#again it's the core idea that one is groomed into playing a role to uphold a system of oppression by the way the system is so unquestionabl

[orangerosebush]

Me when I see people espouse comedically inaccurate or shallow readings of a text that in all actuality just belie an even more profound trend regarding a refusal to seriously engage with a text's themes

[jasperlion]

Rudolf, Mycen and Alm

For Alm, there were several factors in his life which were unshakable and very much the foundation of his ideals, experiences and goals. He was a village boy from Ram, grandson of a great Zofian general in his time, and would thus uphold his legacy by protecting the very country Mycen once protected in her time of need.

When nobles spoke down to him and his friends, spoke of opportunity and what nobility could and couldn’t do in comparison to the ‘baseborn animals’ who had no noble blood, Alm did his upmost to prove them wrong. To be the light and example to all Zofian peasants that they can, that he, like them, could. That your station at birth does not determine your skill, ability, or what you should be able to do — it’s all in what you put in yourself, and all you have to do is have the opportunity to show it.

You can see how it all goes wrong the moment the truth is laid out for him, a truth he fought so hard to deny even with the mounting evidence: why should he believe an old man in Zofia’s Keep? Maybe Mycen just found love much after or lied about having no family when he worked in the castle. Why should he believe a blade could only be lifted by royalty? Isn’t that ridiculous? Surely, there are spells that would let this happen, but maybe they wore off or were just baseless rumors so no one stole it. Why should he put any stock in Desaix’s dying words? The man was a tyrant, a despot who would lie through his teeth, as he has again and again, to save his own damn skin. Why did the... why did the Emperor ask General Ezekiel to follow him?

The answer becomes clear, but the rest of himself falls apart.

Instead, he is a prince from Rigel, son of Rudolf and great great grandson to Rigel I, and in his path to protect Zofia and push back the Rigelians into their country and to their fortifications, he had betrayed his country of birth and slain its Emperor.

When he ‘proved’ nobles wrong, he had all but proved them right, accomplishing great feats and winning many a victory not as an exemplary Zofian soldier, but as a Rigelian one. He may have been raised a pauper, but he had always been a prince, dragon blood pulsed in his veins from the blood pact of his ancestor.

He was a lie, he had lived a lie and showed a lie to many people in Zofia and Rigel alike. And oh, he played his part beautifully, to be the villager to show the world what the common-folk could do, only to turn their back on them, only to be a noble. Just like them, just like those who pushed everyone else down on claims of heritage.

And this, this case of identity and ideology shattered to its core, is but one of his problems in the face of his father’s defeat and death.

His life and ideals had been a lie from the start, his thoughts to prove his grandfather’s worth and thus his own became empty words based on nothing but lies told to a gullible little boy who believed everything he was told by a man he was meant to trust. This shatters him, hurts him, more than he can ever express. And when his ‘grandfather’ is confronted with the pain wrought onto Alm by the act he was forced to commit? The man merely tells him to suck it up, that it’s no time for self pity and he doesn’t deserve to feel hurt, because this is what his father wanted, and so it had to be enough. The blind trust Alm had in Mycen is gone, and it is quite frankly something the old soldier will never get back. It is something Alm will never get back, either — the very idea that those around him can safely tell him who he is and who his family is becomes absurd as he from then onward questions everything he’s told by those around him. He can never hear the truth and confirmation from the horse’s mouth, Rudolf I is dead and gone, and there’s no way to prove he’s not being lied to again about where he came from. That it’s not all just an elaborate ruse to be played on him again and again because there’s no way to prove otherwise.

And, of course, onto the fact of the matter that he murdered his own father. Not even fought and killed would be a fitting description, for while Alm was coerced into the act by his station, his fellows and even the Emperor himself, Rudolf never once turned his lance on his son. Not once did he try to hurt Alm back, to even put up a fight. “Come, strike me.” Were the words he was greeted with, and the man did not disappoint in committing to just that. And it’s wrong, it feels so very wrong. It was a slaughter, not a battle, and it will consume him completely to know it is what his father wanted done. The very man who wished to never harm a hair on his son’s head would rather have his son kill him — inflict that sort of pain onto him that even in his death would never go away. Maybe it’d have felt better if Rudolf had defended himself — it’d have definitely felt better if his father had fought back.

