Just because it wasn't common in medieval times doesn't mean it couldn't have worked here.
And lets not pretend she didn't reach out to Claude and Dimitri because she didn't trust them, she simply didn't want to because her goal wasn't just removing the unfair crest system, it was to destroy everything related to the church and render them powerless, something that I would imagine would make cooperation more difficult as its such a unnecessary hostile move that could potentially lead to war and it isn't necessary for stopping the crest system. Instead she decided to stay with TWSITD despite them being horrible, untrustworthy and a Much bigger rsik in every single regard, be it for her goal or the entire continent itself. Again her actions were not the only way to change the world, but it was the most effective for destroying the church
Fair enough, that being said I would Imagine her father got his info from TWSITD as his empire broke off from the church and I doubt Rhea told him anything, and the point remains that she never bothered to search for the truth because she was blinded by hate
and in 3/4 routes she dies because the other team has the MC. And in his epilogue he spends years hunting TWSITD, again being a key aspect on her plans working out
Right. In 3/4 routes, she loses, because the other team has the MC. She walks right up to winning in all of them, though. Your presence is what tips the difference against her, but absent that, she probably just
wins.
As for the rest, I don't think that you're right that her goal was to wipe out the church. She talks about it in one of her supports, she's fine with the church as an institution of faith, it's the political power she has issues with. Which... is very much in keeping with her stated philosophy and certainly not a hate campaign, lol. Edelgard takes issue with the system of feudal nobility as it exists in Fodlan. This means she hates: the Church's theocracy, the Crests-based genetic caste system that flows from that theocratic doctrine, and the general feudal method of assigning power based on heredity rather than talent. She sets out to destroy all three of those things. That does mean she needs to destroy the Church, to dismantle its power infrastructure, but it also pits her against the nobility, other than those people she manages to convince to join her side. Which is honestly something the game should've gone into more - we know she gets Caspar and Lindhardt's dads' cooperation, but we have no idea
how. Probably by appealing to their nationalist tendencies, "restoring the old empire," even if that's really not at all what happens when you get into the details.
Anyway, that means that there's not really a clear path forward for her other than the one she took. She can't trust Claude and Dimitri for the reasons I got into above. If she
did trust them, she'd still end up pitted against the Church, and probably quite a few nobles, and then TWSITD on top of it, since we see how they react when they think they're losing control of her.
Edelgard may have noble intentions, but I'm not sure you can reasonably argue the ends justify the means. She had to know the potential human cost of starting a war of unification, and a war to completely dismantle the church.
Regardless of what route you select, it results in a bloody, five-year-long war, with each route having its own unique war atrocities. Even if Edelgard isn't the one to carry out lot of these war crimes, she still bears some responsibility for setting off the chain of events that led to them.
As for her actual reforms . . . I think her rhetoric is better than her results. Yes, she unifies Fodlan, which is great from a nationalist perspective, but isn't inherently a good thing. As for smashing the status quo, I dunno . . . She just didn't seem all that successful based on the epilogue. Sure the crest system is dead and nobles are no longer using OP weapons made from the body parts of Rhea's family. However, she doesn't actually fundamentally reform the political power structure. Nobles are still the ones in charge. And while she's an advocate of meritocracy, it seems like a lot of the nobles who get the reigns of power in the Crimson Flower route are (conveniently) Edelgard loyalists. For my run, it seemed like most of my crew went on to become lords of the empire. There was also no mention of Edelgard giving up the throne to her "worthy" likely hand-selected successor.
I like Edelgard a lot, and a lot of her goals . . . But I honestly think she could have done a lot of good through diplomacy after taking the throne. I know the church is based in-part on the Holy Roman Empire/ Catholic Church, but Rhea and her inner circle seem reasonable when you get to know them. They're not big supporters of the crest system or feudalism, they just happen to tolerate it to keep from rocking the boat . . . Or at least that was my interpretation of the church.
Oh, she absolutely knows the costs going in. It's part of what makes her interesting. She's committed to her course, and she's weighed the costs. She dials it down and still succeeds in her route, but toherwise, she goes for a maximal approach, and it would've worked if not for Byleth, so, you know, fair play. Ugly, but understandable.
As for the ends, you're making some assumptions about the ending, and I think you must've missed something, because she definitely abdicates once her reforms are insituted. But what exactly those reforms are is admittedly unclear. You're right that a lot of the end cards still seem to regard people as still being nobles, but her cards also explicitly say that she did away with hereditary nobility. There isn't really a way to square traditional nobility with meritocracy - either you're born into power, or you have to earn it, but you can't have both. So I kind of have to assume that the reason why the nobles who are still noble are that way because a) they were good enough to succeed under the new rules b) because they kept the titles and whatnot, and just altered the systems behind them, and c) because they didn't want to totally rewrite the end cards for the one route where there's not supposed to be traditional nobles. Which is a shame, but kind of in keeping with CF's overall lack of niceties.
Now, Rhea, I think you're being much too generous. Rhea and co were
there when the crested nobility was
created . Odds on, they were directly involved. Of course they don't care much about it either way, Rhea's goals are largely detached from it, but "eh, it's whatever" is a pretty abominable stance for them to take, as the creators and direct beneficiaries of the system.
Honestly, I wonder how much of truth Edelgard has was manipulated by TWSITD. They say in the game it has been many years since a member of house Hresvelg attended the academy ,so I'll guess the last one was her father, who curiously fell in love in the academy with Edelgard's mother.... Arundel's "sister".
The church and the Empire had relatively normal relations before that, so I wouldn't be surprised if Ionius's information was altered when he learned it, and became even more distorted when it was passed down to Edelgard.
GD made clear that the Agarthans played the long game, so it would make sense that they were planning and manipulating everything in the shadows of the empire for a long time, and unluckily for Edelgard, she and her siblings were the culmination of that planning.
Her reasoning doesn't make sense to me unless I tell myself that she was manipulated since she was a child - she says the church has enforced the Crest system (which is true) but TWSITD are the direct responsables of what happened to her and her family. If she wants revenge, they are the ones she should target. Rhea couldn't give less of a damn about what the empire did as long as they didn't bother her in her attempt to resurrect Sothis, so Edel could crush them and afterwards press for change in the nobility system (by doing the purge she already did), while formally announcing they are severing the ties with the church due to the enforcement they do of said system.
That's just it, Edelgard doesn't care much about revenge. She wants it, but she places a higher priority on what she sees as a massive, continent-spanning injustice.