responsibility to put it right.

The real power isn’t with the people or even the nobles and the rulers of the three factions - it’s with Rhea and TWSITD. They keep burning up people without end for their own causes that have nothing to do with the people themselves, they both see humans as “beasts”… Shouldn’t that be stopped? 

To stop evil is a much better motivation than petty personal grudges.

Edelgard’s thinking

The first thing to understand with Edelgard is that she’s a big picture thinker through and through. For better or for worse she looks at and decides everything based on how it will look in a history book a few centuries down the line. (For prime examples of evidence look at the Dorothea support or some of her lines after fighting Dimitri)

This isn’t to say that she doesn’t have bias or personal influences like everyone else, but she values and strives for objectivity. That means questioning herself alot (something you wouldn’t see that much on routes other than her own as she keeps the tough leader face on in public), it means putting what yields the best results over what she wants or likes, and it means looking at the greater whole. 

She doesn’t just want to get revenge on the specific people who wronged her; She wants to ensue that it never happens to anyone else. She wants to undo the whole situation that allowed for it to happen - even if that means postponing her own revenge and working with those she hates the most. This is very much her putting efficiency and the end result above her own feelings. 

It may well have been Thales and his henchmen who cut her open, but they couldn’t have done it without the cooperation of the corrupt imperial nobles. (likewise, they worked with xenophobic kingdom nobles who didn’t like Dimitri’s dad making peace with the foreigners to orchestrate the Duscur nonsense)

Why were they in power? How were they convinced to allow for such a thing and give Thales the ressources he wanted/needed? Because of the social system that Seiros set up so that crests are equated with power.  

There will always be assholes and evil people, but how much damage they cause depends on wether the system they operate in lets them get away with it.

Also, even when you look just at TWSITD’s involvement, Edelgard’s siblings were butchered to make her a mighty tool for the shadow conflict. Just as Rhea in turn did her own experiments to revive sothis and “regain all that she lost”

So even on the most direct level, what happened was a result of the shadow conflict. 

And it is instrumental to keep in mind that Edelgard wants to remove both shadow factions. 

Her beef’s strictly with them - she knew that the Kingdom and Alliance would probably fight her if she went against the church and was fully prepared to pay that price, but that’s a side effect of going where the enemy is - she handed out letters and pamphlets informing ppl of the church’s evils and asking them to choose sides. 

TWSITD have fearsome power and have infiltrated the empire, but they’re few. The Church got its claws in most local governments. Why not throw the power of the former at the latter, to take down the stronger enemy, and then take out the Agarthans when your power’s consolidated? It’s a decision not about whom to fight, but about whom to fight first. 

Also because of her big-picture thinking she looks at the absolute numbers. In her own words, she’s going for the path of least casualties. 

PPl tend to judge harm caused by action stronger than harm caused by inaction but actually the harm is the same. Acting to remove the two shadow factions will have a cost (the war) but not acting also has a cost - that the dysfuction goes on and on forever. 

She doesn’t particularly want power if it were up to her she’d have chosen a normal ordinary life and she says so on many occasions. But she can stop it, stop the endless sacrifice and dysfunction, so she can’t just let it continue and do nothing. 

Of course with that sorta logic you always have to consider how each action impacts the end result so you don’t destroy all you want to protect because you tell yourself that it will pay off later, after all ‘the many’ are just an abstraction for a lot of individuals. But Edelgard’s not really losing sight of that, she keeps looking to minimize the casualties where she can, she offers people a chance to surrender, you get some lecture questions where she’s genuinely considering what do with rhea if she DOES surrender. 

It’s worth noting that on her route, the war ends the quickest and only the Kingdom lands get significantly wrecked (and the Kingdom always gets wrecked even if it gets rebuild afterwards, it was already in a lot of chaos before the war even started). You have to fight the peeps you don’t recruit but that’s no different in the other routes. Claude manages to seize control of the Church without going through the knights so he manages to pull off an at least equivalent end result (both shadow factions removed, society permanently changed) while offing fewer of the named characters, and lets not fail to give him credit for that,  but he might not have, if Edelgard hadn’t conveniently removed Rhea and just generally blazed a convenient trail for him to, in his own words, “finish the job for her”. Taking in the church with Rhea still in place didn’t work out too well for poor Dimitri, I seem to recall that she used the poor man as a meatshield and set his capital on fire - which is why Claude wisely didn’t touch that hot potato in any route where he doesn’t have Byleth as a bargaining chip. 

