#ame and eursulon only stick around because of SUVI

[madamegoodparty]

Okay no I have to complain about this for a bit because I saw a post that genuinely pissed me off. Rant under the cut

Sorry to be one of those "media literacy is dead" bitches but it does actually worry me just how many people are missing the giant flashing neon signs that the Citadel is one of the military branches of a fascist empire

Like yeah yeah it's a podcast set in a fantasy world and at the end of the day I don't really want to spend my valuable time on this earth getting spun up over fiction

But jesus CHRIST

THEY'RE STEALING KIDS. YOU STILL WANNA DEFEND THE CITADEL AFTER YOU FOUND OUT THE EMPIRE STEALS KIDS???

And I know the retort would be "well, the Citadel's not doing that!" And okay fine. At this point, we don't know how involved the Citadel is with that specific thing, I'll grant you.

BUT

Do we wanna forget about the Kasov Collection? About Suvi in Chapter 1 donning a badge to show she's killed for the Empire, and being proud of it? How the Citadel has done nighttime raids pulling people from their homes and jailing them, often enough that Suvi has become desensitized to it? That Steel, Suvi's MOM, cast a Geas (something that could KILL HER) on Suvi and then wiped her memory?

When you point out how fucked up Naram's imprisonment was, people will say "but that was Guild Mage Morrow, and he's not part of the Citadel!" Never mind that he was trained there but fine okay -- then comes episode 32, where we see the Citadel is continuing his research!

The Citadel is not a separate entity from the Kehmsarazn Empire!! It's part of their military!!!!!!! People that can't hack it at the Citadel instead go on to join the Azure Battalion (grunt soldiers for the empire) or the Scepter's Chorus (imperial artificers)

Like????? What's not clicking??????? You can't say "oh well the empire is bad sure but the Citadel is still cool" WHEN THE CITADEL ENFORCES THE WILL OF THE EMPIRE. Who's on the front lines fighting the empire's battles? Fully namecloaked Citadel wizards!!!!!!!

Your love for Suvi, Steel, Silver, Sly, Mr. Callum etc should not blind you to the reality of the empire. Just because they're good people doesn't mean the Citadel is therefore good by extension. I think Brennan is actually doing a fucking stellar job at showing the complexities of how otherwise kind decent people end up doing the work of fascism. The double-think and cognitive dissonance that goes into it. Shit, Aabria has literally said Suvi has a "justification machine".

I do not know how much clearer the cast could be!!!!!!!!