#edelgard analysis

[fleshing-out-fodlan]

Petra, Edelgard, and the Ocean

Humanity still understands very little about the ocean, and for that reason it makes for a very interesting symbol in media. There are a lot of possibilities for what the ocean can represent, chaos, the unknown, a lack of control... So what happens when two leaders in media show exhibit such drastically different views towards the ocean and what does this say about their leadership styles?

Here are the dislikes of Edelgard contrasted against the likes of Petra, and as you can see here these two characters have very different views on swimming. While this is something that's easy to brush off as insignificant, after all why does a character need a reason to like or dislike swimming, it's important to keep in mind that the devs have a limited number of likes and dislikes to give to every character. So why did the developers decide these are an important enough aspect of both these characters to be included in this short list and why is it important that their views are so different?

First I would like to look at how Petra views the ocean, as the ocean plays a much larger role in her character than Edelgard’s. Let’s first look at one of Petra’s advice box submission.

A significant part of Petra’s character is her homesickness. As a princess held hostage in a foreign land, she has a deep desire to maintain a connection, any connection, to her culture. Brigid is a collection of archipelagos and we can see from Petra’s interests that she spent a lot of time in the ocean. To her, the ocean reminds her of her home, and being so far from the ocean just emphasizes how out of place she feels in Fodlan. We can see her comfort with the ocean reinforced in her Bernie support.

Petra obviously finds comfort in wide open spaces like the ocean, which contradicts how some of those in Fodlan see the ocean, including Edelgard. So now let’s take a look at Edelgard’s support with Bernie.

Here, Edelgard discusses her fear of the ocean, but what does this mean for her character? Well I find the phrase “pitch black” and the use of the word “open” to be interesting. The issue with the ocean being pitch black is that Edelgard is not able to see through it, there’s a lot that it can be concealing meaning she lacks control over her situation. In contrast, Petra describes the appearance of the ocean in much more positive terms.

While Petra does briefly acknowledge the possibility of it being dark, she also describes the ocean as being clear and blue, words that invoke a much more pleasant image than Edelgard’s “pitch black” phrase. Petra also emphasizes the “sun shining through” the water, again a very pleasant image. Another contrast in how they view the ocean is Edelgard’s fear of it being an “open” space while the openness is something Petra describes as being “wonderful.” It’s important to note that despite all this Petra does recognize the darker side of the ocean.

So what does this actually say about their characters and their leadership styles?

Leadership

Well, Edelgard shows a huge disdain for the unknown here. In the ocean, it’s impossible to know all your surroundings which scares her. You can never be sure what’s below you, behind you, or sometimes even what’s right next to you if the ocean really is pitch black. Furthermore, Edelgard can’t swim. She is totally at the mercy of the currents, and for a woman that likes being in control the thought of that is horrifying. The openness of the ocean also contributes to this fear as it means there’s no end in sight for her.

We see this desire for control depicted in Edelgard’s leadership style. When it comes to her strategy, she wants everything done in a particular way. In fact, her desire for control is so strong in the beginning of the story that she doesn’t even offer her friends the choice to help her. We can see this in her taking on the persona of the Flame Emperor in secret. While she does at one point give Byleth the chance to join, she doesn’t really. Even if Byleth says yes Edelgard rejects her offer. There are a variety of reasons why Edelgard has to keep her identity hidden, but a large part of it is that she is unsure of how people are going to react, and similarly to the ocean, that uncertainty scares her.

We even see Edelgard’s need for control extend to some smaller aspects of her life, for example her Linhardt support. She knows Linhardt has a lot of potential but he simply doesn’t want to fully harness it. So she goes out of his way to create a position specifically tailored to him to help him succeed. She is not content to simply accept that Linhardt is lazy or unmotivated, instead she feels the need to take it upon herself to make a position where he could succeed showing how she doesn’t want to leave these things up to the chance that Linhardt changes or finds a suitable position himself. Her desire for control makes sense when you take into account her childhood, where any sense of control was stripped from her by TWSITD who experimented on and tortured her.

