im just thinking suddenly about gw/ag miklan and edelgard like

lol r u fckn kiddin me

they basically implied that the empire had their hands full on the western front (for the entire game in gw bc miklan never dies in gw, only matthias does)

and u got edelgard over here like I FIGHT FOR A NEW CRESTLESS SYSTEM SOCIETY IF U DON’T HAVE A CREST U WILL STILL GET POSITIONS OF POWER U DO SHIT BY YOUR OWN MERIT YEAHHHH

and a little tumbleweed blows by the entire western front like girl are you actually fucking serious right now are you literally murdering people left and right to change a system that right before your eyes has clearly already come apart at the seams in faerghus

like girl you’re literally behind the times get with it you RLY over here talking about a future for fodlan that can “only” happen if xyz but... it... already... happened... outside the empire... which means... if YOU are still having trouble fixing YOUR system AS THE EMPEROR with the supreme power of your country where YOU have the final say in shit... girl... that’s a fckn Y O U problem don’t drag the rest of fodlan into ur shit

now mind you in gw claude also manages to change the system in his country and fix their biggest problems (re: the roundtable during war), which means both leicester and faerghus ain’t havin’ a hard time fixing their systems or the overall crest problem in fodlan

nah that’s LITERALLY an empire based problem if y’all still havin’ a hard time over there bc the rest of fodlan is moving on without a hitch

“but the CHURCH likes their cwest system uwu”

cool seteth actually complimented miklan and has a good deal of trust in his ability at the western front and even got approval from rhea to send their personal soldiers to aid miklan in the defense of the sturdiest fortress in all of faerghus, possibly all of fodlan so what im telling u is that RHEA sent her own soldiers to AID A CRESTLESS COMMANDER WHO WAS PREVIOUSLY DISINHERITED AND DISOWNED and left their lives in his hands bc ya boi seteth has a good opinion of miklan BASED ON WHAT HE HAS SEEN/HEARD ABOUT HIM and ain’t even worried about his crest situation he lookin at the MAN not the crest or lack thereof (mind you this information is shown in ag, but all the routes show the story from a different perspective, which means seteth still had to talk to rhea about sending church soldiers to aid the west and defend from the empire which as i understand it, miklan had the highest authority or at least one of the highest authorities in that area, but rhea and seteth put their soldiers in the hands of a crestless man and seteth found him very capable)

so basically tl;dr edelgard’s entire reasoning for war falls apart completely because it’s literally only the empire having these issues still, two+ years (timeskip+time passed during the war) into all the lords taking full power in their countries. she basically goes to war with all of fodlan to conquer it just so everything is the empire, not to fix the system in “fodlan” because the only system that needs fixing at this point is the empire’s. instead of focusing on fixing the empire’s issues, she assumes the empire’s issues are everyone’s issues and goes to war over it because she can only see what’s happening in the empire.

NOW MIND YOU that two years was spent by dimitri by reforming the crest system and his own private army. he had miklan located before he even knew edelgard was going to start a war. he had him trained in military thoroughly by matthias himself (who has defended against sreng for many years and has the prowess to speak of) and successfully created a private army of commoners. everything edelgard is claiming she fights for was already done and sealed in faerghus BEFORE she even started a war and yet she didn’t even think about the continent outside of anything in her immediate view i.e. the empire’s problems which she assumed were fodlan’s problem, showing how tunnel visioned she is and how if the empire is having problems she’s gonna make it everyone’s problem.

so basically her only goal is to make the whole of fodlan under the empire’s flag and nothing else because the rest of the shit she claims to fight for has already been in progress elsewhere and she’s THAT ignorant to anything outside the empire that she’ll start a continental war over the issues within the empire.

mind you any nobility things in leicester like... nobody cared lmao the nobility protected the commonfolk and the commonfolk lived their lives literally like nobody cared about the system and everyone was fine. the lords at the roundtable argued and shit but like... usually it was just over their own territory and shit, it had nothing to do with crests and erwin was considered HIGHLY loved by his people regardless of having a crest.

erwin rly said like up yours @ edelgard and im here for it this guy is such a vibe and im trying not to like him so much bc of houses but im starting to fail the more i delve into his characterization in hopes ajkdhjasgdj erwin stOP