Problematic because: "he bullies greg, embarrasses him on purpose, uses greg’s secrets to blackmail him, and regularly dumps work on him or manipulates him into covering for him. in rodrick rules, he’s the only person who knows greg’s humiliating summer secret, and he uses that as leverage. he also throws a party while their parents are away, leaves greg tangled up in the cover-up, and in the 2011 film version pranks greg at church with chocolate on his trousers, causing a public scene. he’s lazy at school, rude to his family, and usually happy to let greg take the blame if it means rodrick gets away with something."
Propaganda: "he’s hot, he’s funny, he’s in a terrible band, and he has the exact smug older-brother energy that makes people lose all critical thinking skills. yes he bullies greg. yes he’s gross. yes his room probably smells insane. unfortunately the eyeliner/emo drummer thing works."
Problematic because: "She's one of those characters where you can absolutely argue she has a point, but the methods are still a lot. Fodlan’s Crest/nobility system is awful, the Church is hiding history, and Edelgard herself was tortured as a child by the same faction she later ends up using for her war. But she still starts a continent-wide war to force her reforms through, and she’s very much willing to decide that everyone else’s lives can be thrown into the fire if the world that comes out the other side is better. As the Flame Emperor, she hires bandits to attack the students early on, works with the Death Knight, raids the Holy Tomb for Crest Stones, and keeps a working alliance with Those Who Slither in the Dark, even though they’re the people behind some of the worst experimentation and political violence in the setting. She hates them and does plan to turn on them eventually, but “I’ll use the evil mole cult until I can afford not to” is still a pretty questionable political strategy. And depending on the route, she can become the person who drags the entire continent through five years of war, conquers territory, treats classmates and former friends as acceptable losses, and in Azure Moon pushes herself into an even more monstrous form rather than surrender. I love her, but she is not just “girlboss emperor who wants equality.”"
Propaganda: 1. "She’s one of the few characters where I can understand the argument and still be horrified by what she does with it. She’s right that Fodlan is rotten. Crests decide people’s worth, nobles inherit power they haven’t earned, the Church has shaped history around itself, and people like Edelgard and Lysithea are living proof that the system grinds children up when power wants something from them. But she takes a real injustice, responds with real conviction, and then makes herself the person who gets to decide what everyone else must endure for the future she wants. She lies, allies with monsters, starts a war, and keeps going even when the cost is horrific. She’s driven, wounded, brilliant, ruthless, and sometimes genuinely right."
2. "sorry but if you grow up being tortured into a political weapon, watch your siblings die, and then look around and see the church/nobility/crest system still being treated as basically fine, you are probably not going to become a chill reformist who writes polite letters. does that excuse everything? no. obviously no. she still starts the war, she still lies, she still uses people she knows are dangerous because she thinks she can beat them later. but i do think people flatten her when they act like she just woke up one day and chose conquest because she likes red capes. she’s trying to destroy the system that destroyed her. the tragedy is that she’s willing to destroy a lot of other people’s lives to do it."
3. "She is fascinating because every route makes you deal with a different version of her. On her own route, she’s the revolutionary you can understand and even support if you buy into the cost. On other routes, she’s the former classmate across the battlefield who has decided the war matters more than anyone’s personal feelings about it. She’s sympathetic, stubborn, terrifying, painfully young, and somehow both the person trying to end the Crest system and the person willing to use a faction of nightmare scientists to get there. Incredible character."
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