1. Are the twins DONE after taking Rastedel?
2. Have the twins shown themselves the most benevolent of conquerors?
Of course, Marianne is a powerful individual who can greatly enhance any force she's part of, and Werden appears to be one of the few competent generals employed by the Six Realms. Well, Five Realms now. I don't doubt their ability to make military contributions.
But...
For the first question, does everything end when peace is restored? Do the famines end? Are the dead peasants resurrected? The burnt villages rebuilt, the sacked manors refurnished? There's going to be a long reconstruction period, both for the pre-existing problems and the new ones the Twins built. And when that happens, who is Werden going to favor? The nobles who he relies on support, and who are at the head of Solansia's Order? Or the peasants, who are the ones who can barely survive the remaining season and need
immediate aid? And even if he isn't cruel and short-sighted enough to stiff them, can the same be said for every noble at his side, who he relies on to carry out his suggestions for how to handle their own territory? Because they didn't exactly make a great impression back in Rastadel.
And, for that matter... Does the Kingdom's own wishes even matter after this? Because it was already deep under Prothea's influence before this - and now, Prothean troops are going to be at the front of retaking it. The food and supplies to rebuild probably aren't going to be locally sourced either. After something like this, will they be able to maintain even the fiction of independence, or will the decisions made on the ground instead be made in some far-flung court that's more preoccupied with their
own problems? Even for rebels with the best of intentions, such arrangements don't tend to work out well for the freedom fighters. At worst, the puppet regime ends up with all the aid going to prop up their own power while their chosen favorites live a life of luxury, and the rubble never gets rebuilt at all.
None of this is worth it if things just go back to the way they were before Rowan left his cell - if that happens, he's just a coward who should have chosen a more dignified death. He can't just ensure the Twins lose, because the Twins would have lost
already without him. He has to make sure that the right people win as well, and that means someone who understand that there were more flaws to the old system than "peasants rising above their station".
And as for the Twin's benevolence... Are the Twins immortal? Unbeatable? Is suffering them for a year or five
that much worse than a tyrannical or incompetent king from years years past? I mean, I could easily picture Andras ordering one out of every five villages razed in response to a peasant insurrection - but truly, the Twins really do seem preoccupied with what's right in front of them. This isn't an assault from an army of Skordreds, intent on remaking the world - it's an army "lead" by people interested in their own amusement and self-aggrandizement, who see this as a sort of game that lets them demand everyone kneel before them. Andras might be a butcher who kills half the people he wanders across, but that's a problem for the capital - everyone outside his eyesight will likely be fine. Jezera might demand that every pretty boy and girl in the kingdom be brought to her for inspection, but it amounts to a petty distraction at most; she loses interest in her toys quickly, and she leaves them in good enough condition that they can still work afterwards.
And if this was them "playing nice", if they were only holding back enough to get a single, semi-functioning country before demanding that everything past it be burnt... Well, frankly, the Twins are
still in a terrible position without him. Their army of orcs are the remnants from the
last army to try this "conquer the world" shtick, and were already being harried to destruction by Prothea already when you found them. Daenara was described as an army of her own, and is still out there, as are the other armies. And the Twins have lost the advantage of surprise - the other kingdoms are going to switch to a war footing now.
If the Twins aren't willing to be "reasonable", to stick to things that are appalling-but-not-quite-past-Rowan's-line, then he can simply quit, and those atrocities will be prevented as his side falls apart without him. And yeah, they'll kill him for it, possibly Alexia as well. But they'll still
lose. He doesn't need to empower people like Werden to make that happen.
And Rowan has also demonstrated that his influence basically means nothing in the face of the whims of the Twins. Sure, Rowan came short from accomplishing in a few weeks the basically impossible task of getting a city like Rastedel to completely and unconditionally surrender to a demon army, but even if Rowan had somehow managed to do it, would that really have stopped them from sacking the city anyway? Much of their demeanor during the pre-sack leads me to believe they would have done it either way and were just looking for an excuse to do it, they were just playing with Rowan and feeding him false promises to see how much they could get out of him, as they have been doing for much of the game.
My point is that in the end Rowan's influence doesn't matter because there isn't a happy ending with the Twins in charge. Sure, it can help him mitigate the damage the Twins will do while they have power, but if for that he has to slowly take out every single person capable of opposing the Twins then he is dooming his own cause.
