Also I know a lot of people consider Edie to be the game’s de facto “anti-hero” (which is a big ol’ can of worms) but I personally* feel like Yuri is a much better example of that. Yeah, he’s clearly willing to do bad stuff (most of which involves taking advantage of the nobility, because fuck ‘em ) in order to protect the people of Abyss, but he at least knows where and when to draw the line.
I actually was just thinking about that. Yuri does what Edie thinks she's doing.
He protects the little people by doing things that other people would consider morally questionable, but it does actually benefit more people in the end than it hurts.
Edie believes she can save people by starting a continent wide conflict but doesn't really consider that the people she's trying to protect are the ones who end up on the front lines.
It's the low ranks that die first, the ranks made up of the less fortunate people who try to make a little money working for the military at the risk of their own lives, and it's exactly those people she says she wants to protect
And I don't even think she realizes this, since she's surrounded by the nobility and trusted people that follows her orders so she probably hasn't thought about where all those troops that her generals lead came from. Which again speaks of how damn sheltered she is, despite what she's been through.
Yuri has the right of it, he risks himself to protect people, but he never risks them
In a way, even Dimitri is closer to the truth than she is. He doesn't once pretend like he isn't fully aware that he's killing people who don't really have a choice but to fight. He even calls Randolph out on this when Randolph tries to beg for mercy cuz he's got a family.
Yuri is the one who has experienced both sides of this enough times to know what the hell he's doing, Dimitri experiences it first hand during the time skip, but Edie thinks she's experienced all there is to see when she hasn't.