Although I am wary of wading into Edelgard Discourse, I feel compelled to make a few simple comments that have been on my mind for a while. I’m not going to write a big essay on this right now, though—just a few quick observations.
I’ve noticed that some Edelgard fans have a tendency to dismiss—if not outright eliminate—Edelgard’s character flaws as part of efforts to justify and account for her actions. It appears that this often occurs as a result of ongoing arguments with the so-called “Edelcrits” (i.e. Edelgard’s detractors, from what I have gleaned). There seems to be some habits among these kinds of commentators, then, to respond to criticisms (which, let’s be clear, are very often in bad faith and, therefore…don’t really need to be honored with responses at all) of Edelgard by interpreting and asserting all of her actions as altruistic, caring, or selfless.
However, the effects of these rhetorical maneuvers are not as supportive of Edelgard as their proponents seem to think.
Sadly, they all too frequently whitewash and sanitize her characterization…and not uncommonly in ways that function to recuperate her into conventional, expected, mandated (according to cisheteronormativity) understandings of femininity and of how women are supposed to think and behave. The result is that these defenses of Edelgard portray her (perhaps we could say even tame her) according to safer, more typical understandings of femininity. (And, in fact, my observation is that these kinds of interpretations of Edelgard have been most strongly propagated by male fans…Although the uptake of these analyses certainly exists among her women fans as well).
Even more disappointingly, these kinds of defenses of Edelgard can leave little space for or tolerance of actual, open, nuanced discussions or representations (e.g. in the form of fanfic) of her faults. By which I mean: as someone who adores Edelgard and for whom Edelgard means a great deal, sometimes I feel like I can’t even just…acknowledge that she’s a flawed, complicated human being (or that there are also ways that the game's writing genuinely does her a disservice), because I risk running up against this corner of the fandom’s popular, “canonized” understandings of her as being Always Right, Never Wrong. And that bums me out!
However…Edelgard is rad, but she’s also flawed. And we could have plenty of discussions about those flaws from numerous angles—whether blunders and shortcomings in the game’s writing, or as faults that add roundness and nuance to Edelgard as a messy human being (and both of those things are possible). The potency of Edelgard as a character and, importantly, as a representation of femininity is that she IS flawed, and in ways that can subvert traditional media portrayals of women. That is, in essence, why I have Feelings about this, and why I want to raise concerns about these trends. I think it’s a bummer that we can’t seem to just embrace Edelgard as an imperfect woman (often, it seems, ‘cause we gotta worry too much about what “the Edelcrits” are saying). Edelgard doesn’t need a redemption narrative—whether in the game or from her fans (especially the male ones).
In short: y’all, please let Edelgard be a flawed human being. And don’t let your arguing with “the Edelcrits” lead you to over-determine who she is as a perpetual response to bad faith claims…Especially when that over-determination leads to justifications that just wind up “safely” feminizing her.
(I’ll conclude by pointing out one other thing, though I’m not gonna unpack it right now: I believe that these trends are also related to reductive, oversimplified understandings of trauma that are rampant in the fandom, with attendant issues pertaining to the whitewashing of trauma as well. Maybe I’ll comment on this more sometime, but not right now.)
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