going through my camera after a day out birding

I've seen you mention that there is an important distinction between an antagonist and a villain, so what is this distinction and is Edelgard an antagonist, villain or both?

It’s about literary terminology and it’s semantic but well - semantics do matter.

Antagonist - The force that a protagonist is up against.  Protagonist is the “main character” that a story focuses on, the antagonist is their main obstacle.   Ie - in Breath of the Wild, Link is the protagonist, Ganon’s Malice / Calamity Ganon is the antagonist.  In FE7, Lyn, Eliwood, and Hector are the protagonists of their routes with Nergal / the Black Fang as the antagonists.  

The thing about protagonists and antagonists is that these are neutral terms.  They aren’t moral judgments, it’s just figuring out the focal point.  In How the Grinch Stole Christmas, the Grinch is the protagonist even though he’s openly malicious 3/4s of the story.  In Untitled Goose Game, the goose is the protagonist even though your goal is to terrorize an English town.   The Joker in 2019 movie is the protagonist and Thomas Wayne / Society are the antagonists.

Hero-Villain is a much more subjective dichotomy but well, you can still get a feel for who the hero of a story is supposed to be by the acts they take, the morals they use, etc.  Same with villains.

In a broad sense, Fire Emblem draws from the same story each time when it creates its heroes and villains.  Heroes tend to be the “lord” characters and those associated with them - ie Marth, Sigurd/Seliph, Alm, Roy, Elincia-Ike, Chrom-Lucina.  Villains tend to be the Red Emperor ie Hardin, Arvis, Rudolf, Zephiel, Ashnard, Walhart.

So this entire distinction came about because certain groups of Redditors, shockingly enough, conflate the two to argue that Edelgard CAN’T be the bad guy because she’s a protagonist and protagonists are never bad!! and/or that she’s only a villain 3/4 of the time because villainy isn’t a default when you are the main character.

And... this is not how this works.

What’s going on is that Edelgard is the protagonist in one route (Black Eagles -White Clouds into Crimson Flower) and the antagonist 3/4 of the post-timeskip routes.  This is not a value judgment, whether she’s right or not, etc.  It’s just what the term means.

Now this is where I go full value judgment and argue that she’s always the villain - her route just wants to play coy about it.  I had someone argue once that “villain” is an icky term and “antivillain” works better but like, I’m not entirely sure what else to call advocating genocide of a nearly-distinct race as well as invading two countries for your own gain here.  You can dress it up how you want but at the end of the day, in pure Fire Emblem language, Edelgard’s your villain and, per the developers themselves, serving as the Red Emperor with all the attached connotations.

imo "cf is about humanity and that's why it's the good ending" is projecting from other media, because most media with a character that could choose humanity choosing it is the "good"ending. i like that three houses lets you be a dragon god if you want and doesnt make you give tha part of byleth up. as you said humanity isnt a theme of the game. it's like how people project evil jrpg church on the church of seiros

You know what gets me in all of this? Rhea is presented in a very human way. All of her struggles are very real and very human struggles. Loss, denial, desperation, anger, fear, stubbornness... Are these not human emotions? Does Rhea not feel as a human feels?

I mean not to get all philosophical, but if someone looks like a human, acts like a human, and feels like a human, then what exactly makes them not human? What makes them so deserving of death?

And this applies to Seteth and Flayn more than anyone. They cannot transform anymore. They are physically identical to humans in almost every way, except for their pointy ears and their very long lifespans. Yet Edelgard believes they deserve to die because they are not humans. Where are we drawing the line? They look, think, feel, and act like humans do. What about them necessitates their slaughter?

friendly reminder that the election of Donald Trump wasn’t even the weirdest thing to happen in 2016; we also learned that the President of South Korea was being mind-controlled by her shaman psychic self-help guru, a story so bizarre that even her enemies thought it must be exaggerated but it totally happened.

“Dimitri’s a hypocrite in CF 17 Edelgard’s response is totally justified and she’s the only one who understands the sacrifices of war” yet It’s Edelgards war and she never sacrifices a damn thing. Unless you headcanon Hedgemon in AM as permanent brain damage. Which is never shown or stated. Since it’s not a black beast. Heck I don’t even think she counts as a dragon for bonus damage from the relics.

Ah but see poor Edelgard was punished by having to kill Dimitri.  And she sacrifices so much, don’t you know?  She’s so torn up about the blood at her feet but at least she’s “rational” about it.

(Seriously.  If anyone uses the logic of “It hurts me to hurt you and my pain is what’s important here” - that’s emotional abuse.  Drop them like hot tater tots.)

I really hate how much Edelstans have soured things. I was looking for a blind playthrough of Xenoblade Definitive to watch, and I found a decent one and saw the let’s player was also playing 3h. And lo and behold he’s talking about how “Dimitri’s a hypocrite in CF 17 Edelgard’s response is totally justified and she’s the only one who understands the sacrifices of war” and I just could not continue watching the other let’s play knowing he thinks defending from invasion is “hypocritical.”

Eeughh - well, as always, speak with your wallet here and deny them the views if it ruins your experience.

I know it sounds condescending to say I just find it sad but - I just find it sad.  Imagine having to go through all the mental gymnastics, all the lack of self-awareness, all the re-writing of canon, how deep in an echo chamber you have to be for the “but CF is the best, really!!!!” like - seriously.  is a package of pixels in a mediocre game really worth all that?   What do you gain here?

Which yes, I recognize the irony of “talking about the thing that you say isn’t worth talking about” but enh.  I’ve never not claimed to be a loser.

Remember when Ursula K. Le Guin called JK Rowling a nasty basic bitch back in like, 2004? We should have listened

Never really thought about it but it's extremely morbid that in CF Rhea gets killed with the remains of her mother. The more I think about it the more tragic CF is for Rhea.

Right?!?! Poor girl just wants her mom back and she gets slaughtered by a barely-adult with a god complex.

Fives, very much drunk: y’know Rex, it’s time we had a talk. About my 20% raise. It’s time. I’ve been carrying this team on my back ever since my first day... *leans closer, whispering dramatically for effect* ...and my back is getting tired.

Rex, staring back at fives tiredly, deadpan: fives. we don’t get paid at all.

Remember when Nintendo was like affordable and most kids, even lower class could grow up playing them but then they randomly decided to release a console for $200 and the controllers cost like $70 each to replace and all the games cost at least $60. Remember when you could get a dslite for under a hundred dollars and the games all at most cost $40 so even like less privileged kids could get one game for Christmas if we were all good with money, and it was the cheapest most obtainable system in the market of video games. Remember that?

The “enlightenment guy” can be found on the latest “why CF is the true ending” post on r/FE. It also has the Edelgard is punished by killing Dimitri take, and includes the truly odd notion that Claude is punished by killing Edelgard (Wtf?). And somehow thinks Edelgard is the “light” despite having 0 scenes showing her actively bringing light to anyone. Really likes his headcanon.

Thank you Anon!

Aw fuck. Losing the crest stone at the end of CF almost makes sense to me now symbolically. It’s a death and rebirth because they’ve fallen back into the cycle. Which is not meant to be a good thing, pretty sure the main crux of most belief systems including reincarnation is you want to eventually escape it by learning all there is to know. If they actually put any thought into it. Could just be a dumb scene.

I like to read it as like... symbolic of a mother’s heart breaking.

If you think about it, Sothis gave up her independent form to save Byleth before Byleth made the choice to side with Edelgard. Then Sothis was powerless to object or do anything as Byleth sided against Rhea and finished wiping out her children.

Or yeah, knowing CF, it could just be a dumb scene.