#given how Fodlan's history shows how some humans are power hungry

[randomnameless]

Replying to @fantasyinvader’s post mentionning how Linhardt and Hanneman are more interested in - especially if you don’t poach them - science than leading the people, or even, the people themselves, I wanted to make a post about Lin’s support with Catherine, which is played as a “for science!” support where Cat is amazed at his dedication to research stuff...

But it has those ominous lines :

But to continue my research without taking this chance to know the truth—what would be the point?

Besides ignorance can breed even greater dangers.

Linhardt wants to know “the Truth” and says ignorance breeds dangers... Which is a reasonable point to make, but this is immediately followed by this :

For example, do you know for whom Thunderbrand was originally crafted?

We’re talking about the “truth” hidden about the relics - which is more dangerous, ignorance or people who know “the truth”??

The goddess.

Catherine replies with an argument of authority, most likely the only Rhea thought would make most people stop thinking too much about the hows of Relics and drop the topic...

But not Linhardt!

Correct. And because of that, everyone just stops thinking about it.

Yes, that’s the point.

No one really knows what the Relic is made of, how it was crafted, or what its very structure may be.

Until we know those things and truly understand the power and the danger Relics hold...

We won't be able to...gain any new knowledge. I'm tired of talking.

^^^^ 

This, this is the reason why that secret was made, and the truth hidden! And while those are, say, reasonable questions to have about “magic weapons”, bear in mind Linhardt’s natural route - i.e. where he isn’t poached - with Catherine is SS, where we later learn Nemesis got “more power” from the corpses of the Nabateans...

(Which can be tied to the WoH and Willy’s war, as depicted in Houses, as he “crushed people who wanted more power”, are we talking about people who knew where and how Nemesis got his shinies and wanted more shinies?)

Linhardt will have this new “knowledge”, but what will he do with that knowledge? What are going to be the consequences? Should that truth be revealed? Would he try to kill a Nabatean to test a theory about Relic making?

This support touches one of the themes completely eluded by the game about Truth and if it should always be shared with the World, or if some truths should be hidden to protect some people -

SS!Linhardt is someone sensible (sort of, he also has this line against SS’s final boss “Well, that's something, isn't it? A shame we must kill her. Consider the research potential...“...) who wouldn’t skin Flayn alive to see if her bones can really be used to make a relic...

But unrecruited Linhardt or even CF!Linhardt doesn’t give a fuck about being sensible or not, fights alongside Baldo’n’Waldi, which raises an entire can of worms, can we really believe Linhardt, who’s passioned by Crests and their applications, would just roll with Baldo’n’Waldi popping up as Crests Beasts, heck, when some of the War Assets are artificially engineered by the Empire, who also makes artificial Crest Stones? Wouldn’t Linhardt try to, idk, know how those “things” are made, and oversee researches himself?

He has the common sense to spare Indech, by not rattling him to Supreme Leader and Hubert in CF, but is it because Indech has no interest for him in CF, so he doesn’t want the battlefield to become more “bothersome” since it’s useless to kill him, or for some reason, wanted to spare him because he’s still the same guy who’s afraid of blood and hates bloodshed, but when it came to Baldo’n’Waldi he cannot give any fucks?