#even though anyone who knows anything about how capitalism is bad should also know meritocracies bad

[holdharmonysacred]

i will say though that i think edelgard fire emblem got done fucking dirty. I want to like her so bad but all the weird Yikes undertones in the game + the weird Yikes undertones with how a lot of edelgard stans I’ve seen treat rhea + the way the game itself fucking cheats her of actually good character development by never letting her admit she was wrong or that maybe imperialism is bad or how she never gets to confront her abusers in her route or how she only really gets challenged on her bigotry issues in goddamn fire emblem heroes just. sours her for me a little.

It’s like. Weird comparison, but it feels like she has the same issues with her writing that the Diamonds in SU (and the Sympathetic Fantasy Imperials character type in general) have in that like. Yeah, the arc she has is thematically nice and good for the story her route is trying to tell, but it completely clashes with the worldbuilding and setup that the entire rest of the game provides, and also never quite properly addresses that at the end of the day, Edelgard is an Imperialist, she thinks imperialism is the solution for doing things, and the game failing to adequately address that gives the story some serious Undertones of the not-so-good kind. It could’ve made for a super good story to have Edelgard be forced to actually seriously confront her crimes and admit that she’s super complicit in some really bad shit, and rather than pushing on out of sheer Sunk Cost Fallacy she needs to actually seriously try to fix her mistakes and confront her own biases, but the game doesn’t want to do that for some reason, so the framing in her arc is just. an awful mess.

#admittedly part of the problem is that. for a game about politics. three houses sure doesn't know about politics. #like how the game thinks edelgard starting a meritocracy is a good thing #even though anyone who knows anything about how capitalism is bad should also know meritocracies bad #(hint: meritocracies is how people justify oppressive hierarchies #and people with more wealth and power and privilege have more opportunities to show off their merit than those who don't) #to be clear i really do think edelgard has some real good potential as a character under there!!!!!!! i want to like her super bad!!!!!! #but just. the way her route never lets her get to be wrong when the rest of the game shows that she's wrong about A Lot #it feels bad. it feels like bad writing and missed opportunities. and has some bad undertones. #edelgard's final boss should've been the pale people slither crew instead of rhea. #the culmination of her route should have been her fighting the people who ACTUALLY made her life a living hell #not the traumatized lady who - while still very flawed - is basically just. the scapegoat. #killing rhea does not solve the fundamentally flawed systems in fodlan because many of those systems were not her fault #nor does it help edelgard overcome her own trauma in any way. all it is is just. her doing exactly what her abusers want. #her whole route is basically her getting played like a damn fiddle and the game never properly calling her out on it #edelgard's ending should've been her unlearning adrestian imperialist propaganda and beating up the slitherers and them's the facts