I hope you donât mind me coming in, because I donât really agree with what youâre saying here but I donât want to come off rude.
Iâm one of the people saying that Edelgard was wrong, but I also donât think Dimitri was necessarily right in saying she should have kept to Adrestia either. Like you said, all three lords and Rhea in some way either want to extend their dreams to places outside their immediate sovereignty or it wouldnât be the most out of character thing of them to try to help places outside of their sovereignty (this one mostly applies to Dimitri). However, and not to sound rude, the main issue with that is something you briefly sort of gloss over with a couple statements:Â
â she should have just reformed the Empire and not invaded Leicester and Faerghus! â
Note the very key word here being invaded.
â Edelgard is only different from Dimitri and Claude in that she is willing to accept this truth and force her dreams to fruition. â
Note the very key word here being force.
Even if I were to agree that youâre right and Edelgard is mostly only different from Dimitri and Claude in that way (which, and no offense to you personally and for the sake of clarity, I donât), that way is significantly important as to why she is in the wrong. That use of force? Involves killing innocent people, by her own admission. Unlike with Dimitri and Claude, who at least attempt to do things peacefully and with as little physical conflict as possible, Edelgardâs go-to method of enacting change is to declare war and put a lot of innocent people in danger.Â
Regardless of whether she was âactually rightâ in going to war, that she never even attempted talking to Dimitri or Claude at any point in the game beforehand says a lot about her. Thereâs a reason why only Dimitri and Claude can team up during the war, and why Claude doesnât team up with Edelgard even if heâs spared and supposedly shares the same ideals as her - itâs because her ways of going about change are fundamentally more destructive than they are able to reconcile with. Edelgard isnât inherently wrong for wanting to enact change beyond her own borders, sheâs wrong because of the means she chose to actually enact said change. Edelgard is wrong for âwanting to make changeâ for the same reason Rhea is wrong for âwanting to bring back Sothisâ - the act itself isnât inherently bad, but her means of trying to take Bylethâs life are what make her wrong.Â
â Would it not reflect poorly upon the Church of Seiros and the noble class in the other lands if Edelgard reformed the nobility, allowed hired ministers and uplifted commoners to have positions of authority in her Empire, and denounced Crests as a symbol of inherited, unjust superiority over the Crestless, and had her reforms work and lead the Empire to a brighter age? â
...Not really? The Kingdom had Ashe and Yuri be adopted into nobles families. In the Alliance thereâs Margrave Edmund who rose to power through trade routes and good speech skills. Lambert was going to do apparently âradicalâ reforms to the Kingdom before he was killed. None of this is denounced by the church or is looked on poorly by the church.Â
And the church itself doesnât like that Crests are used to gain power. From the Book of Seiros, Part II: âThe descendants of the Heroes sought their ancestor's power, and thusly their blood. In time, they amassed Crests, Relics, land, and wealth, using all to set the land aflame with war. The goddess's power, intended to stem the flow of evil, became a tool of destruction, all because of the greed of humanity. The goddess grieved and, heartbroken, hid herself in the heavens from whence she came...â
And from the Book of Seiros, Part V:Â â Dare not abuse the power gifted to you by the goddess. â
Thereâs only ever any Crest-based nobility because of humans, not because Rhea or anyone from the church made it so - they explicitly denounce the idea of using Crests for such means, but the nobility ignore that and do it anyway. So Edelgard doing all of what you said either wouldnât be criticized by the church or would in all likelihoods be praised by the church for finally stemming the use of the Goddessâ power as a tool of destruction and greed (which made the goddess weep and leave Fodlan, according to the doctrine).Â
Rhea is only worried about what the people would do without the nobility, but if Edelgardâs reforms prove to not sow discord Rhea would be more relieved than anything - after all, itâs a sign that humans are finally trying to stop benefiting from her familyâs massacre. If anything, Edelgard, if this idea is followed, knocks down two birds with one stone - she proves the people donât need nobility to stay orderly and gets rid of the notion of Crests being viable tools for garnering power.