What makes this aspect of her character even more interesting is that Edelgard doesn’t want to be this way. She talks about her desire to laze around and eat sweets all day and will even abdicate her position as emperor in many endings. Edelgard is not someone who necessarily wants control, she is someone who needs it to feel comfortable.

Petra similarly grew up in an environment where she lacked control, being taken as a hostage at 10 years old. She, however, responded to this very differently, being someone who is much more comfortable going with the flow and lettng others take the reins. In fact, many of her supports have her actively asking other people to teach her different skills she realized they have. While we don’t get to see as much of Petra’s leadership style in this game due to her being away from her country, there are some quotes indicating that Brigid is a much more equal society than Fodlan. These quotes do come from three hopes, which I tend to stay away from in analyses, but considering the limited information about Brigid I am letting myself reference hopes. In Petra’s and Dorothea’s hopes support, Petra comments on how everyone in Brigid is family and the land belongs to all of them meaning there is much les conflict there. This paints the image of a more equal society meaning Petra is more used to having less control and taking others input.

Overall, we can see that Edelgard is a character who needs a sense of control while Petra is one that is able to let go of it.

[onyxedskies]

Edelgard wasn’t wrong, but she wasn’t necessarily right either. I agree that the church was corrupt at that time; Rhea was corrupt, and you could argue that Seteth and the knights were as well. But Edelgard went about correcting those wrongdoings in the wrong way. The war was not the right path to take; it may have seemed like the only path to take for her, but it was wrong. With Byleth as the new archbishop, while not everything would be fixed, a lot of the church’s wrongdoings would be solved. 

There’s also a problem with crests. I don’t think that starting a war over it was a good idea, as crests only affected the nobility. And, even then, the current generation did not care about the crests in the same way that previous generations did. Therefore, I believe that her second motive, the crests, was also not a reason to start a war. 

This is my take on the issue, if anyone else has input I’d love to hear it!

[fleshing-out-fodlan]

When Edelgard wants to criticize somebody she’ll often try to soften the blow by complimenting them first. This is most obvious in her support with Caspar in my opinion, where she talks about his battle prowess before more or less talking about how much his life sucks (she more criticizes Caspar’s life than Caspar directly but I think the situation can be applied here) or in her support with Constance where she calls Constance remarkable before basically calling her trick useless. Even in Linhardt’s C support where she doesn’t lead with a compliment she still makes sure to throw in a mention about  how he could be a “distinguished noble” if he applied himself while before going in on his character.

When Edelgard is criticized she often responds quite negatively to it (at least in the beginning, I’m replaying CF for the first time in years so I don’t really remember how it changes towards the end, but I feel like there will be a change at some point considering she’s receptive of Ferdinand’s feedback in their final support). This can again be seen in her Caspar support where she accuses him of trying to fight her when he calls her out on projecting onto him or in her Linhardt B support when, after Linhardt calls her overbearing, she doubles down and insists her attitude is necessary despite her having criticized both these people first. She also often gains support points with Byleth when you agree with her which can be interpreted as her not enjoying push back, although there are other interpretations for this as well. You could also make an argument for her early relationship with Ferdinand proving this but I think even people who are receptive to criticism would be respond negatively to how Ferdinand approaches that situation so I’ll let that one slide.

This is just kind of me throwing things at the wall so I’m not sure how much sense this part will make but I feel you could also argue that Edelgard handles criticism in this way due to what happened with the Agarthans. The Agarthans wanted to give Edelgard a second crest to turn her into a weapon for them, so I doubt they would’ve responded well to any weakness she showed which could make it so she inherently feels like any sort of criticism is an attack on her making her instantly get defensive. On the other hand, the Agarthans likely wouldn’t have liked hearing her criticize their course of action, so in order to get her voice heard without facing negative repercussions she may have had to soften the blow.