#of course we have Macuil giving the worst advice possible at any moment

[randomnameless]

@fantasyinvader and I talked about a few days ago about Adrestian nobles being dudes who were supposed to lead and protect/guide their people (per Hanneman's support) but also were people who knew the land they governed over and its people (in Ferdie's Supreme support in Nopes).

What if this idea of the perfect noble (tm) was pulled out and/or theorised in the Willy Era?

How would that vision of a perfect noble fit with Adrestian history, aka, Willy's conquest?

WoH thoughts below the cut

Willy'n'pals started from Enbarr, and ultimately extended their first influence to what would later become the Hresvelg Domain.

I suppose they eventually came to control Bergliez - did they kick out the clan/people who were ruling Bergliez there to put an Enbarrian there, or was Willy's MO to keep the ruling clans there - to mirror Ferdie's claim as the ruling clans were the ones who knew the land and its people better than some schmuck from Enbarr - after swearing allegiance and fealty to Adrestia?

Assuming it worked with Bergliez and the clan controlling this area, how the crap was it supposed to work with, idk, Gloucester's clan, since Rhea absolutely wanted to kill Gloucester himself?

Were the Elite's clan just, happy to accept Adrestia's influence and rule (whatever that meant) and let their leader be beheaded?

From FE16's history books, we know Willy terminated clans who wanted "more power" - was it the "excuse" given when a clan refused to bow to Adrestia and fought to preserve their autonomy?

And yet, from the same FE16, in the Yuri paralogue, it's inferred that some clans who were siding against the Empire and with the Elites... fled to Dagda.

I earlier surmised Willy (and Macuil?) striked down clans who "knew"* what Relics were, and/or how to make them, because they might possibly seek to make a new one and that's a big no to him. In that sense, Willy destroying clans who want "power" would actually mean Willy destroyed clans who wanted "new relics" or to make "relics".

So, following this theory, Willy wanted to erase a clan, but some members escaped and ran away to Dagda, where they crafted the Fetters of Dromi, which were ultimately offered to Duke Gerth.

Still, if the best nobles are the ones who know the land and its people (and have the trust of said people), what would have happened to lands controlled by clans who were destroyed? Would they have been controlled by an Enbarr schmuck, or given to someone else?

Rhea ultimately rewrote history to make Nemesis'n'Dudes appear as fallen Heroes, as to not alienated their supporters - was it also a way to "pacify" their clans, as in, if Rhea terminates Blaiddyd, by painting him as a fallen hero who had to be terminated,instead of revealing the Truth, Blaiddyd's kinsmen won't want to avenge him by targeting Adrestia (at least some don't?) and they can still rule over what used to be their domain, but with some sort of Adrestian supervision ?

(which would later more or less explain why the Elite's families/clans are still, say, located North of Enbarr : Blaiddyd's son accepted Adrestia's rule, but in exchange, he was authorised to rule over his people in his former land, as he knew those people and this land best ?)

Granted, if this was how Willy "awarded" lands, I'm not surprised Lycaon was "found dead" 7 years after his nomination as Emperor, because I can guess some people who joined Willy, from Enbarr/Hresvelg, would have been pretty pissed if they couldn't snag a few plot of lands here and there because Willy allowed the defeated clans to rule over them - if his argument is "they lived there and know the people so they're more suited for this task than us from the South", then why is he giving the Empire to his son - who was on the battlefront with him, instead of giving the throne to whoever was ruling the Empire in Enbarr while they were fighting?

In a nutshell, I'm thinking of something like this :

Is the clan seeking to gain more power aka build relics (or worse, only knows how to make relics) ?

If yes, Wilhelm crushes them, end of the story.

If no they can still have governance over their lands and their people if they accept the Empire's terms and conditions and swear allegiance to Adrestia. If they don't, back to square one, they're crushed.

