Then I’m gonna subscribe to the theory that there’s probably only one way to extract phantasma and it’s more trouble than it’s worth to strip MC of them. Plus, there’s only a few people who can wield one with the right training. The mage is the only one capable of playing host to at least five at the same time and maybe using two of them in a battle.
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But if MC is a goody two shoes who always help everyone they can even to the detriment of their own body and don’t take no for an answer, like in the case of the moonvein, shouldn’t they at least wonder in passing how is the Duke? After all, they spent years in his court, and maybe there are some of their friends left who are not dead/brain-damaged. After all MC and Eli (and Sister but not so much) were rebuilding their lives there, there must have been some people in Salantria they still care about. Even more so if you max alchemy on your MC since they use Palmerra themselves and could maybe come up with some at least partial treatment of Palmerra aftereffects. I don’t mean MC have to throw everything and rush to Salantia, they are not in a position to do that in book 2, but to at least think about it, show that they actually care. There is that fireworks scene after all, so I’m hoping for more of MC’s past to resurface.
Duude, that country is done if that’s the case. The ruling class in a vegetative state is practically an invitation to be invaded by everyone. And it’s been that way for a year since MC died. Man, they are done, just done, ready for the taking by Arcadia.
That is actually a very good point. Not only nobility but also raised by the Duke himself. And I see no reason why Tahlia would not support such an endeavor. Especially if she can take over a country with no losses to her personnel. Man, now it seems like a waste now to use MC just as some hired killer.
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The MC did say that Sister had brainwashed, and had command over, the entire Salantira Court, so I don’t think MC and Eli has any friends left in there. Eli even said the two of them were lucky they found out about Sister’s evil scheme at all.
But I agree. I also hope that MCs who have excellent alchemy skill will have the option to create a cure to reverse Palmerra induced brain damage to help cure the Salantir nobles if we so choose.
I bet that’s Tahlia’s wet dream. 
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That’s what I was wondering. If Salantira is being made to pay for the damages done to Param and everyone was basically under thrall, WHO is gonna pay and HOW?
That’s probably why it’s taking Param a while to rebuild and why this is the perfect opportunity for Arcadia, Yotai, OR the other continent empires to strike.
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If you play the demo with the Archangel’s route just before Jiasei, you learn a little bit of the chaos going on in Salantira.
Adam has also said on Tumblr that we’ll get a more thorough look at Salantira and Param in book 3!
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“Hey Leon, I’m responding to your request for healers in- Hey what’s with that face?”
Leon, visibly both remorseful and concerned:
“Your lover’s back from the dead, they’re having a statue of you built after they took over Salantira.”
“…Ah.”
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Isn’t that kind of late tho? Even if we don’t go so Salantria and Param in book 2, we are still in a world post-war. Whichever place we go to would be affected one way or another by what happened between those two kingdoms. It would be nice to have even random people we pass along mention some food shortages or merchants complaining about losing their suppliers since the war. Just some little things like that here and there would serve as a connetcing tissue between books, untill the story takes us for a deeper dive in that issue. So we know that events are taking place all around and that the world didn’t pause until main character has time to get nvolved.
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amr nation, i have a hypothetical i would like to pose that will not stop bouncing around in my brain: do you guys think that if the mc had said “I cannot take this anymore, I have to stop” wrt their phantasma during the war that leon would have had their back?
in this scenario, if the army is phantasma-less and the campaign starts to sputter out and the whispers ante is pushing that mc doesn’t have params interest at heart start to get louder, do you think that we head for a similar result as in-game after the death of the saintess? or do you think that it was the unique pressures of the situation, not a fault of leon’s actual faith/love of mc, that lead to him making the choices he did?
one of the most interesting parts of this hypothetical to me is that i don’t think the mage would have ever actually backed out; i think across p much all playthroughs they would have died first which is. troubling!
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These are my personal opinions, and I can’t speak for everyone.
Maybe Leon would be frustrated, but I think he would have respected the MC’s wishes.
Even after everything the MC has done to help Param win the war, the Parami were still quick to call for the MC’s death when they learned that the MC has killed the Saintess. So, in your hypothetical scenario, I think it may have ended even worse for the MC.
As for Leon, it was both the pressures of the situation (the Church wanted to take the matter into their own hands) as well as his lack of faith in the MC that led him to make the choices he made.
Which is why the sting of betrayal from Leon and the people of Param hurts that much more.
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As far as I am concerned Leon has failed his test of character.
He will have to face the consequences.
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I don’t think there would be a Param without using MC’s phantasma. They barely won WITH MC tearing themselves apart. Without the phantasma use, it would have been lights out for what was left of the Parami. Which is kind of hilarious because Nightsaber would have obliterated the resistance against Sister. Now that Param is without their savior, they are really up creek without a paddle.
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I agree with this honestly. The rebellion wouldn’t have gotten off the ground let alone been able to fight Sister even with Leon’s broken powerful swordif not for them taking the walking nuke that is The Mage, saying “Go crazy” and patching them up after.
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Now that you mention it, those guys have like no chance right now. A squad of trained arcadian mages just as, or even more skilled than MC is on the precipice of invasion, each with their own phantasma capable of turning armies into bowling pins, and the only one who could possibly stand a chance against them (MC) is working for them, may or may not have a huge chip on their shoulder for being executed, and is more powerful than when they died. Hell, even if MC was never executed, they wouldn’t stand a chance considering they nearly permanently cut off their magic last time they used an incompatible phantasma.
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Yup, now that my MC supports Arcadia… Param is well and truly fucked.
