You Know, When I First Played The Game, I Held Both Rhea And Edelgard In High Regard, Edelgard Perhaps

You know, when I first played the game, I held both Rhea and Edelgard in high regard, Edelgard perhaps more so by virtue of Crimson Flower actually showing Edelgard in all of her blood-soaked glory. Then I saw the vitriol people threw at Rhea while defending Edelgard —while accusing everyone else of doing the opposite— and decided to revisit my stances on both characters. It won't surprise you that I ended with a more positive and negative view of Rhea and Edelgard respectively.

I guess it goes to show how Edelgard can leave a positive impression on people when taken at face value, same with Rhea on the negative side. I remember feeling exactly like Byleth when the prospect of killing Edelgard showed up in my first playthrough of the game: Silver Snow.

But it's starting to become more apparent, with these conversations I'm having with you and Fantasy Invader, that Claude has failings of his own. His interactions with Cyril never sat well with me, I was thinking what the fuck Claude's problem was, leave Cyril alone??? I didn't pay much attention to how outspoken he was on Shamir and Alois paralogue vs being dead silent in Cyril and the pink haired slaver paralogue, it was only recently that I realized how poorly that spoke of him, especially in the greater context of "Rhea keeping Fodlan isolated" debacle (she does not). His support with Petra was sweet enough, I was focusing on their attempts to bond with each other as fellow strangers in a strange land, and not in how he didn't miss the chance to throw shade at the Religion of Fodlan (Now that I think about it, doesn't he do the same on his Leonie and Ignatz supports?)

Claude: True. The people of Fódlan believe everything is a blessing from the goddess. They've forgotten to be grateful to nature too.

Claude: Nature gives us life. Sustains us. Without it, we couldn't breathe. Couldn't live. It's everything.

Claude: It's fine to pray to the goddess, but we have to respect nature too. Don't you think?

Claude, you said it yourself, the people believe everything is a gift from the goddess, which would of course include nature. As far as you know, i.e. next to nothing, people are grateful to the goddess for her gift of nature and they showcase their gratitude by treating nature with respect, because they otherwise fear that they may upset the goddess the same way the people of Brigid fear they may upset the spirits. You fucking moron.

@pandp-author replied to your post “Just thinking about it but - UO : MC learns the...”:

@themoomoorn If it's not too much asking, what is it about Petra's support with Claude that you don't like? I'm rather curious.

​If I can jump in, for me it'd be this :

Petra : Harming Trees is bad because they have spirits and it's important, the tree gives us food and shelter but it also needs us. We live in harmony, all those things.

Clout : Ah yes, you're close to the nature, unlike those stupid Fodlan people who believe everything comes from their goddess and forgot nature.

Petra : Remember when I said Billy-sensei turning green looks like the spirits I am often talking about? And how the Fodlan Goddess basically made and created those spirits? - Who am I kidding, I can't tell you this, we're in a Fodlan game, you must always have a point and Church BaD.

Clout : Of course!

Clout : I mean, imagine if the Hresvelgs could trace their lineage to Saint Seiros herself, who is said to be, in her own scriptures, a Child of the Goddess aka not a human herself or at least a divine being. I'd look like an imbecile, right?

Also fun how "uwu nobility isn't a matter of birthright, status doesn't matter uwu" when the same guy tells to Cyril :

"nobility doesn't matter we're all equals uwu except when I could use my status to compel a random to do things he doesn't want to".

But back to the Petra support :

Clout : I've heard Hanneman say the same thing to Doro.

Petra : Wow you're so strange for saying those things! And you are a noble who can climb to trees! So weird!

Clout : Are we sure Caspar can't do the same? He knows how to pummel someone to death with his fists, maybe he'd also know how to climb trees or something, given how he didn't receive any education befitting a heir of a house, since his brother is the heir and he is naught but a spare. But hey, I'll totally call you strange because you are a princess of Brigid, nevermind the link I cannot tell you about between you being the princess of a foreign land and me.

Petra : But you know how to climb trees and take care of your equipment ! I'm so impressed, I've never seen any noble take care of his own stuff before. What is that? Ferdie oils his own weapons and armor? Who is that Ferdie you're talking about?

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Granted, given how Petra was trashtalked by Hubert (or trash thought) when he first met her and was around the most, uh, decadent part of Adrestian Nobility, I can't fault her for thinking Claude climbing to trees and tending to his own bow is extraordinary - but I suppose if she ever went to see any BL what she finds "abornmal in Fodlan and totes only Adrestia because that's the only place she visited" wouldn't be so... abnormal.

“I wish you were someone whose heart could be swayed by my words and deeds. If it were so, I would have done anything to make you my ally...”

