Blue Lions, I’d say. I feel it has the best story, and the other routes either proved to be too short (Crimson Flower) or too similar to each other (GD and Church). Also, do not for the life of you look at the subreddit. It’s mostly Edelstans spamming “wholesome” yuri shit and coming up with yet another “Edelgard did nothing wrong!” post.
so which side is right?
Edelgard is definitely a bitch, it just so happens that killing everyone is actually an effective method of conflict resolution.
I would say that neither is fully “right”, but Edelstans are much more prominent than “literally Hitler” critics. I personally think Edie works best as a tragic villain as seen in every route other than CF, with BL doing that best by contrasting her flaws turning into villainy with Dimitri’s virtues helping him rebound from his madness.
I feel that Arvis is a better Edelgard. He shows the repercussions of his ambitions for a better world biting him in the ass, which CF fails to provide, and his relationship with his shadow benefactors is much more clearly one of pressure rather than advantage, which is something the Dubsteppers fail at, since they seem more like puppets used by Edelgard and promptly disposed of. Edelgard using the Slithers hurts the idea that her abuses were on them, since they don’t seem strong enough to make her do anything that she wouldn’t do anyway.
That's really interesting, she was by far my least favorite. Her snark got old fast and she looks like she was designed by a tumblr user. That said, I didn't really like any of the characters that much and she might grow on me in the supports, considering I haven't done any of them yet. They just felt out of place compared to the rest of Three Houses. Even worse than that, though, the entire story felt out of place. A secret fourth house? Trying to revive Byleth's mother, who was retconned as being buried in the Abyss? Another evil Church member? None of this mattering to the main story? I would have preferred for them to have added content to Crimson Flowers and reworked Silver Snow at this point.
Maybe I should have reworded that sentence. Even though she's my favorite out of the four, she's nowhere near my favorite 3H character, let alone favorite FE character. That award belongs to Ferdinand and Sigurd.
It's a side story and DLC. I'm not exactly sure what your expectations were. If they didn't release Cindered Shadows then most people would agree that this was a scam. The writers had very little room to begin with since it's seven chapters long, so taking some liberties with what's already been established while trying to avoid stepping on the toes of the main story doesn't really ruin the story, at least for me. Think of 3H like Thracia 776. While many would consider the latter as canonical to FE4 despite the massive retconning, it's really more of a permutation of events. Each house in 3H is a permutation and the Ashen Wolves are no different. CF is a permutation of Edelgard surviving, AM is a permutation of Dimitri surviving, and CS is a permutation of the war potentially being prevented.
It's not that its just a side story, it's that it's a side story that introduces questionable content to the lore and doesn't make much sense. Why not a DLC in Dagda, Brigid, or (even better) Morfis? Why has no one talked about this fourth house until now? Why is it so easy to find them? Why did we not hear about the apostles until they were introduced (I think) in an update? They had tons of opportunities to do a side story in a unique location and culture and instead we got this.
