idk if the game could've been any MORE explicit with how little empathy El has for the people under her lmfao. she explicitly and outright tells the player VERY early on in the game that she's willing to throw her citizens' lives away for HER ideals. how do you read that and think 'yeah I think this chick cares about the common man!'????????

where that "revolutionary" spin on CF ever came from when you're literally the greatest power in the whole land (crushing anyone who resists you) is BEYOND ME lmao

seriously, the stans make it so fucking hard to enjoy her character

because I do! I genuinely like her and think she's one of the most fascinating and complex characters in the whole game that I'd looove to dig into more! but... I feel like I'm afraid to talk at all about her with anyone bc 1) I'm worried about certain aggressive fans finding the discussion and deeming my interpretations Wrong and tf unacceptable and worth harassing me over. but 2) (and primarily) because it feels so hard to find other El fans (to talk about/enjoy her with) that I feel like I can trust to... just be fucking normal and not be incredibly toxic, basically lmao

like, you've got to basically vet every new fan you come across??? because so many of her fans will happily just level such vile misogyny and abelism and shit at anyone they disagree with (and at characters they see as in competition with her popularity. tho--while still not great--that's obviously a much milder concern than the active real world harassment they engage in). and literally stalk and harass people over a fucking video game character! it's exhausting to have to weed out whether people are normal and capable of engaging with and enjoying a character non-toxically without spewing vitriol at people they disagree with

but even worse, so many at first glance seemingly nice and normal fans who don't actively engage in the harassment themselves turn out to be biiiig fans of the known harassers and are, at the very least, turning a blind eye to their blatant harassment but far too often are quietly actively encouraging and applauding the harassment too

it's too bad bc she's such an interesting character (and so many interesting facets of other characters are informed by her actions/presence and how they relate to her), but it's like impossible to discuss the meat of her character/what makes her so interesting and complex and a GOOD character bc of the concern over how that certain very vocal, very toxic subset of her fans will react if they catch you voicing an opinion that doesn't line up with their interpretation

something something margaret thatcher girlpower meme

For as much as we like to make fun of Ladlestans for not willing to admin their fave is in the wrong, I think the game's feet needs to kinda be put in the fire too honestly for not engaging with Ladle's actions, whether it be how they're framed or the lack of consequences barring a few endings and even then those are optional.

I go back and forth on whether I think CF was meant to be a villain route trying to trick the players into thinking they’re the heroes (and that’s the cause of all the underhanded framing and lack of consequences), or if it really is just that poorly written and contradictory with the rest of the game because they were trying to shove an unambiguously heroic story onto the primary antagonist of the game (who, by her nature as the primary antagonist, cannot be unambiguously heroic).

because that’s the whole reason she’s such a divisive character. the game can’t decide what it wants her to be and is trying to do two contradictory things with her: present her as a compelling antagonist in 3/4 of the routes, but as a straightforward hero in her own. so it makes sense that there’s such division over whether she’s heroic or villainous because both interpretations are true, despite being contradictory. I don’t fault people for preferring the more positive depiction–it’s definitely an intended read and that's valid! personally, I think the positive read requires too much willful disregard of the reality the game presents, only taking El's word and ignoring everything else, for it to work (and also results in a lot of warping of other characters' canon characterization to glorify her which I really don't like), so it doesn't work for me.

the problem lies in the *unambiguous* aspect of her depiction in CF. if they had allowed for a bit more nuance in how CF depicted her and not tried to paint her as unambiguously heroic, I think it would have worked a lot better. she would have come off as what I think was the original intention: someone who means well and has good aims, but has a heavy handed and bloody approach to achieving her goals that results in excessive collateral. then the question would have been do the ends justify her (bloody) means? were her goals ultimately heroic enough to justify the villainous methods she achieved them with? is she a hero for her good intentions or a villain for her bad methods?

but instead… it’s like they were afraid not everyone would like/sympathize with her enough, so chickened out of keeping that nuance in her own route. only problem is they’d already written the overarching plot (and the other three routes) around the more antagonistic depiction, so we end up with a route that, at face value, is insisting she (and the route as a whole) is something clearly contradicted by the rest of the story. CF is kind of forced to use that underhanded framing, lying and misinforming the player, ignoring the consequences, and insulating El from any real challenges to make it work. I think the dissonance that causes is what’s at the heart of the backlash towards her heroic depiction. if you take the story of CF at face value (especially if you’ve already played any other routes), it's very unsettling to accept the triumphant victory it tries to present. we know there are horrible consequences to her actions and the people she’s attacking are undeserving of her aggression, so instead, what she’s doing comes off as even more wrong, no matter how positively CF tries to paint it. you just end up with a route that’s trying to claim it's good while purposefully painting over her crimes, demonizing good people for the crime of standing against her, and twisting her conquest into a good thing.

like I said, there’s enough in there even in CF alone (like the very ominous end mural that involves El trampling the other powers’ flags underfoot and is based off a freaking Napoleon portrait!! we know these murals had a lot of thought/symbolism put into them so that choice had to be for a reason, right?) to make me think that unsettling feeling is intentional and they want the player to dig deeper and realize it’s not the triumph it’s trying to present itself as. but then I think about all the intentional choices throughout the route to obfuscate that and whitewash El’s image and push her on the player and woobify her and I’m just left scratching my head and totally confused at what IS was trying to achieve here???

