#las's asks

Edelgard is basically THE character that gets the entire story rolling. There is... A LOT that I could go into regarding the politics of FE3H's Fodlan and what the situation is but the simple version is:

The main religion is a monotheistic one worshipping a Goddess with various other figures having become revered as Saints over time, and over the last about 2,100 years has become extremely entrenched into the society of all three countries you see in-game and is known as the Church of Seiros. The noble houses of Fodlan have what's basically magic blood called "Crests" that give various abilities from incredible physical strength, to an incredible aptitude in certain kinds of magic, to being able to heal your own injuries in battle etc. And the church helps keep these nobles in power with the belief that the crests were granted by the Goddess herself, even ass they grow less and less powerful with each generation.

And since the nobility is seen as favoured by the Goddess this of course leads to a lot of exploitation of the lower classes- who have no access to any social mobility or education or anything because this is a feudal society- and noble women who have crests being used as political tools and breeding cows because having a child with a crest would immediately boost your status as nobles manifesting a crest have become increasingly rare by the time the game starts, and often they are a weaker "Minor Crest" instead of a full powered "Major Crest". The Church of Seiros also continues to help facilitate this system remaining in place for several thousand years thanks to the fact that it has the Knights of Seiros, its own private standing army. One that can act with impunity, as one of the early chapters of the game has the Archbishop of the church sending you and your students (which will include one of the three main lords: Edelgard, Dimitri, or Claude) into the Holy Kingdom of Faerghus to personally execute a lesser lord who dared to defy the church, and nobody bats an eye that the Church of Seiros did this completely independently of the Kingdom on the Kingdom's own soil to one of their own noble houses.

Hopefully this paints enough of a picture for you to start getting why Edelgard has looked at all this and said "Yeah this shit's got to go". This is in addition to her own tragic backstory being used as a tool by the nobility of the Adrestian Empire. She is the last surviving princess after the 7 main noble houses rebelled against the emperor to take more power for themselves and Edelgard and her siblings were given over to another faction who has been operating behind the scenes. Her and her siblings were kept in the dungeons of the castle, horribly mistreated, and experimented on until Edelgard was the only survivor (at only around 12 years old as well) and the only successful experiment, now a bearer of two crests instead of one.

The system was obviously not going to change through peaceful means as the Church of Seiros violently puts down anyone they want and the current system will support them the whole way. And so she planned to- upon succeeding her father as Emperor of Adrestia- launch a war against the Church of Seiros and anyone that kept supporting them. This decision was also affected by the fact that her two crests severely shortened her life, and so if Edelgard wanted to ensure her plans were carried out correctly and personally, she had to take the quickest and most direct path to ensure she had enough time to enact her reforms. She was also still under the thumb of the people that experimented on her, and the war was also a way for her to begin getting rid of those people as well (people her retainer Hubert decided to name "Those Who Slither In The Dark"). One thing I think some people overlook is that Edelgard is very much not making the decision to start a war lightly. Besides what I've already mentioned, there was canonically someone else who tried to more peacefully reform their country: Dimitri's father, the King of Faerghus. And as a result he was assassinated. Edelgard knows this, as it was the work of TWSITD and she's being forced to reluctantly work with them up to the point she finally betrays them due to them having infiltrated Adrestia so deeply.

This of course, makes her a very complicated character. A Princess who makes difficult decisions that people might find too agressive or violent, and yet they are things she has greatly thought through from her position stuck between a rock and a hard place with TWSITD's leader having shapeshifted and taken the face of her uncle, and thus having a lot of power in her Empire if she were to "mysteriously" die after disobeying them, and the mere idea of rebelling against the main militarized religious force on the continent. Which would also mean fighting the Kingdom of Faerghus as well due to how entrenched religious belief is in the Holy Kingdom. By necessity she engages in a lot of subterfuge so as to keep her true plans a secret from her enemies, and so when she finally declares war it is seen as a shocking betrayal by all involved.

But Edelgard is also, simply, a good person. While she is tough and disciplined and not afraid to make hard decisions that might make others waver, she also cares deeply for her people and her friends. She attempts to minimise conflict by spreading a manifesto with her reasoning for attacking the Church of Seiros and her intentions to merely remove the Archbishop from power and reduce the church's influence over society, not destroy the religion itself. Several times throughout her story route she repeatedly gives the enemy leaders chances to surrender, such as King Dimitri and Archbishop Rhea, a kindiness she is never afforded if you play one of the other routes where you fight against her. And iirc her route also has the least amount of the other playable characters that you're forced to kill, as you can usually spare them in some way besides a few.

Her willingness to use violence if necessary has caused lots of discourse in the playerbase, but imo it makes complete sense when you take in the full context of the world and situation she's in as well as the fact that when the status quo is kept in place through violence, you are not going to change it peacefully, especially not in the timeframe of Edelgard's shortened life. In the other routes she is forced to harden her heart as you push her back more and more, forced to allow TWSITD to provide her with aid more and more as the situation grows more desperate, and yet she continues to put as few innocent people in harms way as possible, the final battle involving her pulling her forces inside the Adrestian palace and letting you walk through the city unimpeded as opposed to the final fight in her route where Archbishop Rhea lights the capitol of Faerghus on fire with everyone still inside just to slow her down.

In contrast if you join her you get to see how her heart gradually softens and opens up after the trauma she was subjected to throughout her life, growing close bonds with Byleth, your main character, and the other characters that become her close friends. With the trust and aid of Byleth and the others she refuses help from TWSITD unless absolutely necessary, and is able to put into motions her plans to oust them from their positions of power. From her dialogue in-game as well as the endings, her route results in Fodlan becoming a meritocracy, a much better change from the feudalism everyone knew until this point, as well as implementing things like free public schooling at the suggestion of one of the other characters. She eventually successfully strips the nobility of their power and destroys TWSITD before abdicating her throne and leaving to die in peace (though there are some character endings where they do figure out how to remove a crest, which could save her life). All in all, the best end result for Fodlan.

Edelgard's story is the story of a traumatized child seeing and experienceing the injustices of the world, and while it hardens her heart she does not let it stop her from deciding that she is going to use her power to make this world a better place. She is a revolutionary who successfully began the change Fodlan needed, someone who's story only reaches its potential when she is able to open her heart and find strength in the connections she makes with other people. A very human story that affects Byleth just as much, as a woman who was propped up as a religious symbol by Archbishop Rhea partway through the story and dehumanised just as much as she was admired. It is Edelgard that keeps her grounded and human, culminating in the only ending where Byleth truly gets her humanity back with the power of the Goddess leaving her with Rhea's death and her heart quite literally beating for the first time in her life. It is tragic, it is beautiful, I love Edelgard so fucking much and there's so much more I could say about this game and her and Byleth and the other characters that I could say so much more about but that would take at least 2 more days to get through everything lmao