#but that's more of a personal conspiracy theory whereas this is all pretty straightforward

[essektheylyss]

wait! be wordy! what's your line of thinking for the assembly coup i'm so curious

okay you sent this a few days ago and I was like, you know what they asked, so here is my entire research project on the subject of why not only is the assembly in a perfect place to stage a coup and take over the empire, but also why ludinus da’leth in particular seems rather motivated to do so:

fjord and caleb discussed this specific topic during their chat on the balleater in 98, and this line just sums it up:

fjord: what are they waiting for? caleb: the moment where they can ascend.

according to the lore we’ve gotten, from canon as well as the egtw, the assembly has existed since a war between mage houses that culminated in an event that nearly destroyed rexxentrum, referred to as the eve of crimson midnight—after which the members of those houses agreed to work for the dwendalian crown (and helped conquer the julous dominion). they occupy a very comfortable place in the empire obviously, but it’s unclear how much allegiance they actually have to the crown, but when caleb talks to the martinet in episode 97 at the party, they have this pointed interaction:

caleb: the empire, we all love the empire. da’leth: to an extent.

this is in part in reference to caleb’s past, but also... is admittedly, a strange thing for someone who’s meant to serve the king to say. much of their conversation at the party reads as da’leth putting the two of them on the same page—rather circumspect in their interests, and outside of the surface level realm of the empire’s interests. it’s worth noting that da’leth is not only the oldest member of the assembly, he has also been there since its inception, and therefore was almost certainly involved in the war that created it.

now, just before this, they have this exchange:

caleb: It will be good to finish this war. da’leth: Indeed it will be. caleb: I commend you on seeing the reason in cooperation and negotiation. da’leth: I believe it is important to stem the tide of lives lost and to instead focus on the livelihood of those within the Empire and for us to pursue more important things than base conflict and disagreements.

now, like essek, da’leth is likely looking forward to the end of the war because it means uninhibited time to spend researching the beacon they do have, but based on much of what essek has said, he is far more in over his head than da’leth is. of course, that’s in part because he’s not backed by a very powerful organization. but this is important, because arguably... da’leth isn’t backed by the assembly. he is the assembly. there has never been a cerberus assembly without him. additionally, his title (“archmage of domestic protections”) literally puts him in charge of all warfare and conflict in the empire and, as mentioned, this means he’s been involved in:

the eve of crimson midnight

the conquest of the julous dominion

the last century of tension with the dynasty (by the end of which, he found a way to escalate that tension and thereby instigate a war—which really makes him either great or shitty at his job, honestly)

the war with the dynasty itself

unlike essek, who has probably had his position for 20-30 years at most, da’leth has witnessed every part of these conflicts from a place of organizing warfare. (yet again it vexes me: we still have no idea what essek does. but he’s not really important here, I’m just using him to juxtapose. but it seems safe to say, based on his reaction, that he did not have any experience with it, and does not seem to be in anyway a military leader.) he knows when to expect war, and he... probably does not care about the human toll of it, based on the ones he’s lived through. so I’m looking more at the phrase “pursue more important things”—which is where we start getting into military coup territory.

and it’s important to point out that the assembly, based on their discussion in the throne room with the king and the examination of the beacon at the sanatorium, is almost certainly keeping both their research into the beacon’s power as well as the fact that they’ve had two beacons for three years secret from the king.

additionally, the assembly’s power seems to be growing at the moment, as evidenced by cobalt soul concerns that it may need to be curbed, while at the same time, the monarch is becoming increasingly paranoid (which translates to, closed off), as well as (and this is crucial) not having an heir. as mentioned in the egtw, his son and daughter in law have not produced a child, and all three of them are seeking different ways to maintain power. king dwendal, supposedly, is currently looking for ways to become immortal. da’leth, who is functionally immortal compared to the king, probably doesn’t love that (and I have no doubt that he knows).

so we have a military leader who has external interests, secret arcane research into an unknown, fairly deadly system of magic that the crown is unaware of (and therefore doesn’t have defenses against), and a rapidly encroaching potential power vacuum. but that’s still not enough, right? to actually take the throne, who has an entire army at its disposal, you’d need some kind of paramilitary force loyal to the assembly, not to the crown.

which brings us to the scourgers.

we know that trent ikithon created and designed the scourger program, also from caleb’s conversation with da’leth, which means it is relatively new (less than 50 years old, but probably less than that—trent is in his 70s, and he would’ve had to work up into his role, so let’s give him a generous estimate of being worthy of assembly membership around 40—which only puts the scourger program at 30 years old). da’leth does have a... really interesting comment about the program:

da’leth: Although the extent of these things were not entirely part of the initial presentation, I understand that sometimes, desperate requirements might call for unsavory methods.

