#and in his zeal to conquer Fodlan he fails to recognize that he's just become Shahid; someone who wants to become king no matter the cost | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

butwhatifidothis · 1 year ago

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What gets me about GW defenders saying that "Claude siding with Edelgard shows how far he's willing to go to get what he wants, he'll use anyone to further his goals" is that, even if that were accurate to his character... that's not what he does in GW. At all.

Which one of Claude's goals are ever progressed once he sides with Edelgard? And how does siding with Edelgard, specifically, accomplish said goal?

Maybe... killing Rhea? But all of the reasons he says he wants her gone in this game are either completely unproven or blatantly incorrect - there's no proof of the Church forcing arranged marriages, Crests do not force obligations onto those that have them (which Claude himself literally proves), and the Church is helping Dimitri restore Duscur - a foreign nation - meaning they are actively willing to help fulfill Claude's main goal that he came to the officer's academy to achieve.

And... that's it! That is the only possible thing that even POTENTIALLY helps Claude's dreams, and taking a five-second look at it shows that it actually does nothing at all to help anything. But in the meantime? Claude weakens Faerghus through agitating Sreng and invading it himself, forcing Dimitri to fight a three front war; he actively helps Edelgard get herself out of a messy situation, even though not helping her and letting her die would have actually helped him and would have actually been him using her like people keep saying he's trying to do; he and Holst even admit that by the end of the war Edelgard is going to make a vassal state of Leicester after taking the lion's share of Faerghus' territory for themselves, which Leicester can't do anything about because of Adrestia's far stronger military. He is the one saying that! He is the one pointing out that that is going to happen! And yet he just keeps going anyway!

He is the one getting used. Very blatantly, and very extensively. Claude walked himself into a trap and lied to himself into thinking he's the one with the upper hand, which somehow managed to convince a large portion of the fanbase too. There's no gray morality here, there's no cunning being showcased, Claude is just an evil stupid tool

#clyde discourse #doing a read over for what i have for the GW rewrite and just. man.#like. it's hard to even like Clyde as a villain because he is just so incomprehensively incompetent in literally everything he does #once Part 2 hits #like imagine if he helped EdeckyWecky up to the point where she'd ACTUALLY die without his help... and he doesn't give it #he lets her die and lets the Empire crumble without leadership #but Dimitri can't take advantage of that because he still has to deal with Sreng and the Alliance #meanwhile Clyde is sneaking in more and more Almyran forces through Nader manipulating Mr. King of Almyra #until he has enough to take on the weakened Kingdom and force it under submission through the constant pressure he's forcing it under #not through brute force but just through wearing them down to the point where they just can't keep going #and in his zeal to conquer Fodlan he fails to recognize that he's just become Shahid; someone who wants to become king no matter the cost #like imagine it's never said outright but that THIS is how power corrupts once genuinely good people #they're so focused on getting to the end point that they gradually care less and less about how red their path to that end point is #until oops everyone is either dead; too scared/unable to fight back; or are also swept up in the mindset of By Any Means Necessary #THAT'D BE A NEAT VILLAIN. even if it's not *Claude* at all that is a villain i could get behind!#but people keep insisting that 1) Clyde isn't a villain (he is) that 2) he's doing the right thing (he's not)#and that 3) he's in any way compelling (he's just brown Eddy Geddy but stupid)

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