"You are attacking the monastery; you're employing demonic beasts. You almost had your own classmates killed. My father is dead because of you. The closest thing I had to a home village was destroyed by the people you're working with and can't keep in check. You facilitated Flayn's kidnaping. The same people tried to assassinate Rhea *again*, attacked the students, and raided the Mausoleum, and it's all but a given that you orchestrated the bandit attack to have Dimitri and Claude killed. I am indeed someone whose heart was swayed by your words and deeds, Edelgard. What you don't seem to realize is that you've done everything to make me your enemy."

All you have to do is let Edelgard talk and she will eventually just tell on herself.

I have to wonder if she's actually incapable of keeping quiet, or if her lack of self-awareness is a condition of some sort.

This scene perfectly encapsulates some edelstands' mindset of just reading the scrip to "understand" the game, because it allows them more easily take Edelgard at her word, despite all the onscreen proof that show her as being a terrible person, such as the deployment of demonic beasts.

Considering the localization choices I found over the last couple of days, I can understand why certain fans thought Treehouse hated Edelgard. Because, yes, the game does make her come off a lot more harshly than she does in the Japanese. That the English version primes the player from the onset to view her as arrogant and distant, rather than a typical noble girl like the Japanese makes her out to be. But as a result of this the Flame Emperor reveal, the game's main twist, doesn't have the same impact it was supposed to. Rather than the reveal of Edelgard, who was initially the least suspect lord, being the masked person aiding the villains we've been fighting, it comes across more like it was expected that would be the case.

Instead, fans take Edelgard's cute side as the suprise. “Yeah, I know she did all that awful stuff in Part 1, but Part 2 shows that she's not that bad.” The translation flipped Edelgard's gap moe.

However, this also kills the argument that the translators hated her.

For instance, if she fights Byleth at the end of Part 1 she says “I wish you were someone whose heart could be swayed by my words and deeds. If it were so, I would have done anything to make you my ally...” In the Japanese however? “I wish you were the kind of person who could be moved by my words and actions. So I did whatever I could to get you on my side...” The Japanese version flat out confirms that Edelgard was trying to manipulate Byleth, but got erased and made out that she didn't really do anything of the sort. Likewise, mention of her using an information campaign to sway the citizens of the Empire who are opposed to this war, or that Edelgard is really puppeteering TWSITD are removed. Her route even has it's named changed, the symbolism of the safflower replaced with that of a red rose. And on top of that, the ending of her route tries to tone down the final smack in the face to the player. Gone is Edelgard consolidating power on herself to impose her will, alongside her admitting she has been waling the path of supremacy (hadou) which holds very negative implications, and the endings try to make it out that she did work to bring freedom to the people rather than simply imposing her will on them. Oh, and Caspar invading other countries while unable to control the Imperial army? He's merely sometimes reckless, whereas he has “victims” in the other routes. It wants to make it out that your influence prevented her from becoming a monster, rather than her influence turning you into one, putting her in the same camp as Dimitri and Claude.

Meanwhile, the translation makes the Church out to be in the wrong with the Rhea ending saying she rehabilitated the Church, and Seteth's solo making it out that he was intolerant towards other faiths before rather than him taking the stick out of his ass.

The translation mischaracterized Edelgard completely, making her harsher in the beginning but softening her up in the end. It destroyed the twist and message of the game, as supporting a lying tyrant is just a manner or being morally grey when the original game it was supposed to become clear that the player was played and became the baddie by their own choice. It even goes so far as to try to tell players her ideals are close to Claude's when her line was that she doesn't think their ideals are the same, making her more compatible to the lords who don't invade other nations following the war.

The game was meant to condemn Edelgard as a villain, yet the translation just shrugged off her actions and went “moral ambiguity, am I right?”

not a fan of how EVERYONE acts like this exchange didn't exist

"Claude was right about Rhea and the church promoting isolationism"

okay, Frieza.

The biggest issue with Akechi for me is the lack of acknowledgement of the scope of the things he did.

Like I said before, Akechi is proto Edelgard for me, and there are more than a few reasons as to why.

They actually have a lot in common, now that I think about it: Very early on, the games present us with events that Edelgard and Akechi are revealed to behind of: The bandit attack in the prologue, which turned out to be an assassination attempt on Dimitri and Claude by Edelgard. And a train accident that killed and injured people, which turned out to be the result of Akechi forcing a mental breakdown on the innocent driver. From then on, we have these terribles events that are happening both in the foreground and background while we're befriending this person that have some strong opinions of their own while still being at least amicable enough to you.

But their amicability was ultimately just a farce to get the drop on the player with a surprise twist. These friendly people turned out to be the villain all along, behind nigh all bad things that have happened through the year and working in tandem with the greater scope villains, enabling them in all their fuckery with the excuse that they will deal with the "actual" bad guys themselves, and now they're going to remorselessly kill you and your real friends for no other reason other than you "being on their way".