I love it that they did it to themselves though.
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I forgot to add that I do think Leon might have let MC slide on phantasma usage at the start of the war, but the further they get and the worse things look, I have no doubts that he’d pressure MC into using their phantasma.
The way he looked to MC for ANY kind of answer when they were escaping from Sister after she killed Julius? Finding out that it’s possible MC’s ill fitting phantasma would kill them and still having them use it almost every battle? Param treated MC like a legendary pokemon.
Edit: Another messed up realization is that MC sacrificed everything they had. Eli’s sacrifice, family in Sister and Salantir mages, potentially their own life, and it still wasn’t enough. No one lost more than the mage. Killing their sister was okay. Killing old acquaintances was okay. All the killing was fine until it was the “wrong” person who MAY have understood it was for the best even as she was dying.
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In one of my intended playthroughs, the first chance I get Imma make my MC escape with Eli, leaving the Arvanand continent altogether if I can. I mean, technically, the MC is already dead, and there’s no need to let anyone know that they’ve been brought back to life. But not before tracking down and assassinating that pest Ante, both for personal vengeance and as a last gift for Arcadia.
After that, I just want my MC to live the rest of his life with Eli in peace. Param, Salantira, and Arcadia can go for each other’s throat for all he cares.
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The only go it alone option for the mc that we know about is the insanity/destroy everything one and my mc refuses to take up the exact same position Mireil once did, particularly since the mc has got a very short leash…so they’d just end up being Thalia’s little puppet in Salantira.
Besides while mc may have been born as noble he knows absolutely nothing about living as one and at this stage mine has zero interest in learning or much of anything else, except getting rid of the parasites always causing him pain.
Speak for yourself, my mc wants to be rid of the useless parasites…whatever it takes.
Besides I don’t think they are really lost they’re some form of immortal spirits and I think it may take a couple of centuries for their essence to reconstitute but in the end they’ll probably be fine…unlike mc at present.
My guess is that is Isha…and my mc wouldn’t take her, unless it is the only way to expel all the others…and even then he won’t use her beyond the endgame as he hates all the parasites and since, if we get her at all, it’l likely be literally five minutes before the end-game she’d come too little too late to change anything about my mc’s opinion of the parasites.
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Tahlia said they don’t know what exactly the phanthasma are, she may be lying tho, but also the BBEG in book 2 said phanthasmas die together with their weilder and she was from original Arcadia so i guess she knows what she’s talking about (Sidenote: kinda weird team SnakeFace don’t try to take her in alive since shes West Arcadia, born and raised, she is a gold mine of information crucial to Tahlia) Not to mention that whole hustle to preserve Earthsworn. So as it is not knowh what they are, the phanshasma can surely cease to exist.
As for the perfect phanthasma for the MC, if it isn’t Earthsworn, I bet we will again have the option to chose, like when chosing the main one from the 4, but as those were corresponding with MC’s magical disciplines I think the perfect one will be personality based. It may even be chosen automatically based on what kind of person the Mage is.
Maybe then we can have a conversation with them coz im dying for them to communicate like other Arcana users seem to be able to do.
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Well, we’re about to get a look at Ilya and Leon in the next update, so I’m holding tight for that one.
We also know that there’s more ‘plagues’ going on, so there’s stuff happening without MC’s involvement.
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these to me are the two things leon has to square during the campaign: the fact that it is not going to be possible for them to take back param without using phantasma and the knowledge that doing so will always hurt and one day likely kill mc. this is the sort of choice the leon of the white fangs would have really balked at, but i think he felt like he failed julius by not being able to stop mireil from killing him; failing to take back param would be the final, ultimate failure of everything julius believed in, and it’s his express responsibility as king not to let that happen.
i think, without either of them really knowing it, something fundamentally broke in leon and the mc’s relationship after leon became king. before the ball, if you’re doing the leon-mance, a big chunk of what he and the mc have in common is they’re both huge bleeding hearts who want to save everyone. leon approves of them doing some truly dangerous bonkers shit (i.e. some adventurous uses of spirit gates at the bandit encampment, saving everyone at the plague village but passing out) if it helps people.
this comes from a good place from both him and mc. mc’s martyr complex is very interesting to me though bc with only two notable exceptions, every important person in mc’s life before the white fangs treated them like a resource. i don’t think they have any idea of how to set healthy boundaries of what other people should demand from them. i think subconsciously they anticipate that all relationships are extractive on some level.
so while the repercussions of overextending themselves are fairly minor and short-lived, this is all well and good. but that changes dramatically after mireil shows up. we have a hideous intersection between leon’s need to avenge julius and knowing that phantasma is the only way to do it and the mc’s expectation that if you want to be valued/loved/safe, you have to be providing something.
i am kissing you on the mouth for this @Terin_Lost. this is what i would say is the grand product of the change in the relationship that mireil brings about. by the time of the pyre, leon had been ready to sacrifice the mc for years because he’s the king and that’s what he feels his duty to param is. he feels guilty, but in the end, he never expresses any squeamishness about the toll its exacting on mc (that’s ilya!).
i dont doubt at all that he loves them wholly (platonically or romantically), but after mireil shows up, it’s not a love without expectations. and it’s not like. a super enjoyable way to be loved. and i don’t think he would still love them if they were willing to walk away. but that’s just my take; it is fantastic to see what everyone else thinks.
it is also my great dream for my mc to one day have like a normal relationship with another human being.
also i hope no one interprets this as leon bashing. the rotting of this relationship enchants me. the most divorced couple energy of any if. the mountain goats wrote no children about THEM
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