#or just some new crossover/spinoff game entirely but... other than that I wouldn't expect another Fodlan game

[dmclemblems]

Regarding Claude and Leonie's support vs Dimitri and Yuri's: On one hand yes, Claude feeling that he can't do this himself shows that he should learn to move out of his bubble more, as Dimitri shows that being a king doesn't limit one's ability to mingle with the commoners on a personal level. But on the other hand, I still like that he gives his people a voice through Leonie - another commoner, and one of the most commoner student in the game (no experience as a rich merchant, or a famous diva, or a noble's adpoted child - she's one of the exceedingly few characters that has NO experience being any kind of well-off). It shows that he does still care for them, even if he feels like he isn't allowed to attach himself to them on a personal level - speaks to his character overall really, that he genuinely cares about the people around him but something in HIM stops him from connecting to others as much as he wants to.

He's more disconnected from the commoners than Dimitri is, but it's something he acknowledges and something he's working on in his own way - and that way involves his friends! It involves TRUSTING his friends to help him!! - and that's kinda neat to me. Well, until the game decided that actually he hates having any responsibility and that he wants to run away from all of the work he gave himself before blaming his own actions on an innocent woman that he's going to brutally slaughter for no reason. Since Hopes is apparently deathly allergic to even the CONCEPT of basic consistency.

damn i was gone from tumblr for so long that i didn’t know asks could get this long lmao

Oh I do like that Claude is getting help from commoners. That at least is a very normal thing for Claude to do.

I do feel like it was pretty odd for him to take on all that work and then continuously make jokes about not wanting to do it. It was consistent enough that it sounds like he actually regrets it, and iirc there was a quick mention implying he might?

Part of what aggravates me about the way Claude was written in this game is that yeah, he blames what he does on everyone else, such as “they wouldn’t surrender” or “they have to surrender so there are fewer causalities or else it’s their fault if people die”. I hate that he takes no responsibility for invading other people’s lands and pulls the “it’s their fault” card when really, Faerghus was minding its own business. It’s not Dimitri’s fault that people die in a war that he didn’t start. He was working on Faerghus’ politics and defending from the Empire. You can’t go to someone’s house, rob them while armed and then go “it’s your fault your family died because you wouldn’t give me your valuables”. That’s just stupid, and Claude isn’t supposed to be stupid.

Another thing that bothered me was just the overall lack of consistency in the second half. In the first half he was fine, but in the second half they made it a point to make him not want to sacrifice people and the stuff we’re used to, but then he’d turn around and do something terrible and blame his enemies for it. The only thing he took responsibility for was Randolph because all his allies got pissed about that, but if they didn’t get mad at him, he didn’t really care about what he was doing/who he had to kill.

There are times when he does seem to genuinely care regarding not wanting to kill people, but his excuses for the people he does kill always cast the blame on the actual victims. I don’t think he’s heartless, but he definitely lacks any kind of decency. Claude’s always been the type to do whatever was necessary to win as long as it didn’t involve causalities, and if it had to that would be because they were being attacked first.

For instance, he was really upset in SB when tons of people died because he insisted on fighting Leopold and the Empire still got him out of that fight alive. He wondered if they should’ve just surrendered to the Empire in the first place because it would’ve saved lives, but Hilda reminds him that the people in the Alliance would never have gone for that without putting up a fight first. In that situation, he’s upset about it but he was in the right to fight back. People died, yeah, but because he was trying to defeat the strongest general in the invading army.

It’s not Claude’s personality that I don’t like in this game. I think his general characteristics and behavior are pretty standard for what we’d expect. I just hate how they made him be the one to make all the questionable choices and do things that disregarded his morals. Even Edelgard, at least in SB, isn’t as bad as he is in GW in some ways. In SB it also seems more like Claude allied with her because he was so defeated and stressed out from their losses that he gave up. In GW, he’s a lot crueler and while I think Claude can be dubious from time to time, I don’t think he’s supposed to be outright cruel.

Like, I’m sorry but guilt tripping Ashe to join them and making Ashe question his choices for the entire rest for the game was just painful to watch. Ashe hated betraying Faerghus and probably would’ve gone down fighting if Dimitri hadn’t told him to prioritize his life over his loyalty. Claude obviously knew Dimitri was like that and used it against Ashe to make Ashe stop fighting, but it wasn’t like “you can surrender, give us the stronghold and we’ll let you live”. It was “you can surrender and join our army and actively fight against your friends or die”. When it comes to Claude, I would expect him to lean far more toward the end of “just surrender and leave” not “join our army and help us slaughter your friends :)”. Even Yuri calls him “vicious” for it.

Something I noticed was that throughout GW, the characters in camp were questioning Claude’s choices very regularly. It got to the point where a lot of people were disgusted with his choices. That does mean the writers are self aware, and that bugs me even more tbh.

It feels like they wanted to try something new with Claude but didn’t really know exactly how to pull it off, and it just feels like a convoluted mess. I want to like Claude in Hopes just because... he’s Claude and I like Claude, but it’s so damned difficult when he does half the shit he does.