#im not super preoccupied with any characters' 'morals' or whatever so please dont mistake this as a discussion about that

[wraith-caller]

I don't get the Kenneth HYPE and I will no longer remain silent(as if I know how to shut up). He isn't some lone champion of (demi)human rights or something. He is just another Golden Order noble, and whether fandom at large can stand to admit it or not, the GO isn't persecuting the demi-humans. In fact, demi-humans have grace, and it is Raya Lucaria Academy who derides them as "lesser":

Demi-Human Queen's Staff Glintstone staff styled as a scepter. A gift once given to the demi-humans to foster peace, it can be wielded even by those of low intelligence. Sneered at by fools in the academy.

I'm not sure why Ken Haight's position on demi-humans is so often taken as some implication that he alone is some kind of 'progressive' force within an Order that persecutes so many other living things. Clearly the GO is persecuting loads of 'others' - Misbegotten, Omen, TWLID, they stomped out the Giants completely, they don't accept Albinaurics, and let's not even go into the Hornsent. Nowhere does Ken Haight decry any of this, and nowhere does any other member of the GO hate or reject demi-humans. Ken Haight even specifically says "Under the Erdtree, commingling with the demi-humans is made possible." Not "in my castle", not "if I ruled Limgrave", it's just a simple fact of the Golden Order's society. So where's this idea come from that Ken Haight is especially accepting and the rest of the Order is persecuting them? Beyond this, Ken Haight carries the same prejudices as many other non-Tarnished, briefly hesitating before accepting our help in spite of his apparently desperate predicament. He isn't someone without bias, either, even pulling an ole "you might even be one of the good ones :)" when he says "And who knows, perhaps some time down the line, the grace of gold will return to those Tarnished eyes of yours." Then there's his own hypocrisy where he derides Godrick as a coward for not wanting to be killed by Malenia while he can't even face up to a single knight in his own fortress.

I'm not here to say Ken Haight is worse or better or whatever else. Mostly I'm just wondering why so many people think he is this positive force for change rather than accepting the far simpler fact that he's a GO noble that believes in the GO's tenets, no more, no less. While there are different eras of the Order, and different schools of incantations within it, his faith to the Erdtree is still a faith in the Order that created it, and that Order has been a bloody genocide-machine from the start. If we're condemning the Order, why are we handing him a get-out-jail-free card just because he accepts the demi-humans, something that ALL of the Golden Order appears to do?