#like she literally says this nearly verbatim explicitly and directly with no double meaning

[butwhatifidothis]

edelgards fans never minimize the stuff she has actual responsibility for they don't take away her agency ( saying that she chose war with fodlan as a last resort to stop Rhea because there was no other way isn't taking away her agency this idea that there is no in between to evil or has no agency is nonsensical) if anything its Rhea or Dimitri's fans who minimize their actions and try to go but Rhea was a victim of genocide being able to explain her actions isnt taking away her agency

"there was no other way" literally what other way was even attempted for her to think there was no other way lmao this is literally what I mean

[a-heart-of-kyber]

The reason why you're getting so many people annoyed/nervous about the possibility of Tolya/Inej is because the scene of her taking his hand solidifies the show's simplified and therefore bad faith take on the Without Armor line/scene.

The show made Kaz more outwardly emotional/vulnerable because we aren't in his head where he is those things. They've also literally progressed him to what's essentially the end of his book arc while Inej is...I honestly don't even know the changes made to her personality don't make sense to me.

So, with a more emotionally available Kaz, the Without Armor scene in the show lacks the double meaning it had in the book. A double meaning that was already just subtext, not text.

Therefore, you are left with Inej saying, "You want me, but you can't touch me, so this won't work." and then she leaves the scene upset. A scene where Kaz talked about Jordie, gave her information on her family which he'd been secretly gathering potentially for years just to make her happy and then makes himself explicitly clear in how he feels.

In show, Kaz has told her he holds more faith in her than the saints. That he needs her. He wants her comfort. She saves him from drowning. It's highly likely she was told what Kaz said at the Emerald Palace. She knows he used the club as collateral for her. These are things that either aren't said directly or happen later in the book than the Without Armor speech does.

But in the chapel in the show, she tells him, "I'll have you without armor, or not at all." After detailing instances of touch while holding his gloved hand as he tries to stay calm...and leaves upset with him...a man with ptsd cyclically triggered by touch.

The subtext Isn't There.

And, the next time we see her, she is smiling and taking someone else's ungloved hand.

Do you not see how that is bad writing? 🤣

This isn't saying she shouldn't leave. Her reasons for going are valid regardless of how she feels about Kaz. She needs to go. That was never the problem. But she leaves in the show Mad at him for...things he cannot control and, as written in the show, this Inej is not one who would return...and that's...rough. Especially because...in the show Kaz has essentially done nearly everything that makes his book version worthy of Inej coming back to him.

Fanservice is not God, and the scene should not have been included imo...at least not verbatim. And if they were determined to include the Without Armor scene despite removing the subtext, then they should not have added the Tolya and Inej smiling/hand holding because holy shit is that callous.