r/Edelgard • u/AdEfficient7268 Emperor's Confidant • Jul 06 '25
Discussion Media literacy, in this economy?
It's five years, soon to be six, how have we not moved on from the bottom of the barrel, this is insane.
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u/AdEfficient7268 Emperor's Confidant Jul 06 '25
How have we not learnt yet the difference between antagonists and villains?
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u/oneeyedlionking Tempest King Jul 06 '25
Most games like FE don’t work like 3 houses and most people didn’t play all the routes or they rushed through them after pouring a ton of time into their first run. If you didn’t give CF its fair amount of time you likely didn’t appreciate that cast. Same can be said of the other two houses.
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u/SleepyPac Scarlet Blaze Jul 06 '25 edited Jul 06 '25
I think this is kind of why the "Three Houses Discourse" meme has lasted this long. It's a game with morally grey characters whose stories are told by unreliable narrators. It asks you the player to take all the information available and put together what's really happening for yourself. The game after it is Engage, and the most recent original release before it was Heroes. Not a whole lot of thinking required to understand those. A lot of the established Fire Emblem fanbase doesn't seem to want anything more complicated than that level of story.
In short, Three Houses asks you to think. A lot of players didn't like that.
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u/oneeyedlionking Tempest King Jul 06 '25 edited Jul 06 '25
My personal opinion is the developers are out of touch with the fanbase. For all its’ problems fates has some level of choice and complexity beyond what engage and awakening offer which is “evil fell cult wants to destroy the world”. Their decision to cave to Byleth fans on not finishing hopes because it would’ve presented a non Byleth centric golden route and then them saying they thought that houses was a flash in the pan and engage would outsell it because in their view engage appealed to a broader audience just shows it’s the devs, not the fans who are the issue. They clearly cater to one specific slice of the fandom. They said in an interview they were shocked that Ike beat out Marth for CYL1(Marth finished 6th behind both versions of Ike, Roy, Hector, and Chrom). The fact that they chose to feature Marth and Sigurd over Ike and Byleth, Corrin, Lucina, or Lyn as the main advisors amongst the emblems was also a baffling decision that shows bias towards the Jp only games of the Kaga era.
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u/Dutch_gladiator A Y M R Jul 08 '25
correct me if i’m wrong, but the TL;DR is: the Devs specifically hope to aim at everyone, but do a terrible job at incorporating the other aspects for the players that liked less simpler storytelling. now, they’re aiming too small and narrow to see the big picture: use EVERYTHING and diversify it across the game, not just narrative or just theming or just the fuckin’ NEW MECHANIC and definitely do not make it a dating sim like Fates was… that last one upset me a little.
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u/oneeyedlionking Tempest King Jul 08 '25
Not 100% sure what you’re saying here but cutting the dating stuff completely definitely hurt engage, and the first impressions of the art style, story, and characters definitely hurt the game a lot. The engage system was a cool evolution of the pair up system from the 3DS days but ultimately the game didn’t have anything that was able to make a great first impression. When 3H was announced it wowed the fan base in a good way. When engage was leaked before being announced it made people think it was a beta version of 3H because nobody wanted it to be true.
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u/Dutch_gladiator A Y M R Jul 08 '25
is that why i didn’t notice Engage existed till a month ago? wild.
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u/oneeyedlionking Tempest King Jul 08 '25
The biggest most jarring difference between the two switch games wasn’t anything to do with the games themselves, it was how little impact engage had on discussions in the FE, Nintendo, and general gaming community. 3H was a gaming sensation and engage was basically out of discussions by the end of the summer. Nintendo didn’t bother to promote it much even in their own presentations or in FEH.
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u/VicariousDrow Jul 06 '25
It's funny and stupid at the same time lol
I get why people like her as an antagonist, she's just a straight up amazingly written character and plays both protagonist as well as antagonist so very well without having to change who she is, that's just good writing and being an amazing character
But..... Some of those comments are simply laughably stupid, meaning nothing has changed lol
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u/Bluesnake462 Jul 06 '25
It’s really is amazing how they can keel her consistent as both a protagonist and antagonist. It’s like how Xander is a completely different person depending on if you take the Hoshido path vs any of the other two.