Didn't Thales cause all of El's grief and pain tho, and not Rhea and the Church, or Claude and Dimitri, or the random poor people living in Remire, or any of the other parties she's dedicated her life to destroying?

yeah this is a big part of what makes her work well as a sympathetic but ultimately misguided villain, but causes her to fall so flat as a hero for me. Thales and the agarthans were the ones responsible for all her grief and pain and she KNOWS this, yet they successfully manipulate and twist her into wrongfully focusing all that rage and bloody quest for justice on an innocent third party instead. in doing so, she makes a personal tragedy into the entire freaking world’s problem and ruins so many more lives to get back at the world for a wrong those actually facing her wrath weren’t responsible for.

she's a very tragic figure imo and 3H, regardless of route, is always a tragic story. but the whole tragedy of the game/her war is something she directly causes. it works great as a motivation for a tragic and sympathetic villain to be so terribly misguided in their quest, but horrible for a hero to spend their entire game attacking the wrong freaking party and completely ignoring the actual responsible party, only relegating dealing with the true villain to an offscreen epilogue (while freaking working with them the entire actual game to boot).

this is kind of related, but I think it's a great example of how one of her greatest strengths is also one of her greatest weaknesses (and I love, love, love when a character has a strength/weakness like that). she’s incredibly driven, confident, and self-assured, which allows her to achieve her goals despite the cost, challenge, and the world standing in her way. but it also means she can be absolutely blinded to anything that might challenge her beliefs/goals; she won’t question the lies she’s fed if they support the worldview she wants to believe and will press on regardless, turning a blind eye to anything that challenges the truth of the path she’s set for herself.

seriously. my single biggest frustrations with this fandom (and why I have SO MUCH thoughts, theorizing, discussion, etc. pent up that I want to get out, but have no outlet to do so lol) is how a certain very loud, aggressive subset of the fandom has basically ensured that no one can talk about this one character (and, by extension, any aspects of other characters' arcs/actions/the story that relate to hers) unless it meets their specific criteria of acceptable takes

and it's soo frustrating bc like..... I genuinely like her character? she's honestly one of my favorites (I mean, how could she not be? she's one of the single most important, interesting, and complex characters in the game), but not in a Fandom Approved™️way lol

kinda feels like I've got no one to talk to since most of her so called "fans" don't like to acknowledge huge chunks of her actual in game characterization/actions (and doing so will get you branded as a hater/troll) ...but her stans are so loud and vitriolic that's they've basically poisoned the discussion for everyone else and driven them off to the point where nearly everyone else can't stand her character/discussing her thanks to them

but she's fascinating and heartbreaking and I really want to talk about those aspects of her character/story that I love! but a large part of what resonated with me in her character/story is how tragically misguided, flawed, and wrong she is. she makes such a great tragic sympathetic villain in the routes where she fails (in large part due to her massive flaws). and the route where she wins has such a deeply disturbing undertone of wrongness to me because, even though she thinks she's won, she's basically played right into her greatest enemy's hands and given them exactly what they wanted in her blindness to everything but her goals (that they manipulated her into pursuing). fuck! it's such a great, tragic story!!

but even acknowledging that she's been manipulated by tws/td means acknowledging not everything she did was right/justifiable.... and so much as acknowledging she has flaws/stating that even a single action of hers wasn't entirely justified is enough to get you branded a hater and it's like ??? how the fuck are you supposed to have any meaningful discussion when you're not allowed to acknowledge a character's flaws? every freaking well written character out there has flaws! that's usually a huge part of what makes them so good!!!

I also think part of my ....not hatred but discomfort with that line (and p much every one of El's lines that chapter/most of CF too lbr) was bc I initially went into CF expecting to view it straight as a heroic route when. good fucking god is that hard to do lmao

pretty much all the dialogue in that chapter is, uhh, let's just say a biiit unsettling if you try to take it straight and view El as the hero of the story lol

like some of the shit she spews is just so goddamn gross, victim blamey, and awful (while she's conquering a sovereign nation and mocking their leader for resisting) that it legit grossed me out at first?? CF felt sooo disturbing until I finally stopped trying to view it as a heroic route and accepted it was the game letting you play the villains (but when you accept that, it's fuckin great)

alsooo people who bitch about the "must you continue to reconquer? continue to kill in retaliation?" line being badly written, mistranslated, ooc, or whatever are COWARDS that line is PEAK EL too and i fuckin love it

kinda want to write about all the contrasts in Dimitri and El's characters (because seriously they so noticeably/nicely foil each other in so many fun ways!)

buuut actually listing all of them out, so many points of contrast between them are ones where it feels like Dimitri is given the clearly more heroic character trait in contract to El's more traditionally villainous trait

and 1) should probably not make a big write up about that bc I can already envision the annoying response that would garner

but 2) I think I just realized... that's probably why so many certain fans are so freaking intent on mischaracterizing/misinterpreting Dimitri's character and plastering those misinterpretations everywhere until everyone takes them as fact. bc if Dimitri's meant to foil El and nearly everywhere he does so he is pointedly more heroic than her, then what does that say about her character??