Fire Emblem

It's possible she get to know correct version of history. But what came out of her mouth was very biased and inaccurate.

As whole it's half-truth at best.

Rhea's definitely telling a distorted version of history. But Edel is kinda hypocritical for decrying that whilst pushing her own version of history which is equally inaccurate.

Edited by asterism on Sep 12th 2019 at 10:39:13 AM

Edelgard thinking it's a mere dispute is inaccurate, especially when there's a much deeper rooted incident of genocide that is the actual motivation. Plus her idea the Relics were created by man isn't really accurate either, since she doesn't seem to realize it was Slytherin specifically that made them. From said genocide. And they're a testament to how wrong suchs act can be since even the characters with scientific curiosity view them as crossing boundaries humans shouldn't.

Plus The sign of how hypocritical Edelgard is that she distorts history herself for her own benefit like her speech about the Church being the reason why the Kingdom came into being when Loogs rebellion had already won a decisive victory, or her blaming the destruction of Arianhod on The Church, while lambasting Rhea who did it for benign reasons.

Edited by OmegaRadiance on Sep 12th 2019 at 5:17:15 AM

Rhea's distortions are also for her own benefit - which doesn't mean that they're malicious, but neither are Edelgard's. Both Rhea and Edelgard keep the existence of Those Who Slither a secret from the common people, because both seem to agree that the common person doesn't need to know about them - which is probably true. The Strike Force ought to know, the generals maybe ought to know, but the soldiers don't have to - and the civilians definitely don't have to.

It's also... well, this is a question of either Gameplay and Story Segregation or some kind of informed attribute, but despite how obviously evil the disguised Those Who Slither are, it's treated as though in-universe they're very hard to spot - meaning that there is absolutely a danger of spies in Garreg Mach. So if the Empress gives a speech about shapechanging invaders with surface-to-surface missiles, she's going to get a visit from her uncle asking what the shit she's playing at.

Edited by RedSavant on Sep 12th 2019 at 8:22:02 AM

Rhea didn't realize exactly how big or what Slytherin was in size as an organization until she sees Shambhalla. At most she assumed they were just bad humans that helped Nemesis 1000 years ago. It took seeing Shambhalla to realize that the target of who they seek to eliminate specifically.

And we know she never informs the Strike Force. Only her Yes Man and Morality Chain.

What Rhea did change for both benign and selfish reasons was the nature of the Ten Elites, their atrocities, and how she didn't prop them up as a testament to humanity as evil. Which considering what they did would have been way more selfish to do.

Edited by OmegaRadiance on Sep 12th 2019 at 5:49:05 AM

Again, she doesn't say it's a simple dispute in the original. She says they went to war.

In the original? As in Japanese? Because she always said it was just a dispute that lead to war in english.

That said, the game has a very strong influence between the Western Staff and the Eastern Staff(Three Houses was the original planned title but has no meaning in Japanese, thus the title Flower, Wind, Moon, Snow). So I can't say for sure what ideas came from the western staff's influence on the script to the Japanese version.

Edited by OmegaRadiance on Sep 12th 2019 at 6:21:27 AM

There are changes that seem minor but add up. Her character is more consistent in the original.

The one scene I want to read a more accurate translation of is the Blue Lions final conversation between Edelgard and Dimitri. I don't know how it is in the original, but in the English version they do nothing but talk past each other without saying anything of substance.

There are a number of moments like that, yeah - even the smallest mistranslation can blunt the purpose of a scene. There's a line in Crimson Flower after Edelgard kills Dimitri that was mishandled, where she says "the part of me that shed tears died long ago" or something similar; the Japanese line (which I can't seem to track down) is closer to "the part of me that's crying is the person I was long ago".

Inuria, if you can find me a clip of that conversation in Japanese or with Japanese audio enabled, I can do my best to have a look at it.

The grey area is why I kinda liked Edelgard's story.

It's true that you're only hearing Edelgard's version of events (where some exact details are left out or not mentioned), and the way she handled it all was ruthless, but the end goal of a more equal society where people can't use a magical artifact they were born with to get ahead in life isn't exactly 'evil' in the traditional sense. And the 'where are they now' bits at the end of the story show that things turned out rather well all things considered.