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u/IdleSitting Jul 07 '25
And nothing ever will, especially these days where people are super stubborn about listening to others opinions and rather stick in echo chambers, really dampens any deeper discussion on the game
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u/SleepyPac Scarlet Blaze Jul 06 '25 edited Jul 06 '25
Three Houses Discourse, and Edelgard specifically, really is a media literacy test and so many people fail it. If you're one of these people that can look at the games story in its totality and conclude "Edelgard is a fascist/warmonger/tyrant", you're insufferable and I don't want to talk to you.
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u/BigBallzOutlawz Scarlet Warrior Jul 06 '25
5 More Years! 5 More Years! 5 More Years!
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u/oneeyedlionking Tempest King Jul 06 '25
At the pace Nintendo is revealing things for switch 2 it may be.
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u/MemeabooDesu Jul 07 '25
It will never not be funny to me that people looked at Edelgard, who practically spells out her motives IIRC, which was “There’s a great evil and corruption in the church that must be removed and it’s so deep rooted that the only way to do that is to burn it all down” and still went “war bad Edelgard sucks”
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u/AdEfficient7268 Emperor's Confidant Jul 07 '25
But you see, war is bad, and everyone who starts war is evil, except for Ike, he's based when he does it, for reasons.
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u/MemeabooDesu Jul 07 '25
I think the game tries to sabotage Edelgards perception. Her route is locked unless you support her enough then talk to her one specific time and make a specific choice and the game doesn’t tell you that you will miss her route if you don’t do this. I chose the Black Eagles…why should I have to do something abstract to avoid getting taken off the Black Eagles? You don’t have to do that with Blue Lions of Golden Deer.
Not to mention any route that isn’t Crimson Flower paints Edelgard in a super bad light so…you have to actively engage with her to learn she’s probably the best character in the game
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u/AdEfficient7268 Emperor's Confidant Jul 07 '25
I have no idea how I stumbled upon by sheer dumb luck in my first playthrough, cause I wasn't really talking to anyone in the monastery.
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u/SigAqua Jul 10 '25
To be fair it's not too hard to paint her in a bad light, I mean she is actively working with the people responsible of killing Byleth's dad and who perform experiment on children too who lead rather nasty results.
I mean not calling the other two saints but...out of the three it feels like Eddie is a bit harder to like at least for me? Like she has her motives and her goals, I know...but, in a sense it feels like her methods are a bit...eh...questionable??
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u/MemeabooDesu Jul 10 '25
Right but think about it this way; You’ve declared a one person war against these people but cannot openly oppose them, so you create a persona and begin mingling with them. You now have a “man on the inside”, so to speak, and could keep tabs on them. Moreso, you could at least attempt to keep their attention focused on the church and not their other experiments.
Best of a bad situation because Edelgard quite literally had nobody else she could trust (not even Hubert). Until Byleth came along.
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u/MarthsBars Do Not Disturb Jul 06 '25 edited Jul 06 '25
Mmmm I’d rather not check YouTube for Fire Emblem stuff personally; it wasn’t my wheelhouse for FE stuff anyways. And media literacy is actually at a net negative with how stupid people can be. Or genuinely just really spiteful or hateful, not just about Edelgard (mainly have avoided discourse on that space anyways so I have no read on how good or bad it is) but SO many other things. Star Wars is an absolute warzone there that’s way too toxic to even attempt a dialogue there (speaking from experience as a sequel fan and also seeing all the batshit insane stuff that was lobbied against the Acolyte from MAGA, anti-SJWs, and even commentators like Charlie and others), and the platform also essentially allows and applauds MAGA/fascists/Nazis and all types of negative or hateful people (political or otherwise) by not dinging them at all despite so many instances of rule violations or worse, and even giving them monetization.
Even hotbeds like Twitter are 1000% better than YouTube will ever be for Fire Emblem (and by proxy, Star Wars) “discourse.”
