Sorry to post again on this, but I think thereâs another angle to this.
Thereâs a narrative framework called Promise, Progress and Payoff. Itâs basically what it sounds like; a story is founded on a promise, such as a character arc or a mystery, we develop on that promise before finally landing at the payoff. But with Three Houses and Edelgard in particular, she is more of a subversion.
Three Houses makes it feel like the game is going to be this morally ambiguous affair, that each side is right from their own POV. But in practice, the worldbuilding was done in support of fighting Edelgard hence the more we know the less ambiguous it actually is. And with that, it establishes that Edelgard is not a heroic character but rather one of the gameâs villains, which in turn fails the presumed promise that she would get better if we support her. She doesnât lose her way or become evil if we reject her, she fell into darkness years before the game even started and the choice to join her is more like choosing to join her there. The Church is actually benevolent rather than evil JRPG Church #5694, Claude isnât an ammoral schemer but actually more of a traditional hero and Dimitriâs hidden darkness doesnât make him the bad guy here.
And we look at the original text of the game. Even if the localization tries to undermine it, itâs still present and if anything makes Edelgard into even more of a liar. She promises freedom, but enacts tyranny. Power to the people, but centralizes it on herself. Abolishing the nobility, but only gets rid of the nobles who wonât support her. She claims to speak for the weak, but forces them to fight for her with those that donât being executed. To free Brigid, only to put itâs independence under her own thumb. Fights for the silent, but ends up silencing her opposition. Throwing down the Goddess, only to replace the Goddess with herself and takes control of the Church. She says sheâll tell you the truth, but keeps you in the dark.
She says sheâs the good guy, but combined with the worldbuilding sheâs not. That the Church are the villains behind societyâs rot, but itâs really her allies the Agarthans. And this war was something the Agarthans engineered, including turning Edelgard into their weapon and pointing her at Rhea through manipulating Edelgardâs father.
This is the problem. People look at what she says and take it as a promise the game is making. That if you follow her, sheâll delivery you all of these things. But the game wasnât designed to deliver on these things, she was meant to be the lady of deceit even if the localization changes things to make it appear she is delivering on those promises. And her fans see those changes as the intended payoff, and get mad at the original creators when they clarify things, because otherwise the game lied to them. Sheâs implied to not even be fully honest and upfront with Byleth, she canât be talked down, and when she sees things that conflict with her own inner narrative she either tries to frame them (like the people who Lonato forced to fight for him were not âvictimsâ because they died fighting for what they believed in) or simply ignores the truth. Three Hopes even added to this, showing that the Church doesnât have problems with reforms and will help oust the Agarthans from the Empire, but Edelgard wants a bloody continental war anyway even if Dimitriâs own reforms (backed by the Church) are in line with her own.
They thought they were championing a revolutionary against a corrupt system.
Instead they were delivering Fodlan into the hands of a dark lord.
And thatâs not what they signed up for.
The developers have outright said she was given the role of villain. If we're meant to play as the hero, then we are meant to stop her. The worldbuilding backs that up, as well as the other routes showing the stuff she desperately wants to keep hidden. And the developers have even pointed to that being the intent, that we were to compare notes across different routes to see the truth and solve the mysteries.
Edelgard being a hero wasnât what the game was actually promising. Right from the get-go, even before we start dealing with the Agarthans manipulating Lonato, we learn about the Flame Emperor being behind the attack in the prologue. We assume Edelgard will be our ally if we teach her class, but then we find out that she IS the Flame Emperor. The devs have even said that the idea behind Edelgard was a lord figure who betrays THE PLAYER. The game established early on that the Flame Emperor was a bad guy, then it established Edelgard was really the Flame Emperor and a villain. Thatâs how the mystery of the Flame Emperor progressed, and the payoff is meant to be fighting our former student/schoolmate.
We spend White Clouds seeing the damage the Flame Emperor and the Agarthans are doing to the world while we back the Church, but in the Black Eagles route we can betray the world to stand by Edelgardâs side. But the progress of the game is still clear, to do this is a bad thing and the routes in various ways show why. Silver Snow keeps things the most basic, Edelgard has created chaos and order needs to be restored to end the suffering. Crimson Flower shows Edelgard as a liar, Azure Moon explains what her real beliefs are, and Verdant Wind explains who her backers really are. The routes where we pick a House leader all back up Silver Snowâs story in their own way.
So itâs not that the game didnât deliver on itâs promises if Edelgard is a villain. Itâs that the players misunderstood what the promises even were.
To put it in fantasy terms, they decided to join a Sauron-figure because they fell for her Annatar-like exterior, and now theyâre left trying to justify what they did without realizing.
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