But the similarities don't end there, they also share the one trait that ultimately made me hate them as characters: Everyone else is feeling sorry for them instead rightfully telling them off.

The games are very heavy-handedly trying to get us to feel bad for these awful people because they had the saddest backstories the writers could've come up with, completely glossing over their evil deeds in order to do so. And the games very deliberately chose the people that should be the angriest at these villains, besides the plank of wood protagonists, as THE ONES WHO FEEL SORRY FOR THEM THE MOST: Futaba and Seteth respectively. It has to be deliberate, there is no way this is coincidental. Insulting doesn't begin to describe it.

And this is just in the base game for Akechi. Royal comes up and it makes everything worse: The game is forcing you to play alongside this person who doesn't even bother to hide his contempt for you and your real friends. In fact, he fully embraces his psychotic personality and hijacks the story from then on. He basically contributes nothing but manpower for the new dungeon, as all he does in the story is catching up to where you are in regards as to who the antagonist is, and then being very vehemently against everything the antagonist does in the most visceral way possible, even though I don't care what this unwanted bastard thinks (side note, you know how people go at great lengths to say that Edelgard is an antagonist and not a villain? This idea very much applies, like actually applies, to Royal's new palace ruler) We're actually forced to deploy him for a sizeable part of the dungeon, and we spend a considerable amount of time on his thoughts and feeling on the matter, at the cost of spending time with the thoughts and feelings on the people we actually care about, Akechi is basically everything people accuse Yoshizawa, the new girl, of doing, even though Yoshizawa herself could've used some more time both in Royal and in the base game. And to top it all off, Royal further buys into the idea that Akechi was a victim and everything he's done was really Shido's fault and you should really feel bad for him.

Marketability has to play a factor in all of this. Just like how they needed to pull their punches with Edelgard's villainy because she's the game's main waifu, Atlus needed to ramp up the sympathy point for Akechi because he's a pretty anime boy.

This is just like what I've been talking about with @randomnameless a few weeks ago. Sympathy for the villains is a zero-sum game in which the writers and the audience need to ignore the suffering of the villains' victims in order to sell the sympathy. It's easier to do when the victims are ultimately background characters, so the story doesn't need to dwell on their pain like it does with main characters like Akechi or Edelgard. Even though this is all bad on its own, it gets worse for these two fuckers because among their victims are main named characters. Akechi killed Futaba's mom some time ago, which is the reason Futaba got a palace in the first place, and Akechi also kills Haru's dad on screen. Even though Kunikazu was ultimately a terrible person, I'd argue he was the least messed up of all palace rulers bar Futaba (yes, that includes Sae (does being a bitch run in the Niijima family?)) he didn't deserve such a horrible fate (none of Akechi's victims did) and that still doesn't change the fact that this must have scarred Haru, who despite having a bad relationship with her father, must have looked forward to patching thing up. Akechi robbed her of that.

Speaking of Haru, just like how the game has Futaba of all fucking people to try to feel bad for Akechi, the game also has Haru of all fucking people stay completely quiet during Akechi's little sad backstory moment (it's like Seteth and Flayn in Marianne's paralogue)

Really Haru was probably the most screwed over by the game, thank God Strikers came along and gave Haru the spotlight she deserves, which single handedly made her my most favorite character of all of Persona 5!

It ALL comes down to the fact that the game is deciding my feelings for these characters for me. Akechi and Edelgard are not good people, but they still could be great characters, but the games don't commit to the fact that they're bad people, for one reason or another. Some explanation may be that Joker and Byleth don't hate them despite everything they've done because of their past relationships, even if said relationships were built on lies, but this explanation isn't very satisfying because it's a well-known fact that Joker and Byleth try to be both silent protagonist for the players to self-insert into as well as their own character, resulting in them failing at both.

Maybe the games didn't want to promote hatred for these characters because of the themes and whatnot, but that doesn't mean going so far to the other direction. I understand the protagonists not letting themselves be consume by hatred, the problem is one of framing. Far too much focus goes into feeling uwu sad for Akechi and Edelgard and not enough (or any at all) goes into how Joker and Byleth need to not let themselves be too consumed by their hatred of this people who had hurt them so deeply, even as they try to stop them. I guess I should be fair to Three Houses and acknowledge they did do this with Dimitri in Azure Moon, but Persona 5 has no such thing for Futaba, and especially not Haru.

Trying to get me to feel bad for a character has consistently achieved the opposite.

I feel like Akechi is a poor-man's Adachi.

Like, the twist with Adachi was really well-handled. He was a character you always say, were on friendly terms with, but him not having a social link in the original game served to highlight that something was off about him. Him being revealed to be the killer, as well as his true emotions, came as a shock as well as highlighted P4's themes of how often we only see people on a surface level. I haven't played Golden but I know about giving Adachi a social link and an ending where the protag instead allows Adachi to go.