Historically speaking, taking the city without sacking it was probably a fantasy to begin with. As much as Rowan rages, prior to the modern era, this was just how things were done; sacking "only" half the city would have been kinder than anyone would have expected (and one reason I'm glad to be living in the modern era, even if I think social media is going to get us all killed).
He might have lost sight of this in the moment, but what he really wanted was for Rastadel to be taken mostly intact - and that's what he got (ironically, the most damage done was probably at the hands of the fire
he set). The people who didn't want to fight to the bitter end appear to have made it to safe zones, and the tools necessary to keep the city running weren't outright destroyed. Did it look as pretty as he had hoped? No, obviously not. This is still an army of demons and orcs taking a major human settlement. But for all his PTSD, he still saved a hell of a lot of people doing it this way.
And, sack aside, what comes
after the sack? Are the Twins really in charge of the city now? Or did they hand things off to a
human governor (handpicked by Rowan, no less, if he doesn't go with Werden) who lacks their particular tastes and need merely ensure that the quotas are met and the rebels are cowed? Because it looks like they're still going to be reigning from Bloodmeen, and from Jezera's dismissive comments regarding governors, don't really care how the city is run. If the twins are going to be like a hurricane, tearing up a region before blowing past, that might not even be the worst of things - it tears apart the old order, lets Rowan set a framework for a new one, and leaves it to its own devices while a new shiny object catches the Twins eye.
Of course, it's probably
not going to be that clean. They probably
are going to make new demands of the city that Rowan will be loathe to grant. But how much Rastadel and the other occupied territories suffer is probably going to come down to how well he can manage the Twins - and that, in turn, is easier if they don't treat everything he says as a plot because he let Werden go.
But, that aside, this also presupposes that the Twins stay in charge - but Rowan has recruited plenty of people who are personally loyal to him, and only to the Twins by extension. If he so chooses, he
does have the tools he needs to launch an internal rebellion, one that would doom the Twins cause - he's not yet in a position where he could take over with any hope of defeating the humans as well, but he can certainly ensure the Twins lose without relying on Werden.
I raised this exact same concern in the past, jokingly said they would have to straight up prevent a "rape of Nanking" type event for it to be worthwhile. But yeah, on a meta level we know that's extremely unlikely because it would imply every single other route has to suffer something even more fucked up than the worst possible Rastedel sack, and I'm not sure that would even be a good decision by the devs since a lot of the fandom are more interested in the "fun evil" fantasy rather than a "disturbingly cruel and depressively bleak" scenario.
Unfortunately the same argument applies to the idea that maybe Werden and Marianne could be essential to defeat the Twins, we know this is a videogame and victory is still possible even without them because this game has other routes. Devs could pull some bullshit like if Werden stays alive you don't have to sacrifice a more likable character later into the story, but again if that character is really likable and they die in every route but Werden's route, I feel that's just gonna piss everyone else off in the attempt to arbitrarly validate that one route everybody agreed was a bad idea.
Personally, I don't mind the idea of another scene like the destruction of the army that could be prevented if you sided with Werden, and think it could enhance the narrative. But, like you say, that would make it more a bright spot on an otherwise doomed timeline in my eyes. In terms of things that might otherwise give me pause... Maybe the Dark Elves demanding the genocide of the Elves as terms for an alliance insisted upon by Jezera?
Maybe?
A likable character surviving on Werden's route while dying on others sounds perfectly reasonable to me, though. That tends to be a good vehicle for conveying tragedy (an important element of this story), and it's a tool that's already been used; I like both Jacques and Patricia, but one of them will always die.
Also from a technical perspective, we know the devs are probably not gonna make a whole different game just for Werden's route, so it would kinda suck if their future benefits felt too "momentaneous", imagine having to wait until the climax of Chapter 2 to get any gratification from having chosen Werden's route. Ideally I think Werden's resistance should give Rowan a continous stream of benefits throughout act 2 as he takes a more active role in saboutaging the Twins, their holdings become an evacuation route for refugees, they keep the forces of the Twins preoccupied (so they can't just go around pillaging the countryside), etc. But that might be too much work for a single odd route.
On the one hand, the idea of continuous benefits sounds good to me, but on the other... It strikes me that it would be easy for this to become an "informed attribute" at best, and outright counterproductive at worst. I mean, what does that continuous stream look like in terms of mechanics? Lowered thresholds for certain checks, maybe? But that's something that could easily be overlooked.