Instead, he ‘fought’ (murdered) a tired man who had played a role for too long and wished to die by his son’s hands. Who looked at the boy who struck at his nigh defenseless father with pride in his eyes, something Alm will never understand.

He killed his own father, and with Rudolf went the answers he had so desperately sought since childhood. Who were his parents? What were they like? Did they love him? Why did they give him away? How did they meet? What would they have been like as his parents? All he could say was his parents were buried, how his father died, and that it’s what he wanted to happen. That his father gave him away to protect him, only to greet him upon his returns with weapons drawn but no fight at all.

And hell, maybe he shouldn’t feel this bad about killing a man he didn’t even now, but that was exactly the problem: he didn’t know his father, didn’t know anything ABOUT him. What did he like? What was his favorite food? Did he like cats too? Did he give his horse a nickname? What did he enjoy doing on his time off? Did he love his mother? Did he ever grow to love someone else? What was it like to deal with Berkut as a nephew (hehe)? What did he think of Berkut, anyway? What would he think, knowing what his nephew had done? How would he deal with the political situation? What would he do — what would be his counsel on how to deal with matters with Duma and Mila gone? He doesn’t even know how to rule. Leading an army was no comparison to leading a nation, and in not being groomed for his station, he fears he will never do it quite right. Never like his father would have done, like Berkut would have done. 

And he wishes he knew, but it was denied to him before he could even form coherent thought. All he had left was a headband from his father’s youth, a name he never felt familiar with, and a legacy to uphold that he had never really lived under until quite literally everyone else had died. At his hand, specifically.

And once more, Mycen’s apathy of it all, of his pain, his hurt and his very valid confusion only pours salt onto fresh and real wounds. Makes him feel like he really doesn’t matter. What mattered was the plan, what mattered was he did what he was reared to do and stick to what fate had in store for him. His feelings were secondary, or perhaps even lower, and so it shouldn’t matter how he feels because he just has to do what he’s supposed to do.

It’s never the same between them after that, even after their conversations eventually mend the rift with a bridge. It’s a rudimentary one that does its job, but rickety at best, instead of filling the crevice and patching the land.

And, when it boils down to it, his feelings take an emotional toll from it all. Rudolf’s death is but the first of many on the path leading to the end of the Gods, not the first of the war, but the first since he’s become aware of what this really is about. Of how Celica’s mission had been right all along to hone in on the deities that molded their world every day at their whims. But he can’t find himself dwelling on those losses, and dwelling on what he had lost the moment the royal sword plunged into both his father and his cousin, divesting Rigel of all royal blood but his own.

He can’t falter, he has to push onward. Mycen’s very words will come to haunt him for the rest of his days, and perhaps by the time the knight notices his mistake it will be far too late. He’s internalized these words, and for the rest of his life it will crush his self worth.

After all, he’s but a tool, a means to an end. He was used by his ‘grandfather’ and his father alike to bring to Valentia the peace it deserved and a liberation from the grip of Gods who were going mad. This, too, hurts to acknowledge: not once were he and his feelings considered in Rudolf’s plan, and not once did Mycen consider them once it had taken motion. He was warned of the point of no return, of course, but not so he wouldn’t take it. It was merely a sign to move forward with a hardened heart, one he didn’t have. Instead, it is soft and vulnerable, shattered and ripped apart by the time it’s done.

But it doesn’t matter.

It can be summed up in betrayal, really. Betrayal of his identity and what he believed was simply a truth that would not be changed (could you see yourself questioning if what your family claimed you to be was true?), betrayal to his own humanity, betrayal to his father even if it’s what he wanted... He feels betrayed by the fate assigned to him and the father who decided his path without taking him into consideration.

All this and more dwells within Alm and troubles his soul, and this is just from Rudolf and Mycen alone — the effects on him from Berkut, Fernand, Rinea, Mila and Celica (and, by extension, Jedah and Duma) are a whole different beast, even if one that dwells in tandem with this one. 

Related Headcanon -> Alm and his parents