This way, Willy ensures the lands controlled by the Empire are administered by people who, supposedly, know how to administer them (no growing bacchus in Galatea) and I guess it reduces the risk of having a civil war, aka former clansmen or tribes rebelling against Adrestia because they don't trust the Adrestian administrator (then maybe in time, everyone will fully be Adrestianised, and they will even have forgotten they used to have been part of something else? Was Willy gunning for cultural assimilation?).

-> it gives the model of the "perfect" noble to both Ferdie and Hanneman, people prioritising their people's safety above all, guiding them and knowing them and their lands to ensure prosperity.

OTOH, if we follow this theory (basically a HC), I suppose it didn't vibe that well at home, aka in Adrestia or with the Empire's first allies (the dudes from Hresvelg/Enbarr), imagine if Leeroy Bergliez dies in a fight against Gloucester's clan, the Empire defeats Gloucester's clan but they accept to bend the knee, so Willy lets the Gloucesters** rule over their lands and people - what would the Bergliez say ? They bled and died in that fight, for... nothing? No new lands?

People are pissed at Willy + resent the "northerners" who "stole" lands that should have gone to them (but belonged to said northeners to begin with lel)

And the final straw is Willy appointing his son*** as his successor, and not whoever the fuck was in Enbarr running the show while the Emperor was away conquering Fodlan, Lycaon is stabbed 23 times, and the Empire Wilhelm built (or tried to) disappears, to be replaced with another version of "might makes right" Adrestia.

Tl;Dr : conquering lands to create an Empire is easier than the actual task of ruling said Empire - if Willy did the right and sensible thing as in, let the clans rule over their lands/people after taking over them because those clans knew how to rule/administrate over those lands and their people (instead of appointing Bergliez in Leicester after getting rid of the guy who was seen as the Alliance's leader), it earnt him (and his son!) the ire and resentment of his earliest supporters, who might have wanted to kill clan's heads to seize their lands for themselves.

In a way, if Ferdie and Hanneman seem to find Wilhelm's vision of what is a noble the goal they to aspire to, Wilhelm's idea of a noble was dead on arrival, because it cannot exist in an Empire like Adrestia.

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*cruel, to kill people because they "know" how to make relics, and might not even want to craft one, but as we talked about it in 2020 iirc (?), that knowledge enough is sufficient to be a threat, like sure, Bob and Marty don't want to kill Cethleann to turn her in a battle axe, but what if Lorie told Jack, who in turned passed this secret to his daughter in law, who wants to have more "power" because she thinks her husband is only a lowly soldier and if he had a crest and a relic they would be well-off compared to now?

There are no solutions to this dilemna (Rhea was damn lucky the scholar who nearly found out this secret stopped his researches thinking the Goddess wouldn't want to know more, because I'm pretty sure if Randy knew it, he would have started to hunt "pointy ears" to have a shiny weapon at his disposal to demonstrate his muhrit) and while I often portray Willy as stupid, I usually HC him as ruthless on this issue (and supported by Macuil, the worst wing man), doubly so if his precious heir is a half-nabatean and can be targeted to "create" weapons.

How to bury a secret that spread out? Rhea opted to tell lies, I can see Willy, Adrestian (irl roman?) Willy being more practical and bury the people who know said secret, dead men tell no tales, right?

**I said Gloucesters because we have the Axe of Ukonvasara that is a holy weapon... resonating with a crest of Gloucester, so it could have been made for a dragon who had, originally, that power, or it might have been given to "turncoats", aka members of Gloucester's clan who joined Adrestia.

-> HC wise, Willy could recruit red units and give them shiny weapons (thanks to Indech !) once they became blue.

***One could say Lycaon following his father during his conquest would have known more of "Fodlan's lands" than a peon in Enbarr - especially if Lycaon has an extended lifespan by virtue of being half lizard, he spent 40 years travelling across Fodlan and came to know its people... even if all those years travelling and that knowledge only applied to the lands who were conquered (as they were conquered) and not Enbarr, so when he returns South, to the Nobles and whoever were living in Enbarr, Lycaon might be a stranger who spent more time "in the north" than in the South.