Of course that said, going too hard on the comparison would seem to miss the point. While Claude’s and Edelgard’s routes are about their respective grand visions for the future and their badassery as great inspiring leaders, the Church and Kingdom routes are more about people coming together to weather difficult circumstances. Dimitri isn’t really cut out to be a good ruler; but the beauty of his story is how he eventually does his best to become one anyways through the aid of his loyal friends. It’s an underdog story. 

If your sister prefers that sort of story (or just Dimitri himself, as a more emotional, relatable type of hero and a well-crafted, compelling and memorable character) that’s just her personal taste/ good right. 

Edelgard’s personal biases

She surely has a bit of “broken pedestal syndrome” going on, the very human tendency to absolutely reject things you once idealized once they’re proven to be flawed, to assume that if you were lied to often enough, then everything must be a lie… she sure reads what she learns of Seiros’ past actions in a bad light and assumed that Seteth & the others are guiltier/ more complicit than they actually are. 

The problem with Rhea is that she’s selfish, not that she’s a dragon. But if she were the only example you know for what a dragon is like? You might not be too fond of dragons. It’s not like she protests if Byleth spares Flayn and Seteth. 

She doesn’t really know Rhea’s motivation so she has to judge her by her actions and the results of those, and her actions, for all that they come from fear and loneliness, are indistinguishable from power lust by the time that Rhea’s subjugated 30 generations of humans for something their remote ancestors did 1000 years ago. Would she ever have let them go? 

So it doesn’t matter that she only got the partial story on the relics, it’s not the relics she took issue with, but the current state of the world. also Rhea is the one who erased the true records. So the 10 elites totally had it comming, fine - but Rhea’s the one who disseminated the myth that they were heroes in the first place. 

Claude only gets the truth by squeezing it out of Rhea and even then only at the very end, ppl who say that Edelgard “acted on false information” act like Claude just stumbled across the truth with minimal effort. That’s actually more unfair to Claude than to Edelgard if you ask me.... he’s a man who has gathering info as his top priority 24/7

Edelgard’s certainly more steeped in the perspective of her home country where the church is awarded significance and if it turns out to not be good then it’s utterly vile.  Claude has the sort of more detached perspective that he has because he happened to come from another country. Edelgard’s aiming for detachment but that’s only possible to a certain extent when something ruined the lives of nearly everyone you know

At the same time whatever her personal sentiments may be (and im not gonna deny that she does hate the Seiros religion), as far as her actions and decisions go, the engage conversation she has when you have her fight Rhea at the battle:

Rhea:

No matter your reasons, I cannot permit you to go on living any longer!

Edelgard:

The feeling is mutual. I must put a stop to your reign of tyranny!

Rhea:

You must know what a fool you are. The greatest of sins is to make an enemy of the goddess herself!

Edelgard:

I have only made an enemy of the church, not of the faith.

She says in several supports that she personally considers relying on the goddess to be an overly dependent attitude that doesn’t do people good, but that’s just her opinion, she’s not stopping anyone from praying in the privacy of their homes cause thats none of her business and she’s not a tyrant (see what happens if you recruit Marianne or Mercedes, her support with Manuela or the Marianne/Ferdinand support on the CF route, which reveals that he’s actually a believer.)

She just wants the Church, and Rhea specifically, out of politics… exactly what we have in any modern-day country that isn’t Saudi Arabia or the Vatican. 

Megalomania seems the most likely or politically expedient thing to claim but in the end her beef’s not with Rhea’s reasons but the results of her actions which is stagnation, mismanagement and repression. 

Your Actual Question/ Personal Reasons and Catalysts

Honestly? If we’re talking on a strictly emotional/personal level? (As much as that’s an incomplete picture with such a reason-driven character)

She probably bawled for the goddess to save her and her family down in the dungeons, again and again, and no one answered. 

She spent much of her early life just being dragged around, first being kidnapped by Arundel and held captive in the kingdom, then she was thrown in a filthy dungeon where she endured relentless pain and could do nothing but watch as her siblings died one by one. 

She was utterly helpless, a passive plaything of destiny - and then she decided she was done being passive and letting the universe kick her around. She was going to be proactive and do all she could to be in control of her own fate. 

See also the inspiring speeches that she gives to Petra and Lysithea at various points - “Don’t surrender yourself to your fate!” 

Blind reliance on the faith, to her, represents that very surrender, so she rejects it. 

This fear and rejection of being helpless and having zero control is also one of the reasons why she consistently chooses death on her own terms over life on someone elses’. 

That would still not be a valid justification if she wanted to, like, stop everyone from praying, but that’s not what she’s doing. 

#fire emblem: three houses #fire emblem three houses #edelgard von hresvelg