But it's pretty easy to imagine why this prolonged war would involve a lot more dead orcs on your part (mechanically, lowered recruitment numbers), depopulated villages (lower gold income), and a host of war-related expenses (higher upkeep). And it's still
your army taking the brunt of this. But hamstringing your own success doesn't really sound like a fun game, so... I don't know how to make this fun, mechanically coherent,
and continuous. Narratively speaking, "only shows up at key moments" sounds like the better way to go.
Lets not forget that Werden was already planning the coup before Rowan showed up, Werden is obsessed with Solansia's Order as a concept, he is not fond of the state of the current nobility. Sure, if Rowan never showed up and he succeeded at his coup, he would probably only have changed the Baron and at most done some very minor anti-corruption reforms, but now that it is clear it is gonna be war time again, he is probably gonna be much less tolerant with decadent nobles.
Just as a point of order, though - it
was still "his" nobles who feasted at multiple points during Rastadel's plotline in the middle of a famine, and who offered up a
lot of stupid ideas when things started going wrong (admittedly, while they were panicking). To say nothing of the fact that Raeve was amongst his men.
He might believe they need to be better, but he certainly seems more compromising on this point than he is with the peasants.
And I do believe Werden has the power to whip the remaining nobility into whatever he wants, he is the military guy of a kingdom that just woke up to an all-out demon invasion, the soft nobles are scared shitless and they are gonna flock towards whoever has the biggest army and the spine to be a leader, Werden being the only one that matches the description. Trying to oust him would be suicide as that would leave a fractured nobility having to fend for themselves against the Twins, they may not like him but I can see most of the nobles swearing their forces to Werden, even if it ends up with him putting them in the sidelines (not consulting them or only dealing with the more competent members of their families). I expect him to be able to be basically a dictator with his resistance.
Of course that like you said, he wouldn't really be able to go around executing people left and right, and neither should he probably. At most he could probably change the heads of the families and keep things right for a generation or two and even that much wouldn't solve the systemical issues of hereditary inheritance. But that doesn't nullify the merits of opposing the Twins' cruelty and the chaotic world they would create.
I just don't see those measures holding after wartime unless he redistributes the actual land, the basis of feudal power. And I just don't see the other nobles accepting that level of power over them - it's something they'd hold dearer than their own lives, as it's the core of what makes their families important. Even they don't care about themselves, they still care about their families.
A rotten peace is worse than a chaotic world, because a chaotic world will always stabilize with time (at least when we're talking about humans); absent external intervention, someone eventually crawls the to the top of the ashes, and forces everyone else into line. It may be costly, it may be painful, and the new peace may be a bitter one, but a new society always rises from the old - humans are fundamentally social creatures who don't
enjoy killing each other all the time. The only question is whether the pain is worth it, and from the glimpse we got at the capital, it certainly looks worth it now.
Of course, it would obviously be better to minimize the pain and chaos that replacing the old order would entail. Which is why it's important that Rowan make things as clean as possible, something that a campaign of active resistance from Werden would seem to work against.
Yeah, meaningful change from Werden's part would require him being willing to admit his son is not the best and most reasonable leader, which does require a lot of optimism regarding Werden's possible character growth. But lets keep in mind that Rowan's betrayal is not yet common knowledge, nor would I expect it to become anytime soon, I think Werden will try to keep Rowan's involvement with the Twins a secret for the time being and he only promised to hold Rowan accountable after it was all done, which I don't really think is a promise he will live up to.
I think the cat's out of the bag at this point. Even if Werden was inclined to keep his mouth shut, every noble at the lodge saw him accuse Rowan and lock him up - and even if his camp doesn't talk, there were plenty of people who saw him at the sack, and at the following festivities. It would be extremely strange if they were able to keep the person running things anonymous now that they've taken a city of Rastadel's size.
The Twins may not have the time or disposition to ravage every single village in the kingdom, but like you said they still host orc bands and demons that follow the culture of chaos, what do you think is gonna happen when the demonic tax collector rolls around and takes a liking to the elder's daughter? Or when an orc unit needs to spend the night in one of the villages to resupply on their route to somewhere else? Of course you could make the argument that corrupt soldiers could do the same regardless of what they believe in, but in general at least followers of Solansia would have such behavior reproached, while followers of Kairos might see it as only right for the strong to take from the weak.
