Param isn’t a dictator ship nor an absolute monarchy. It’s ruled with the church and the crown. If Leon pisses off his clergy, nobles and the entire population off he will only have one stick to control his country, the military. Forcing your hand in these situations is risky and one he can’t afford unless he wants to actually have a dictatorship ruled by police state. Being a ruler isn’t just you saying yes and no whenever you want. You serve the people and if you serve yourself for too long the people will get rid of you. Ever hear of the French revolution.
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It’s still a dictatorship either way. What’s the difference between one guy with no accountability to the commonfolk and three factions that have no accountability to the commonfolk? And if those other people refused to see reason too, that’s just more heads on the chopping block when I get my revenge.
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I feel like “giving into its every whim” is an extreme way to frame it when “the mob” in this situation is mad about one person doing one VERY bad thing. K_Douglas explained it well from the perspective of a commoner, it’s not like the people are upset because of a minor social faux pas, it’s murder of a very important figure and I don’t think it’s that weird or that misguided for a leader (especially a new leader who wasn’t prepared to be in his position and just got out of a war etc etc etc) to take into account what a war ravaged populace is asking for.
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No, it’s still giving in to an angry mob. If there’s a reason not to listen, you need to quell them without immediately giving in no matter why they want it. I understand their anger but that doesn’t change the fact that it was objectively a shortsighted decision even if we were in fact guilty. The execution could have made it harder to avert yet another threat. You need to cover all of your bases before having someone killed.
Like I said, I could handle the execution on its own, but they did it so quickly without looking into everything. If there was a proper investigation besides torturing us for a week beforehand and they STILL found us guilty, I wouldn’t be so pissed off at these people.
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Eh, I guess I’ll always just disagree then. I think it makes full sense narratively and in the universe this story takes place in for things to have happened the way they did. As the other user already stated, it’s a situation where people are fresh out of a war, and it’s a universe where public execution via burning someone at a stake is acceptable, I’m not at all surprised or upset at a lack of investigation or whatever (which… what IS there even to investigate when the MC literally can’t say anything).
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There are three ways to control a population. Keep them fed, keep them content and keep them entertained.
Right now Leon is close to striking out and it’s not even his fault and right now he could be close to losing it all no matter what he does. You threw a match at a barrel full of gasoline so no matter what you did or your sacrifice this was what was going to happen.
At the end of the day it is a revenge story and you’ve been unjustly martyred but it’s clear the sole blame isn’t on Leon. You hold as much responsibility as him and point of the story is that you didn’t even realize until you were being burned and that is why your having those flashbacks. Your looking back at every action that brought you here and it’s both your fault and not your fault
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Oh narratively, it definitely makes sense, I just think Leone personally, is a prick for what he did. There’s just a few too many holes in the decision-making process for me to view this as the unavoidable tragedy of miscommunication it’s framed as.
Nah, we don’t. It wasn’t our fault we got cursed with that silence spell, and we had nothing to do with Sister’s plan, not of our own free will. We did everything we could to get a better outcome. The deck was stacked against us.
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Well my point was that you could’ve let them die, deserted, skipped out, say no to there offer, or even have just stayed with aunt Beth. What I was focusing on was that these were flash backs of the story you already wrote reflecting on how you got there. The story could have just started at aunt Beth’s but our introduction was the tied to the stake. That was what you were responsible for, they actions you already took because the end was already happening
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The kingdom isn’t an absolute monarchy, not technically. Sure, Leon can legally do whatever the fuck he wants, but that doesn’t mean that there won’t be consequences for pissing off the populace too much. Which means he needed to find someway to placate them. Coming up with an excuse like saying the MC might be part of some underground secret group that’s planning to strike again might do it, after all, it’s really easy to make people believe in conspiracy theories. Placate them by saying that MC will be executed once all the information has been gained from them, and while that’s happening, Sister‘s diary could’ve been opened with leisure
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That’s an interesting point, but I still wouldn’t say it was our “fault”, per se, since well, everything we did was heroic. The only things we could’ve done to prevent this were acts of cowardice. The fault, as in, who is to blame for the decision to kill us, goes to those who made said decision. Leone isn’t the only one to blame, but he IS to blame.
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I’d counter with he’s not to be blamed but the one TO blame if that make sense. well we’ve both seen each others side and like you said earlier you got where I was coming from so I’m probably done for tonight
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I feel like people aren’t considering the fact that Leon is a young ruler still establishing his reign, and MC’s crime was apparently pretty widely known about and impacted a large amount of people.
Monarchies aren’t exactly known for their stellar sense of justice/investigations. “Off with her head” and things of that nature come from monarchies. Monarchs (at least monarchs back in the day and when monarchs were more than figureheads) usually doled out punishment swiftly and for reasons that didn’t even have to make sense.
For all we know, if Leon had decided to keep MC imprisoned while he investigated, it could’ve led to an uprising, especially because at best, they grew up together, and at worst, they were in love with each other, so it could easily be viewed as bias.
