I've said it before, but one of the things that's dear to me about Edelgard is that her nature is in opposition to her position.
Frankly, Edelgard isn't nearly as devious or manipulative as she should be in her position. She isn't great at subtlety. She isn't even particularly good at lying or hiding her feelings.
If Edelgard were smart, she would spend the school months posing as a pious, Seiros-loving church girl. She should be the epitome of religious obedience. She should be putting Mercedes and Marianne to shame with her prayer and devotion.
But Edelgard can barely restrain her own contempt for the church at any given moment. She can barely get through a single C support with her classmates without launching into some kind of speech about the moral decay of the nobility. She can't even stand in a head-to-toe disguise in front of her teacher without nearly blurting out her plan. Edelgard is blunt and honest to a fault. Little Miss Why Can't I Just Use My Axe to Cook is not made for subtlety. She's made for stark red outfits and marching at the front lines and speaking her mind.
But she can't be that when she's trying to carry out a secret plot with the Slithers. She relies on subterfuge and secrets because it's necessary, but it's not Edelgard's natural state. She can hardly wait to drop the act and start babbling about her plans for a secular government at the slightest provocation.
This girl wants to be honest and up-front so bad that it hurts. Which makes it that much more fascinating to watch her constantly holding herself back and trying to do the exact opposite.
