Primals - A Discussion on Ethics & Philosophy (ARR & HW Spoilers)

[Alleo]

Folks need to stop trying to portray Thordan as a mwa ha ha moustache-twirling evil villain. He was a LOT more nuanced than that.

First off, Aymeric was never tortured, as far as I can remember.

He is nuanced (and I like him as an enemy) but he is far from being innocent and imo deserved his fate at the end.

Yes Aymeric was tortured. He went there in fine health but after we free him out of his prison he is hurt and has problems with standing straight. That imo does not happen from just sitting in prison. Yes he could have just killed his son but he might still have felt some sort of emotion towards him and who knows if he wouldnt had just tempered him after he was done with us. If he would have killed us and let Aymeric rot in prison there would have been no people left that could have opposed him thus he could have a free hand.

He might have told these kind of motivations to Aymeric but in the fight against us he made it quite clear that he wants to rule all and since he already tempered his faithful knights, he would achieve his reign with tempering too. That are not the actions of a good man. He also knew the truth yet kept on having the war go on, and turned primal even though we were already trying to achieve true peace. IMO its better to let the people know the truth than keeping them living a lie that would just end in so much sadness, rage and hate.

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He knows what the Ascians are and what they do and took their offer to lure them into a trap.

Defeating the Dravanians with the aid of a primal was a plausible reason for them to teach him how to summon one so he could use it against them. If he actually managed to kill Nidhogg with it too then that's two birds with one stone. After Nidhogg's death he puts up a show about trying to keep a lid on the lie to make sure the Ascians think he's still on board of their plans and has some flimsy excuse to want some of that primal power.

If it was only about Ascians why not work truly together with the WoL? Instead after we take care of one Ascians and he took down the other one, he turns around and immediately challenge us to a fight to the death. Why do that if the only reason he took all the power, was to defeat the Ascians? Its just simply because we know the truth behind the war and this was not good for his plan which was declaring himself a god-king and make a reign of peace by using his power (and probably tempering) and letting all people live a life full of lies (and maybe even not free will). On top of that this might have meant the death of the whole dragons since they are a thorn in his eye even though not everyone was fighting against them. Such a fight would probably not have ended fast since the elder dragons are not that weak thus lots of death, consumed aether and maybe another calamity depending on the scale of such a battle.

We did not know how the people would react to the news and maybe they all would have been in denial and it could have ended in a different way but at least Aymeric would have done all he could and people would have their own choice if they believe it or not. Thankfully it turns out well, without the need of constant tyranny and countless deaths, the change of their government and maybe a way brighter future for the common people somewhere down the line.

Ysayle never wanted to conquer them all and did not want to force her will onto the whole people. She just wanted to reveal the truth and change the fate of not only the dragons but also of the people. She did it not in a good way (and a bit naive too) but she saw through her mistakes and tried to redeem herself at the end.