â Edelgard denouncing the gifts of the Goddess would inherently be a heretical act, for which Rhea would have to respond or risk the doctrine of the Church of Seiros, an organization she believes is crucial for upholding peace in Fodlan, being seriously questioned. After all, surely no nation that turns its back on the Goddessâs gifts could prosper. â
But as seen from the actual doctrine, Edelgard denouncing Crests is pretty well in-line with what the church actually wants. Nobles were the ones to make Crests as they are now; the church never wanted them to be used as tools of greed in the first place, only to help stop evil. Edelgard delegitimizing Crests and the Church of Seiros still standing are two things that could very easily coexist with each other.Â
â The noble class in the Kingdom and the Alliance would begin to fear the commoners of their own lands beginning to wonder why THEY have to obey their noble masters if those in the Empire did not â
Why would those of the Alliance do so? They may not have had hired ministers, but they did already have the idea of nobles who started off as commoners rule over them be a familiar one (Edmund) so Edelgard doing the same for Adrestia wouldnât be anything new to them.Â
And on top of that, Edelgard taking Adrestiaâs throne comes with Dimitri taking Faerghusâ throne and Claude inheriting the title of duke soon afterwards, so if Edelgard bided her time to wait for at least Dimitri to ascend to the throne she could talk with him about reforms. And them teaming up (while waiting for Oswald to either die or hand over the title of duke to Claude) would give both Edelgard and Dimitri a strong international ally to work with in helping the people, something that wasnât true for Lambert or Ionius and could help immensely in warding off things like a Tragedy or Insurrection from happening again.Â
Plus, Dimitri and Edelgard are able to use the experience of having a Tragedy and Insurrection happen to them to be able to watch for warning signs or to ready themselves against any plots against them, and Claude already has experience with people trying to assassinate him specifically. Theyâd be more prepared than Lambert or Ionius (or Godfrey) were in protecting themselves from nobles plotting their deaths/downfall.
So if Edelgard bides her time for Dimitri and Claude to ascend to their own positions of power (which, for Dimitri at least, would be maybe a few months to a year at most since heâd be of age to ascend), and they all come to an agreement about what to do to help commoners (which is all something they, following this idea, want to do), and if Edelgard getting rid of the notion of using the goddessâ power as merely a means to amass more power is something that the church itself espouses as just, who would have an issue with it? If the Adrestian commoners wouldnât rebel with Edelgardâs notions and itâs only an issue with the Faerghan and Leicesterian commoners wanting what the Adrestian commoners have, then the three lords coming together and just doing exactly that wouldnât cause any issue with the commoners.Â
The only hurdle would potentially be the nobility of each region, but with the backing of the other two leaders of Fodlan behind them and with at least one of them being able to simply get rid of nobles who try to fight them (Edelgard) as well as standing up against the allies the leaders would have regardless, any opposing noble would likely think twice about going against these reforms in fear of retaliation from the other two leaders.
â Thereâs a very real possibility that Edelgard peacefully reforming the Empire would still have led to civil war in Fodlan, whether by the the other nations attacking the Empire to quell the thread posed by a fallen nation led astray by a reckless heretic, or by the commoners in those other nations rising against their noble masters and the church. â
Thatâs only if Edelgard is incredibly rash and started immediately enacting her reforms without waiting for Dimitri and Claude to gain their positions as king and duke. They would have not only each other as allies, but whatever allies theyâd already have teaming up together as well (such as Fraldarius and Gautier for Dimitri and Goneril and Daphnel for Claude, for example). Theyâd have no reason to attack Edelgard first since she wouldnât be hurting anyone and would be doing what they also want to do (helping the commoners). The commoners ârising against their noble master and the churchâ seems unlikely to happen in either the Alliance (with its precedence of having commoners rise to high positions of nobility) or even the Empire (since it hasnât had direct church influence for over a century). Itâs debatable that even the Kingdom commoners would care that much, as people didnât seem to care when Ashe and Yuri, two street rats, were adopted by well-respected families. On top of that, the church likely wouldnât interfere with Edelgard as she would be doing what they want (stopping people from misusing Crests for greed and power).
Again, I hope I donât come off as rude or anything, but I just donât understand how Edelgard is against the world when she is doing things neither the commoners, Dimitri and Claude, or the church would hold anything against, nor do I agree with the idea that the âonlyâ difference between her and (at least) Dimitri and Claude is so minimal and easily dismissible.Â