Plus, MC basically admitted their guilt, they just said it wasn’t their choice/they did it for a reason. They weren’t insisting on further investigation or anything, so any further investigation would’ve been solely because Leon decided to do it, which again, if that’s not normally how things are done, would’ve been seen as bias.
Anyway, I say all that to say that Leon made a choice, but we don’t really fully understand the driving force behind his choice/the things he had to take into consideration. For all we know, MC’s execution might’ve been the lesser of two evils. In fact, wasn’t it said that if Leon didn’t act, the church was going to?
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All the more reason to burn down the government. My Magocracy will be far better run.
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Seeing a lot of activity in the thread. Maybe there’s some news about the Book 1 release or update on Book 2. Nope just more arguing about Leon despite how entrenched and unwilling to fold both sides are.
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Because, not despite.
It’s not too farfetched to assume that there was no investigation indirectly because of Ante (again). If Leon ordered it, Ante would most likely be in charge, because she is a spymaster, the closer thing to a detective a kingdom usually has. But she was probably like: “I told you MC is bad! I was right all along.” 
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Yes, Ante, such a big player and we see her just 3 times. First time she didn’t even speak to us, the second was at the end of the war and she was super suspicious of us and the third was with the saintess ( and maybe in the dungeon). That’s why I said earlier that she needs more screen time and the 2-year war is the perfect opportunity for that.
We need to have scenes with her doing her job and extremely well at that. For example during the war council, providing vital intel on the enemy and very reliable advice, maybe even in opposition to the MC`s suggestions. We need to see Leon trusting her and with a good reason, also “she’s the spymaster it is obvious he trusts her” is not good enough. Leon can even grow over-reliant on her since he’s inexperienced and grossly unprepared for his new role as leader. Maybe so much so that he doesn’t even realize how dependent and most of all obedient to her he becomes outside of the battlefields. And she might not even do that on purpose, just giving the King the best advice in her opinion. That would add to why he believes her over us, she never let him down before. We are just told by Leon that she was reporting MC’s dubious behavior and that’s hot enough.
The war is also THE time to build up Ante’s suspicion. When we see her before the final assault we are told she was watching us all the time and she says she still will. The problem is not the observation alone since, you know, that’s her job. The problem is that there is nothing to see.
MC did nothing but be heroic during this whole conflict. There is nothing hor Ante to misunderstand, misinterpreted or anything at all for that matter. War alone is a topic for another whole book or at least a significant arc and in this case, it was cut very short. We can only guess what made Ante so suspicious and when we don’t know the events of the war we diverge to what we know. And that is our MC, their history and personality. We know how would they act and how they wouldn’t. If MC is super heroic during the whole game until the war starts it’s hard to believe they would do anything unsavory during the war time-skip. That makes Antes’s suspicion unwarranted and it comes out of the blue. Her actions in opposition to the MC should be better informed and her suspicion properly built up.
In my opinion, the war was used more as a device to put MC in a certain position demanded by the plot, rather than as an organic way to develop the story.
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While I agree that she needs more screen time, making her a pro at her job is basically rewriting her character, judging by what we’ve seen so far. The BBQ itself happened because Leon was unfit to be king and Ante sucked at being a spymaster. Both of them are too emotional for their own good.
As of now I think Leon trusts Ante because she is relatively down to earth, was there when Leon’s brother still ruled and “wants what is best for the kingdom”.
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I agreed with you and decided to give my two cents because i love this work. I don’t know if this was already mentioned ( about Leon killing our MC ) but we have to take in consideration his character and his kingdom, our MC dying by his hands is a crucial part of the plot ( i am not saying the plot killed our MC, but the plot killed our MC because it have to happens and it have to happen in a certain way so the author could write the story they want and make sense of things lol ) I think Leon, our young and inexperienced king, burning our MC alive because of political and popular pressure and feelings of betrayal is very consistent with his character ( so far ) the author developed him pretty well so it would not be OOC for him to take this decision, it fits well in the story. Killing MC was also the next natural, logical decision at first ( they admitted the crime ) however, there was obviously something very fishy about the whole thing ( an investigation was necessary ) but Leon made his decision anyway and that makes him a well-written flawed character that needs to grows in his own arc, wich is great to have in a story. I can forgive him because i understand his character and his position ( and i can’t wait for his development and angst ) but at the same time, i can also see why is easy to not forgive him ( look, i love this man ok ) My mc also understand him and only cares about the ones she loves, so she forgave Leon and she would never hurt him, it does not matter what he will become. I had never seem a most divided forum tread like this one, i want to congratulate the author for writing something so intriguing, morally ambiguos and with no rigth awnser ( at least for me ) sorry about my english 
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Well, we see her using that anti-magic enchantment so proficiently, she does it unbeknownst to MC, the supposed archmage, and Ilya the first time they meet and later in the dungeon as well. Before the final battle, she said to MC that they will not be able to detect her from now on and they don’t, she’s super stealthy. Not to mention she was able to track MC and interrupt them in breaking the BOOM enchantment. So yeah I would say she is pretty skilled already. Not to mention her dagger-throwing skills.
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