there’s really no explanation of what these ‘desperate requirements’ are that called for, you know, that bullshit, and the program would’ve been implemented sometime within this cold war they’ve got going with the dynasty. while those desperate requirements may have been involved in that (which is likely), it’s also possible that there are other uses for them, especially now that there is some kind of treaty between the empire and dynasty.

of course, the other thing that I looked at is how astrid discusses the empire—she suggests that what the scourgers do, the “hard choices” they make, are so that the rest of the empire can sleep safely at night, which is interesting, considering the general sentiment of the empire’s populace is that the empire has become less safe (a sentiment that is likely even more heightened now with a war on their soil) as well as less prosperous, due to the growing paranoia and neglect of the king. the scourgers are specifically loyal to the empire itself, not the king—if they can be swayed to believe that disposing the king is in the nation’s best interest, it would not be difficult to turn the assembly’s personal assassins toward the crown.

which brings me back to the earlier conversation mentioned at the party, and the phrase “focus on the livelihood of those within the Empire and for us to pursue more important things.” the martinet has been, essentially, waiting in the wings of the empire for several centuries.

within the last, say, fifty years, the following things have happened:

the quality of life within the empire has gone down

its monarch has grown closed off and scared, potentially leaving a power vacuum which will likely throw the assembly’s power into question

the assembly has created its own paramilitary assassin force

the assembly has instigated a war via the theft of foreign arcane objects

the assembly has done fully secret research on the application of that arcane power

the assembly has then ended the war very quickly, retaining control of one of these objects, and sent everyone very speedily on their way.

furthermore, with peace only just brokered, the righteous brand is likely still on the border, and will have to be mobilized over the next month or more to return them to the inner parts of the empire.

this means the assembly is unoccupied by a war, has its own forces, probably has some unheard of weaponized dunamancy, and doesn’t have to contend with the military that is wholly loyal to the king.

time for a coup, y’all.

addendum: this is a theory/analysis, and it’s only one potential thing that might happen in the next few arcs. however, a counterpoint: the assembly has enjoyed unprecedented power, a small amount of responsibility, and very little oversight during its existence. I could see the point that there isn’t much motivation to change that, especially for da’leth—except for the fact that the empire still does not have an heir. the potential of a power vacuum will likely leave the assembly in a tough spot and without a puppet to control, and a coup to take power now may be the answer to that. that really is the key: before dwendal can actually do something nuts, like beat da’leth to creating himself a phylactery lol, they may intend to grab power to maintain control over the situation in the long run.

additional reading: I wrote up this post a few months ago about why, in conjunction with this, the assembly wants to keep their involvement with the beacon theft quiet—any conflict with the king will get started on their own terms. (which is the main point of my thoughts that the assembly will also likely try to have essek killed—while he’s alive, he’s a loose end, and even if it’s his word against theirs, it’s still possible he could sow doubt with the king. luckily for the nein, the assembly doesn’t seem to know that they’re aware of that!)

[sagealex]

there seems to be a sort of urge in American culture to discredit our historical narrative and figures with a broad brush, while ignoring actual historical events and the insight that knowledge of those events might impart. 

sometimes this just consists of calling every american figure who once lived but is now dead an immoral bigot (which is a pretty safe guess all things considered) and therefore not worth learning about, which ignores the complexity of history, and deprives people of an understanding of the sorts of events and motivations that lead societies into dark places. 

besides that sort of case, a concerning amount of time this simplification instead consists of people using sparse facts to extrapolate a whole new narrative that conforms with their personal biases. i see this a lot with some republicans in my life, who will become excited over any “history fact” that seems to defy the other side, but that is really an excessively simplified and therefore contorted version of the truth.

an example of such a contorted ““fact”” is: “the democrat party is actually the pro-slavery party”. whenever the racist republicans i know bring up racism, they’ll make defenses for themselves based on stereotypes for awhile before bringing up how the other side is made up of white people who are just secretly even more racist. The statement “the democrat party is the pro-slavery party” is based off of the idea that the republican party was formed in opposition to slavery, which is in itself... basically correct. 

however, the problems with this are pretty obvious given a moment of examination: just because the democrat party is the party that is currently the main opposition to the republican party does not mean it was founded with the opposite intent than that which the republican party was founded with; america’s political parties have changed a lot over time and any american political party should not be expected to be consistent between two different points in time and viewing a party as it is right now based on a platform it once had over a hundred years ago is absurd; the party’s current platform is not in favor of slavery by all observable means; and so on.

