Quote Originally Posted by Theodric View Post
The use of a chemical weapon was to avoid excessive losses among a force that is incapable of using aether. The protagonists can paint it as a 'horrific' approach to warfare but conveniently it does no such thing when it comes to other traumatic methods of death such as blasting people with fireballs, running them through with swords, afflicting opponents with magical diseases or drowning/crushing them with water and debris as we saw with the fall of Doma Castle.

The use of Black Rose was a sound enough move and the real complication lay in the unintended side effects in the form of a Calamity. The weapon was also only used in response to Garlemald itself being invaded and in an alternative universe at that, so...

It's not even necessarily Varis who would opt to use it since apparently that universe still exists based on the Exarch's continued existence.

Either way, the entire plot felt rather contrived and messy. I wouldn't be surprised if it was wrapped up very quickly to justify diving right into Shadowbringers.
'Unintneded side effects?' The calamity was intended. Even Varis is on board with the calamities as shown in the parlay scene with him. He knew about them. The empire was made as a tool to bring about calamities by the ascians, and has been waging wars of conquest to help facilitate them. And while your average garlean doesn't know about acian angle, they're still waging wars of agression all over the world. If Garlemald was invaded in the bad future it would be in retaliation of its constant warmongering, Garlemald is NOT the victim in any such scenario. Even the public reasoning for their war is revealed to be an outright lie in SB's latter patches, one that didn't take all that much thought to punch holes in once the characters thought about it critically.