#anyway family dinners with miquella must have been awkward

[cephalofrog]

as god's strongest golden order hater rykard is a character I love so much. he's my third favourite of the main lore characters (behind messmer and marika) and imo he's interesting cause of how, in my opinion, he doesn't represent a relationship TO the golden order, like messmer's struggle with his own position within it, but instead represents something ABOUT it.

volcano manor is a horrific, sick area. it's a facade of finery atop an entire town built for the specific purpose of torturing those deemed deserving of it. when we arrive, at the centre of it all is the lord of blasphemy rykard, the depraved serpent, consumed by his own ambitions.

but...

the manor is not a creation of the lord of blasphemy. the manor was built by praetor rykard, demigod of the golden order, and until the shattering, the manor was in service of the golden order. every horrific torture device, every method of inflicting pain upon another human being that you can find here, was created in service of order and the grace of gold.

I think a lot of people get the wrong idea about rykard. they buy the narrative of his knights wholeheartedly - he was a good man, an honourable man, until his ambitions destroyed him and turned him into the serpent. his men were dedicated to him, which proves that he was a good person, right? people would never follow anyone who gives them the authority and legitimacy to commit horrific abuse against other people for any impure or dishonourable reason.

power doesn't corrupt. power reveals. rykard never changed. his knights just couldn't accept the truth. he just went from targeting those without grace to targeting those who he could gain power from.

volcano manor, the tormented albinaurics, the abductor virgins, the hidden routes leading into dungeons, the inquisitors and their weapons of torture - all of the golden order. the part that makes rykard depraved, dishonourable, unacceptable, is the fact that he's no longer committing atrocities against the correct people.

to clarify: lord of blasphemy rykard sucks. his aim is to gain as much power for himself as possible. but this never changed. the god-devouring serpent isn't a corruption of a once-good man -

the god-devouring serpent is what the honourable praetor rykard always was.