but people still not only believe but repeat the statement “the democrat party is actually the pro-slavery party”, at least enough so that I’ve heard this statement from multiple people who seemed to be of basically sound mind over the course of my life. i believe this is because the statement supports a number of core biases that they hold. These probably differ from person to person, but the common assumptions seem to be as follows:

white liberals who claim to be not racist are secretly racist, but use race as an issue because it gains the support of people of color.

opposition that has an outwardly benevolent stated purpose is still the bad guy, and therefore is using a veneer of righteousness to shield ill intentions from view

people who disagree must be less intelligent, and take public history class for face value, therefore they would probably agree if they could comprehend such a complex historical idea as “the democrat party is actually the pro-slavery party”

a concerning aspect of this problem is that there’s a significant amount of people who will accept with glad entertainment any slightly contrarian take on history, so long as it doesn’t require them to actually re-examine their worldview/privilege. these people are frequently not necessarily actively hateful towards any groups, but they view themselves as basically good in such a way that they are unwilling to consider ideas that suggest that they may have had any advantages and therefore haven’t earned all they have by virtue of their own merit. 

these people may be frustrated with the bland nature of the nationalist american narrative for some reason, and desire some edgier version to replace a supplied narrative is too straightforward and cheesy to accept, and confirm that their sense of detachment from the american promise is justified. this desire is not unfounded, but if someone seeks to satisfy it while avoiding complex ideas that challenge their perception of their life and their place in the world that were formed based on the nationalist american narrative, they will likely cling to concepts that are simplistic, or not actually very hotly contested, and feel very smug about that rudimentary knowledge. “the american colonists just didn’t want to pay taxes”, says the self-designated Enlightened One, knowing they aren’t indoctrinated into the washington-worshiping mass of sheeple, “and actually... george washington did tell a lie.”

sometimes people who cling to overly general criticism of the simplistic American narrative are less privileged, but have internalized the values of the conventional American narrative in such a way that they become defensive of it, possibly believing that the order of things now is how it must be, and that if they try hard enough to play by the rules, they can achieve the glory normally mostly accessibly only to the privileged. some of these people, from my experience, adopt the shallowly contrarian view, using conspiracy theories and not-quite-right paraphrases of not-so-deep historical facts to explain away injustice. 

some of these people turn against others who are in their own marginalized population, as a believer in common oppressive narratives, and believing that the majority of the group is somehow inferior, but they wouldn’t be if they just tried harder, like the believer does. these kinds of people are also likely to believe statements that confirm the very biases that oppress them.

these differing types of people who choose narratives that are based only on twisted-up or misunderstood facts likely choose facts that are less reputable because they somehow believe that studying history consists of uncritically believing in a narrative that is fed to us by The Bad Guys who secretly distort and control everything. viewing the study of history as some kind of rhetoric-focused institution, rather than an individual practice that involves a lot of digging and critical thought, causes these people to feel smug about their choice to refuse to study history with any depth. their ignorance is actually the smart choice, because they have it all figured out, whereas the suckers who actually put time into thinking about history in a complex way are just wasting their time, eating up exactly what’s being fed to them.

this is why i feel iffy when people criticize those who are particularly interested in certain historical periods by accusing them of holding the worst opinions of those that were held by the people living in that time. no matter what the motivation of the people discrediting students of history, no matter how close their ideas are to generally capturing the broad image of that period, it’s still criticism of the practice of really finding out what happened, rather than accepting a vague but convenient narrative.

just because a narrative isn’t identical whitewashed, simplistic nationalist american narrative doesn’t mean that it’s right by contrast. it’s important to respect history just enough to actually find out what happened, so that we may use the insight gained from the study of those events to help us to understand what is going on today.

yes “the colonists didn’t want to pay taxes”, but there were other motivations necessary for the colonists to revolt against what was then the most powerful empire in the world. and at the same time, early americans did much darker things than merely evade taxes. it’s complicated, which is inconvenient for both the typical narrative, as well as narratives that are formulated simply to rebel against the typical narrative. but history isn’t supposed to be convenient, and real life doesn’t actually follow a coherent or satisfying narrative in any way. 

studying history doesn’t make anyone a sucker or an asshole, but willful ignorance does, even if that willful ignorance is initially constructed as resistance to harmful indoctrination. ignorance leads to oversimplification, and black and white thinking is still black and white thinking, no matter how bright the white in it looks.