Quote Originally Posted by Theodric View Post
I see this place continues to be an echo chamber for the self righteous, unfortunately. There's no need to get up in arms over a debate regarding the lore of a video game of all things...and it's perfectly possible for people to simply agree to disagree instead of regurgitating the exact same arguments every time Garlemald happens to be mentioned as a point of discussion.

As far as I'm concerned there's not enough information present to say with certainty that Garlemald lacks any justification for their actions. I also don't believe that real world morals should be forced upon fantasy races, organisations and individuals. It just makes for a dull, boring narrative. If anything, it's the protagonists who are consistently excused and shrouded in plot armour; not the antagonists.
Dude, c'mon, you're as guilty as regurgitating the same arguments every time this comes up as anybody else. In fact, this particular conversation started when you used a discussion about Ala Mhigo to regurgitate your whole argument. We're all talking in circles here, but so are you.

Anyways, reading patterns of presentation in the narrative isn't forcing morals on fantasy races. Like it or not, this game is very very much in line with modern morals when it comes to things like colonialism, racism, genocide, religious extremism, and the like; its shades of grey comes from incorporating those things into its protagonist nations (as the setting allows), but it balances them by giving their leaders otherwise modern attitudes; its antagonists are routinely defined by things that modern morals find disagreeable. This is demonstrably not a neutral game in that regard.