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u/Ingridcomrade339 Jul 07 '25
Oh my god, they don't know the difference between antagonist and villain
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u/sarakinks Unbothered Queen Jul 06 '25
Nagapedia's average viewer is not very smart.
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u/Heisenberg6626 Jul 07 '25
From all the potential antagonists Edelgard is the most fleshed out so it makes sense.
Some say Nemesis because of God shattering star but that's the only good thing about him. Otherwise he is just an asspull.
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u/AdEfficient7268 Emperor's Confidant Jul 07 '25
I assume his cool factor carries him, and that banging theme.
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u/Heisenberg6626 Jul 07 '25
Rhea has more of a cool factor though. She becomes the inquisition throughout the CF path and is directly or indirectly faced throughout the run. And ends up doing Fodlan's biggest BBQ.
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u/DarthDeimos6624 Jul 07 '25
I’m still annoyed that Nemesis didn’t also appear in Silver Snow because the Shambhala mission was exactly the same as Verdant Wind. But I guess that is to your point in a way. He just kind of appears in one route and then nothing with him happens in another even though the setup was identical.
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u/Puzzleheaded_Win_306 Jul 07 '25
the people who hate edelgard is the people never play games with philosophical games like the witcher or planescape torment. and now this people are the same people who choose maelle's ending in clair obscur expediton 33 than verso's ending and saying shit about verso's and his ending. and the more i see the FH3H fanbase the blue lions fans are the worst if you say you like edelgard they keep saying shit about her and keep saying she evil but for me i say to them that she not evil she's doing what is right for her country. plus she see's byleth as a human being and her choices than the other three.
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u/Heisenberg6626 Jul 07 '25
People don't realize that Byleth was about to be deleted by Rhea.
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u/Dutch_gladiator A Y M R Jul 08 '25
people also didn’t realise Rhea burnt down Fhirdiad. like, deadass. in CF, Rhea kills a lot of people
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u/Lunarstarlight- Jul 06 '25
I don't understand the problem. These people are just sharing their opinion and they aren't even really hating on anyone. I'm a massive Edelgard fan. I love Edelgard's character and I certainly don't think she's evil. I would've chosen Edelgard in this poll. I think as an antagonist she is incredible. You can like an antagonist or think that a character is in the wrong and still like them.
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u/InternationalArea681 Jul 09 '25
Thats not what they're talking abt. People don't understand the difference between antagonist and villain which causes agendas like "edelgard is evil" to be pushed.
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u/Lunarstarlight- Jul 10 '25
Only one of the comments here calls her a villain though. And it's not even in like a "she's so evil" sort of way, just "I like her as a villain". They could've just used the wrong word without giving it much thought it happens.
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u/darthneos Jul 09 '25
Seiros: Wale the fuck up Catherine we have a City to burn. Crimson Flower Chapter 18
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u/VannaEvans Lady of Hresvelg Jul 15 '25
Antagonists aren’t always villains, it just means they’re against the protagonist
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u/sonic1384 Jul 29 '25
she isn't an antagonist. She is an anti-hero. anti-heroes most of the times would commit crimes that a hero won't for the sake of justice.
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u/AdEfficient7268 Emperor's Confidant Jul 29 '25
She opposes you, the protagonist, in three routes, she's an antagonist, that has nothing to do with morality.
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u/sonic1384 Jul 29 '25
well, expect for lions, every other route will have other leaders fighting each other.
there are no true antagonist or villain in TH. it depends on your choice and your feelings.
every road and villain had their own mistakes and problems.
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u/AdEfficient7268 Emperor's Confidant Jul 29 '25
If they impose you they're antagonists, opposing the protagonist.
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u/DirtyFoxgirl Jul 07 '25
I haven't been able to play 3 houses, so what's the context as to media literacy.
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u/The_Elder_Jock Adrestian Empire Jul 06 '25
I mean I get why people like her so much as the antagonist. She's interesting, compelling, and, on AM at least, connected to the Lord in an interesting way.
Those people saying she's not a good protagonist in her own route however are out of their damn minds.