Of course, you could also say that Edelgard being emperor runs somewhat counter to that whole goal, especially when it comes to how exactly the succession process would work. It's left vague, but I'm not sure she would necessarily go on pure merit.

In the end, I feel that the contradictions are at least somewhat the point. The goal was noble, the means were not, and there was some hypocrisy along the way. But history is written by the victors.

Part of why I find her to be my favorite FE human antagonist/villain.

@Edvedd: True; none of the routes give the whole story, because each of the Lords has some things they care about and some things they don't, or else things that they have no way of knowing. In a sense, the message feels (to me) less like "history is written by the victors" and more "the best you can do is strive to accomplish what's important to you", if that makes sense.

As far as I know, Edelgard's general thrust for her successor is "a qualified outsider", as she says in her tea party lines; it's clear she has no interest in letting the Hraesvelg dynasty continue strictly on blood alone.

The fact that none of the routes gives you the whole picture is ultimately what I find most interesting. By choosing one path or the other, you're changing what the story is about at a fundamental level. Some of the main beats of the story are about the same (the missions at least), but by choosing one side over the other, you change the context of these events and how things progress.

Yeah, true. It does cheat a little on that front by having events play out significantly differently between timelines. The circumstances are (mostly) the same, but a lot of things change that aren't really adequately explained by the presence or absence of Byleth in one particular house.

Yeah i was saying if the dispute line was in the japanese version or not. Distorted or not, Edelgard's version is still more truth than Rhea's. Seiros and Nemesis were at war with each other. And the hero's relics are not from the goddess.

One of the biggest diverges is that in the CF route, Rhea is an active player and not kidnapped by TWSITD, Dimitri has both his eyes, and Cornelia was just sitting in the kingdom for 5 years. Wonder what the difference is.

I guess you could argue it's a kind of butterfly effect, but the major (and only required) difference is which House Byleth picks. I guess it doesn't really have to be anything specific that Byleth does, but even so.

I guess there is the fact that in Crimson Flower, versus all other routes, the Imperial army takes and holds Garreg Mach rather than the monastery being abandoned. Though the capture of Rhea is also a huge difference, too.

Rhea version is closer to truth contextually even if details got intentionally obscured. Where Eldegard say technically correct things but with completely wrong framing.

Which version of Rhea's history are we talking here? Because the 'official' version is absolutely not closer to the truth at all. The version she tells to Claude/Byleth at the end also has some speculation. She doesn't know Nemesis' motives, for example. The DLC promotional image ties into Sothis which means I'm willing to be we're getting a 'true history' version as DLC as much as that would suck for consumer friendliness reasons like it did with Fates.

Edited by RangerJackWalker on Sep 13th 2019 at 2:27:11 PM

Turns out obscuring history leads to people distrusting you. And yeah i would like to know Nemesis's motives.

I know it's hard to find screenshots or transcripts from the game still, but it would be helpful (even if only in the spoiler thread) to have those handy if we're going to be arguing about characters' omissions, half-truths, and 'from a certain point of view's.

Considering How he acts near the end I'm sure Rhea's is the closest. Because he acts exactly like a superpowered bandit who also got some strong leanings to caring about power more than anything(Byleth and Claude being "cowards" for not fighting him one on one) and proceeds to slaughter every village in his way to getting revenge on Seiros..

Edited by OmegaRadiance on Sep 13th 2019 at 5:12:00 AM

Speak of the devil, a huge Edelgard stan just posted a big write up on how she displays signs of mental illness. With the author's posts in the discussion, I think they lean a little bit too "Her trauma justifies her actions" for my tastes, but it's an excellent look at her mental state.

This all seems really well thought-out, honestly. I can see why people still think Edelgard did the wrong thing, and at this point I don't think any of us are going to change each other's minds, but that's okay - and like I've said before, that really speaks to the game's writing. I'm not really sure I've ever played a faction-based game before that takes the very subjective questions of "what is best for the future" and "what do you believe in" out of the game world, and makes the players find their own answers.

FGO took over my life for a few weeks, so I need to finish this