I'm thinking more of the long-term consequences here than the short-term tragedies. Essentially; will the Twin's influence fundamentally change these communities, or simply subject them to temporary suffering? When the Twins die or are defeated, will these villages have internalized anything from being ruled by Chaos, or will it have been no different than having a particularly cruel lord for a generation?
If there's no fundamental transformation, then whether the mountain duchy holds out or not makes little difference outside of the strategic considerations - they're going be suffering from the war either way. If rule by the Twins
did cause them to break more permanently from Solansia's orders, then keeping them from that would present a more meaningful distinction.
I think one of the main dilemmas of the game is presented as the choice between the organizational benefits of a predetermined order versus the improvement of individuals in a meritocratic system. I think this choice depends a lot on the personal beliefs of each person and I personally lean more towards the first, but I need to make an argument here against the "Might makes right" system the game displays: it does not work.
We already see it several times throughout the game, when Rowan makes deals to help weaker individuals in exchange of favors, or promotes undeserving underlings for their loyalty rather than their talents, or fixes fights to ensure his preferred option wins. "Might makes right" does not lead to a truly meritocratic system because it never measures just your talents on the task you need to accomplish, but rather it puts more emphasis on your ability to screw over your competition. This only leads to a society that focuses on saboutage and distrust, which would inherently grow more and more self-destructive without really improving individuals in constructive ways.
Of course the negatives of a completely stationary order with no accountability are already well shown in the game, with the presence of a decadent nobility that weakens the whole kingdom. Both extremes are terrible, but somewhere in between, with the alternatives the game presents, I lean more towards the "Order" side.
Ideally one could ponder ways of "beating" either system, what if in a stable order the ruling class was mindwashed into having to do their best for their subjects, instilling into them permanent psychological accountability they could not escape. Or in a "might makes right" system, there was an almighty capable of creating unbreakable rules that kept all competitions "clean".
One complication here is that nobody in the game (other than Skordred and some orcs) truly follows or cares about "Might Makes Right" - Rowan certainly doesn't, and he's the one running things. The Twins were inclined to cast it aside. Some characters in the game do advocate for it, but always defer back to Rowan because, well, he's the warlord here, and he's actively managing things.
"Might Makes Right" may be their justification, but what it becomes in
practice is making cases to Rowan, who chooses based on what he thinks is best. This doesn't differ significantly from an absolute monarchy; the only difference is that Rowan rules by right of continued success, and everyone is free to appeal to him without needing a noble title to back them up.
Of course, it'd completely fall apart after the death of Rowan and the Twins, as a power struggle tears things apart in the absence of a single clear successor, but... Well, that gets back to the part where they don't
really follow "Might Makes Right" - if the game went on long enough, they'd certainly ensure that there was an heir competent enough to claim things on their own merit.
Being honest, in a completely humanitarian sense, I think there are few people I wouldn't want to successfully escape the city. Even if there are safe zones that manage to last through the sack, I doubt life is about to get any better for the citizens of Rastedel for a long time, we have seen nothing to show that demons and orcs are any kinder as rulers than conquerors. But it would be nice to have better symbols of Werden's evacuation meaning something.
I disagree, personally; life as a refugee in that situation would be
horrible. They'd literally have nothing but the clothes on their back, be weakened from the long march out of the kingdom, and almost certainly lack any useful skills (a craftsman without their tools isn't much of a craftsman, and they'd be trying to break into an established market without any capital). Most of them would die; those that don't, would be surviving on charity that can't deal with the number of victims.
And this is setting aside the fact that they would be treated with scorn and suspicion by the people they fled to; a country will pat itself on the back for accepting a handful of refugees, but once there are enough that it takes actual
effort to do the right thing, they start to resent them and look for excuses to force them along. This is
before the rumors start spreading about spies and shapeshifters hiding amongst the refugees, waiting to take down the kingdom by surprise like they took down Rosaria.
Meanwhile, those that stayed... Well, I wouldn't expect it to go
well for them, necessarily. But I expect that they'll have homes and food, and that jobs (real jobs, not slave jobs) will soon be arranged for everyone as soon as they work out how much economic capacity was burnt out of the place. And as time goes on, things will go back to relative normal as routines resume, people adapt to their new neighbors, and the Twins learn how much they can play with the city before it starts causing them more problems than fun. As for where things go from there... Well, that depends on the war, I suppose.
