Addressing Edelgard’s “racist” rhetoric.
Calling Edelgard a vicious genocidal racist is an old standby for her haters both here on Tumblr and elsewhere. Most of it comes down to hyper-focusing on the things she calls the Nabateans, Rhea particularly, but also with a side-order of how she treats Claude and Flayn in pieces of dialogue that people seem quite upset with. Let’s get to it!
First and foremost is the way Edelgard refers to the Nabateans as creatures that “merely masquerade as a human at will“.
I’ve always been baffled that this is treated as a gotcha given that’s… precisely what the Nabateans did for nearly a thousand years, but the issue at hand is more that Edelgard “dehumanizes” them.
But you have to understand that words have meaning, particularly in Fire Emblem. In the games which deal with enmity between humanity and dragons (mostly the games revolving around Archanea and Valentia, Elibe, Fates, and Three Houses itself) the descriptor “human” means something, and it means the bipedal sentient creatures that aren’t dragons. It’s not like in Xenoblade Chronicles 2 where “human” is a catch-all term for the various sentient races that aren’t Blades, animals, or monsters.
When Xane consistently refers to the human race as “you humans,” is he dehumanizing himself? When Seiros in Heroes says “your kind are frail, ignorant creatures,” is she dehumanizing herself through making a clear distinction between humanity and her own species? Is Indech dehumanizing himself and Seteth (note his use of the word “human”, rather than something less vague and more descriptive such as “people” or a softer variation of “intruder”) when he refers to humans as separate from him (really them both)?
What do we call them anyways?
Another issue often hit upon is how frequently Edelgard uses harsh terms like “beast”, “monster”, or “creature” to describe the Nabateans, without addressing the fact that she’s following common parlance in Fodlan used to refer to the non-animal giant beasts you fight throughout the game. Nearly every instance of transformed dragons, be they demonic beasts, the black beast, or the white beasts at the end of Silver Snow are usually called “beasts” and sometimes “monsters”.
The word “dragon” doesn’t exist in the script of the game, only in the names of certain weapons and in descriptors of effects, and thus is most likely not a word that the people of Fodlan use, and Edelgard wouldn’t know the word “nabatean”. What other words, other than the ones people are already accustomed to using when describing giant monsters, does she have to describe beings she knows can turn into giant monsters themselves? Do you expect her to call them “Children of the Goddess” every time she refers to them? Take a look at how often people use the full, “Those Who Slither in the Dark” and try to picture how messy that would get.
What she says to Claude and Flayn
Two pieces of dialogue that are often picked upon both involve Edelgard’s battle dialogue at the imperial palace.
Claude’s is a particular sore spot among Edelgard’s detractors, even though Claude acknowledges that Edelgard might have a point in how she doubts him. Trust is an issue between these two, and Claude has given her no reason to trust him. In White Clouds, she even offers an exchange of secrets, only for him to rebuff her, forcing her into a more aggressive approach.
Flayn’s dialogue mostly seems to take flack because it involves Edelgard being a big ‘ol meanie to Flayn without addressing what she’s even trying to say. From Edelgard’s perspective, the Nabateans in charge of the church have abused their mandate to guide mankind by warping history, suppressing the development of the people, and forcing upon them a cruel social caste by deifying Crests. And of course, Edelgard is right; the Church of Seiros is a false religion worshiping a goddess that its founder knows is dead. That Rhea is trying to amend that issue is irrelevant; she’s given people an object of faith that has no power to alleviate their burdens or cast judgement on the wicked.
Edelgard and her string board
Small final note, I’ve always seen her compared to conspiracy theorists by saying that the Nabateans control Fodlan in secret. If you don’t think that the Church of Seiros has enormous power of Fodlan, I again invite you to read Volossya’s post on the subject, because it’s explained better there than I could here. Regurgitating Edelgard’s claims in a facetious manner doesn’t suddenly falsify them.
