#both being Manfred's young assistants with polar opposite views | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

kara-knuckles · 2 days ago

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I'm honestly baffled by how many people seem to get "Manfred is freethinker, Ascalon is sheeple" from Babel and "Manfred outsmarted Hoederer" from 14. I can at least begrudgingly understand the former, because the narrative goes out of its way to invalidate Ascalon's every decision so you need to be invested enough to take a step back and see it's actually bullshit, but with the latter W outright mocks Manfred for acting exactly like Hoederer predicted, and this is despite Ulsulah's advanced warnings about the situation on Lifebone. Hell, the fact that Hoederer doesn't even try to fight (presumably because he is acting as a bait and this minimizes his potential injuries) and complete lack of reaction from everyone else suggest that everything was still proceeding according to plan B (separate Manfred from his men so you don't fight them at the same time), even if plan A (intercept him) got Damazti'd.

#Arknights #Ascalon Arknights #Hoederer #Manfred Arknights #entire Lifebone sequence was easily the worst part of 14 #it wasn't as bad as Chetleigh #because at least i didn't feel like my brain cells were evaporating with every sentence #but this isn't exactly a high bar to clear #Ulsulah was pointless #Damazti was yet again thrown under the bus #it would be salvageable if the game remembered the two Damaztis plot point #but no #it was ignored entire chapter #bonus points for giving them Manfred's flashback #they must have been really getting into that role...#i suspect Nadine and Paprika are supposed to be foils #both being Manfred's young assistants with polar opposite views #except the game utterly failed to develop relationship between Paprika and Manfred #and Nadine may as well be a faceless NPC for how generic she is #Manfred himself was just a baby throwing a tantrum #“but i gave you so many chances to either see how great killing people is or GTFO!”#even if the game wants to save his confrontation with Ascalon for later #at least don't pull “and then they fought entirely off-screen for 12 hours!”#it is insulting to both characters and player #and then there is W...#her seeing Theresa's echo was good #but literally everything else was incredibly stupid #ESPECIALLY THAT OUTFIT #theories and headcanons

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