Akechi feels like they wanted to pull off the same twist, but tries to imporve upon it. They gave him a social link that automatically progresses as the story does, but unlike Teddy he doesn't become playable until very late in the game. So that should tip some people off. Likewise, he's the only theif who is not in the original opening, making his inclusions stand out more. And whereas Adachi served to highlight the themes, Akechi instead serves to highlight what the Phantom Thieves could become in the bad ending. He betrays, we find out the truth, kick his ass, and then attempts to redeem himself though self-sacrifice. I honestly don't like how wishy-washy the series is with his survival unlike P3's protagonist.

Haven't played Royal yet though, but I'm going to now considering I realized the hadou thing. Really, I feel like P5 didn't click with me partially because of the hadou element even if I didn't recognize it.

Not only do people not want to acknowledge that Byleth is part Nabatean, not only do they think Byleth losing the stone that gave her life (as Byleth was stillborn) a good thing, but they actively act as though Byleth's nabatean heritage is a curse placed upon her by the evil Rhea.

There is this rather disgusting fanfic called A vow Remembered that is basically a Rhea hit piece. Later in the story, Byleth starts to develop draconic features that the story makes sure to point to Rhea as the culprit, having Byleth despairing over this body horror transformation, which is easy to interpretate as Byleth rejecting her nabatean heritage, even though that's her heritage.

The fic in general completely buys into Rhea being a villain and the church having hard power over Fodlan, neither of which is true to the game. The only thing missing is constants fanning over Edelgard because the fic is a Golden Deer route one. But don't you worry, there is some fanning over Edelgard, she's treated much more charitable than Rhea in any case. The fic isn't kind to Dimitri either. And Raphael, a core member of the deer, is sidelined to hell, too.

I just want to point this out.

In this year's Rider series the MC Shouma is half-granute, his father being an alien from another dimension and his mother being a human. The villains are Shouma's half-siblings, pure-blooded granutes who look down on humanity as nothing more than ingredients. They killed Shouma's mother out of this racism when their father died, using her to make dark treats, and even tried to do that to Shouma who was only saved because he was part granute. As such, he now fights to protect humans from his siblings and the junkies sent after him.

The reason why I bring this up is how people act that Byleth being part Nabatean is a flaw, and that them becoming entirely "human" is a good thing as they kill other Nabateans. People even act as though Byleth ISN'T a Nabatean, with them losing their power at the end just them returning to being "normal." Normal means rejecting the idea of coexistence, treating the other race as something to be disposed of simply because they are not the same.

It's a villain trope, one Houses inverts by making it so that the villains are actually all humans. Hell, that last one is pretty big considering how many games end with dragons, demon kings, Gods of Law, etc. Humans are the cause of suffering, the non-humans are just scapegoats for their shitty actions. Kinda sounds like something out of The Witcher novels really.

That's the thing I think a lot of people miss, or intentionally leave out, when it comes to the outcome of the war of the Eagle and Lion. Rhea's interference was ultimately for the EMPIRE'S benefit.

Remember, Rhea only intervened in the aftermath, except she didn't intervene as much as she was brough along, and she only brough along after the to be kingdom WON. After Loog WON. When you take that into consideration, it would be more likely that Rhea tried to convince Loog into accepting his victory without asking or taking much more from the empire, because honestly, what was stopping Loog from keep going and rename the entirety of Fodlan into the kingdom of Faerghus? His sense of honor? Not that the empire would understand...

WHY Loog needed the church to recognize the newly founded kingdom's sovereignty is a topic for another conversation, but it doesn't change the fact that it was the better outcome, because otherwise Faerghus would've steamrolled the empire until every fighting man died, as they already proved they were too much for Adrestia by beating their asses and then go to the church to make it official to further rub it on their loser faces.

But the empire, and specially the fandom, doesn't understand this. Instead, they view it as one of the reasons why they resent the church, resent Rhea, so much. They probably thought Rhea should've come up and tell Faerghus that their victory doesn't count or something, getting angry at her for conceding, even though they couldn't have done anything about it because they just lost. If they didn't want Rhea to "divide the masses to make them bicker among themselves", the empire should've thought of that before losing the rebellion.

In fact, if they didn't want a rebellion in the first place, the empire should've thought of that before severely mistreating the people of the north.

For ME one of the craziest takes I've seen float around is that Rhea Bad for helping Loog and Faerghus as a whole gain independence from Adrestia because Wilhelm Existed. Like, just because Rhea was Wilhelm's friend and Adrestia was close to the Church, fuck Faerghus' freedom. That's so fucking wild???

Wot? That's a take? Fr? On Sothis?

Was she supposed to not mediate the situation and let Faerghus steamroll the Empire or something? Was she supposed to side with the empire when she only had the KoS and Faerghus had a shit ton relics?

For Wilhelm my ass. That dude gave up ruling before he died lmao.