#I mean Miklan technically seems to survive in GW and... I guess in SB? I don't remember well on that one but

[dmclemblems]

Claude calling the people of the Kingdom and Empire monsters and rallying people under the promise of their deaths and only giving half of a shit for his own people, on top of being willing to worsen foreign relations and refuel fighting on the border wrt Sreng for the same reasons. Hm wow that sure sound like someone who sees outsiders as less than human and only as threats to his own people (who are the only ones deserving of peace and safety). You know, that mindset that Claude fundamentally hates and literally came to Fodlan to wipe out so that people can live in harmony with each other?

Fuck this game and the absolutely horrific treatment it gave to Claude's entire character. Literally nothing anyone says can possibly explain why such a core aspect of Claude's character is not just not present, but actively replaced with its perfect opposite - and this game doesn't even bother to give a HALF-HEARTED explanation, he Just Is like this now. This game can actually suck my ass.

I like the game generally speaking (and AG was written really well), but I'm definitely not fond of how Claude was handled.

Like you said, and one of the biggest things that bothers me that I mentioned in another post is how he basically tells people to surrender or die, yet he says he wants to minimize casualties. It doesn't even make sense that he wants that but attacked the Kingdom without so much as a letter being sent to speak to Dimitri personally talk to to him about the Church and whatnot. Plus, if he did, he might have been made aware that all his perceptions of the Church were wrong.

The whole Sreng thing bugs me because they informed Sreng about the war and whatnot so that they'd invade, but later Claude tries to... not get them involved? He used them when it was convenient and then suddenly didn't want to after that.

One of my biggest gripes is that Claude has no consistency. You know how in CF they kept doing this back and forth trying to be like Edelgard is a bad person who started the war, oh wait no she's just a good person with strong views, etc etc? They really did that with Claude here except at least Edelgard was always consistent with her character. Claude's writing here is just like... they're trying to make him the anti-war person he is in Houses but they wrote him to be the exact opposite. When it starts going too far they pull him back again and have him keep iterating this nonsense about not wanting the war to keep going because people are dying.

Also, Nader saying he couldn't wait to rampage in the Kingdom REALLY bothered me (and he says this at camp so it's missable if he wasn't spoken to). After all the shit they said about Almyrans not being barbarians and whatnot, he's planning to go nuts with attacking the Kingdom? All that would do is make the Kingdom more unwilling to make any kind of relationship with Almyra.

There was definitely a lot of "we're doing this for Leicester" and not... any bit of care for any other land. I've been goofing about it a lot and trying to be mellow about it but just in general I find the things Claude does and the things he says to be absolutely abhorrent in this game. The way he manipulates people with the politely worded "surrender or die" is seriously awful and isn't much better than Edelgard's behavior.

I really doubt there would be any true harmony after this war. Even if the Kingdom lost and ceased to exist (and became just Adrestia and Leicester), I can guarantee there would be civil wars and uprisings all over the place. The people in the Kingdom would never, ever settle for that. Honestly, I could see Sylvain rallying troops and launching an attack on Leicester. I feel like even though he acts mostly calm during the story, he still has that in him because of the way Dimitri didn't want his emotions to get the better of him in battle. It's pretty clear to me that Sylvain despises Claude and the Alliance in GW.

Literally the whole thing with the Kingdom just sits so wrong with me. They were just minding their own business and suddenly everyone is trying to invade. In fact, they're trying to do good things within their borders and fix their society, but they can't because everyone around them just wants to go to war. Even the Church kind of forced them to get involved by asking for their aid. I'd put the least blame on them honestly because they really don't do anything bad at all here/in this game, but the war forced Dimitri's hand in so many ways when all he wanted to do was make a better society for the Kingdom.

By the end of the game I'd say Claude is really just... marginally better than Shahid, and that is not a high bar. It just served to keep the theme going that Almyrans just want war and fighting. Claude had other options and he chose invasion and killing. He chose to do what Shahid did to Leicester.

I honestly feel really bad for the Kingdom. Nobody will leave them alone and the worst part is that they're all so loyal to each other and so tight knit that like... once you've fucked with one of them you've fucked with all of them. They're not just gonna let it go and be like oh yeah okay we'll just stop the Kingdom from existing and give up on it. Dimitri also just wants to keep his people safe and Claude abuses that fact to make Dimitri let him get past him to get to Rhea. Basically, Claude is saying either I kill your people or let you me pass by and kill Rhea. Seeing as Rhea has always supported Dimitri and has never tried to obstruct any part of his rule, it's really shitty to be like oh hey you know this person who has done right by you and has been super chill with you? Let us kill her or I'm gonna kill your people and make you feel like shit about it. He uses people's emotions to make them stop fighting, and what he said to Ashe really bugged me.

There's a lot of stuff at the camp in GW that I saw (I'll end up posting some of it later, it's just that my posts are totally out of order for when I actually post them compared to when I'm playing so that I don't end up posting tons of stuff all at once, flood people's dashboards and then just have nothing to post lol) that really highlight how awful all of this is. Several characters are unhappy with all of it, and then you have the dumbass types who don't give a fuck like Raphael and Leonie (which is BEYOND me, especially with Raphael. He's supposed to be the gentle, kindhearted one and he's like 150% okay and happy with invading and fighting people and just knocking them flat. He gets excited for it. Hopes Raphael just ain't the one for me lol), and they only care about a good fight no matter who they have to kill.

Only a few people regularly question the morality of Claude's army, like Yuri, Hapi, Lorenz and Ashe. Most of them just... do not care. They'd kill good people for a good fight or because they just happen to like Claude so they'll ruin other people's lives.

I know it's just a video game, but... I just hate everything about the second half of GW lol. I love the early Almyran lore and it helps a lot for the missing pieces in Houses, but the story is just... disgusting. I've always hated Edelgard's actions in Houses and I'm not gonna justify Claude's behavior and actions in Hopes just because I like him in Houses. Just like her, he's a huge warmonger in this game. I guess it's because I just... don't like war and I have a very strong mindset on people who do things like that, especially when they attack people who are just living their lives and doing their own thing. Even though I've always been a Kingdom girl, I don't think my feelings would change on any of this if I was more bias toward Leicester. I don't think I'd be comfortable seeing the Kingdom being trampled for literally no reason whatsoever. We can't even blame Cornelia or other TWS members in this game for a lot of what happens to them. It's Edelgard and Claude doing a lot of it.

There's just... a lot of really awful things happening in this game and Claude spearheads a whole ass lot of it.

Claude von Deserved A Lot Fucking Better.