Cornelia Arnim

Cornelia is a major villain in Fire Emblem:Three Houses. She is apower hungry politician and member of the Those Who Slither in the Dark

Personality
Cornelia is a self-serving tyrant, willing to do anything for power, even if it means murdering Dimitri’s uncle and framing the former for her crimes.

Story
Cornelia takes place among the top figures in the Kingdom of Faerghus as a strong influence in the political scene. Using her position, Cornelia masterminds many of the most horrific moments in the game's history and current plot. Sought help by Patricia, the Queen of Faerghus, to help her reunite with her daughter, Cornelia uses this opportunity to help arrange a terrible incident that will leave great discord and terrible implications. With the help of her leader, the aforementioned Thales, Cornelia deployed their forces to attack the Royal Family of Faerghus along with a large number of knights and nobles as a smokescreen for Patricia to fake her death in hopes to see Edelgard. This was the Tragedy of Duscar which cause a horrible disturbance in the kingdom, with Cornelia taking central reigns and directing the blame towards the people of Duscar due to the attack happening near their lands. Faerghus believing her went to massacre the innocent Duscar people, taking the lives of everyone, even children. Thousands of people died without doing anything wrong, and the surviving members of the Duscar people were discriminated and abuse, all things Cornelia intended to create more dissonance. She even directed the blame to a number of other nobles including Christophe, the eldest son of Lord Lonato, due to knowing their deaths can be use to manipulate others in creating more chaos or for being potential threats.By the time the game takes place, the action of Cornelia has done a number to all the conflicts of the story. She started to create unrest among the politics in Faerghus to help her position. The worse is the the effects it has in Dimitri, haunting and destroying his sanity slowly due to witnessing the all the death and destruction in the Tragedy of Duscar, waking a mad beast who only wants to kill those who oppose him. This eventually lead to Dimitri go to war against Edelgard after finding out she was the Flame Emperor and her Adestrian Empire due to believing she was responsible for the tragedy. This was what Cornelia wanted, to drive Faerghus in a state that it would want to go to war with the Empire and create a bloody conflict.Her actions in the Azure Moon route is where she really shows her worse. During the 5 years that Byleth is in a coma, Dimitri's sanity gotten worse due to the toll of the war and Cornelia's corruption, turning him into a bloodthirsty tyrant. Planning to usurp Dimitri, she murders his uncle and frames him by claiming he wanted revenge believing his uncle had a role in the Tragedy of Duscar. After successfully implicating him and turning the powers of Faerghus in turning against him, she tried to have him executed and failed. Now taking the leadership of Faerghus, she made dealings with the Empire, essentially selling the kingdom out to the enemy. Now with full control, she uses the support of the empire to eliminate rebelling nobles, to drive the kingdom to her whims. Her end goal is the complete and utter destruction of the Kingdom of Faerghus. However with the help of a newly awoke Byleth, Dimitri was able to gather the loyalist of the kingdom and eliminate Cornelia, who in her last words reveal to Dimitri the significant role his adoptive mother Patricia had in the tragedy, and that she never truly loved him. Dimitri was shocked by this revelation, but with Cornelia dead, he had no way of determining if she had spoken the truth about his step-mother's involvement and turned his focus to fighting the Empire.