I wonder what it is Ante told Leon over the years about the Mage. Did it start the night of Mireil’s attack? When he first openly started distrusting the Mage? What more could she say that the Mage didn’t already reveal after waking up once they escaped from Mireil?
Edit: It’s also that Leon was talking about the Mage behind their back to Ante. And vice versa. That mf doesn’t know loyalty.
Edit 2: OH MAN THAT MAKES THAT ONE MOMENT WAY WORSE. LEMME FIND IT
this is exactly my enduring question about the whole debacle!! i would kill to know what it was that started setting him against us. it’s almost shades of orpheus and eurydice they come SO far and overcome SO much just to falter at the last possible moment.
Why isn’t no-one fired? Because at the end of the day, everything is the MC’s problem.
Found it! I couldn’t get him to punch the Mage to get the dialogue where he admits Ante has been in his ear the whole time, but I wonder if it was guilt that drove him to say this that night on the cliff.
Edit: idk why it wouldn’t let me upload the pictures normally. But I also found the dialogue where Ilya straight up declares she’d abandon the kingdom for the Mage even if you don’t romance her. It gives me hope we can save her from Tahlia’s plans.
Wtf!!! Dude, I am shaking in my woollen socks. Like I can’t remember much of the first book anymore, but I did come into the demo with a “yes I am still stubbornly in love with my murderer guys, and it’s fine” mindset because I thought it was fair enough to burn my mc since she did kill all of those people, and he is the king…
BUT NOW YOU ARE ALL TELLING ME HE WAS TALKING BALONEY BEHIND MY MC’S DUMB LOYAL BACK LIKE A LIL BIT—
throws myself back on the fire for simping a toe rag
@lairiend first of all I love the poetry and YEAH that is definitely a question that just… Hurts to ask.
I’m also lyrics posting again and offering up Story of Isaac by Leonard Cohen as a very AMRcore song, particularly the last few bits.
You who stand above them now
Your hatchets blunt and bloody
You were not there before
When I lay upon a mountain
And my father’s hand was trembling
With the beauty of the word
And if you call me brother now
Forgive me if I inquire
Just according to whose plan
When it all comes down to dust
I will kill you if I must
I will help you if I can
When it all comes down to dust
I will help you if I must
I will kill you if I can
Have mercy on our uniform
Man of peace or man of war
The peacock spreads his fan
It is not too late to jump out of that ship my friend, specially when the option of burning the blonde lad down is on the table still.
Oh no, the time for jumping out of a ship is over. You are in a Stockholm territory now.
You are entitled to your feelings of course, but honestly, Leon seems like a bit of an idiot, so I can’t really say I find this surprising.
Although I’ve never romanced Leon, so I don’t take his idiocy personally.
Even as a friend, the sting of betrayal cuts too deep to overlook. So I can totally understand why the majority of the people who romanced Leon want to take their revenge on him or kill him.
is this the one you were looking for? the line “All the times Ante reported you for your suspicious behavior, urged me to stop you, I ignored every single warning!” was what initially made me think he had worried that the mage was too good to be true way before the dungeons.
i’ll own up to being a (book 1) leonmancer though. the pathos of it all! i maintain that the transition from bleeding heart golden boy to straight up killing the mc was such a fantastic twist for an if, where i think authors can sometimes be a little afraid to let their characters have real flaws, which can make the story a bit tension-less.
he’s frankly not a very good boyfriend at all. compels me though!
YES! That’s the one. The mystery of what Ante told him is going to bug me forever. Urged him to stop the mage from doing what? Saving their hides at every turn during the war? Singlehandedly winning the war FOR THEM?
Leonmancing is what adds that super extra zesty angst to the rest of the series for me. Friends to enemies is nice, but lovers to enemies is just next level. Really, seeing Leon and all of Param realize how in deep of dire straits they’re in is going to be so sweet. The way I see it now, Nightsaber could probably wipe out the kingdom on it’s own, WITHOUT MC.
I just want the option to spook him a lot really, maybe make him wonder if my character is going to actually burn everything to the ground for two months or so. Considering that we got bbq I say is less thant what he deserves.
My mage wants to burn/break that statue at the first chance they get, at the very least 
Same here, and when I gave sorta Ante’s defense about 1000 posts ago I highlighted how a 2-year long war is pretty much a material for another book entirely and it’s a shame it was skipped along with all the development needed to justify the BBQ. I mean mainly Leon turning cruel and gradually becoming more distant and demanding from MC as well as building Ante’s suspicions. I don’t know why the author chose to skip those 2 years so critical for the characters’ development, the only thing that comes to mind is to save time or to not make the book too long which I didn’t know was even a concern in those types of games as some have over 1mil words or take years to make anyway.
Unrelated point below
(including Marvel Cinematic Universe spoilers and also ranting)
(but mostly ranting 
)
It also occurred to me why I have such a problem with Arcadia and it stems from MCU (thx Kevin).
What I mean is, in MCU nowadays they love to make those secret organizations pulling the strings from behind the curtain. We now have Shield, hydra, TBA, red room, eternals, wizards from Kamar-Taj, the 10 rings, egyptian and greek gods, and of course the Scrolls impersonating who knows how many people. On top of that things like the book of vishanti with which you can defeat anyone, and “eternity” which is basically an unlimited power one-wish gene spell and they both get yeeted in the same movie they are introduced.
What those all have in common is that while making those things up no one was thinking about continuity, meaning what were all those people doing before getting introduced in their respective movies. Like, were any of the gods invested in stopping Thanos from deleting half the universe? Did 10 rings know about hydra taking over shield? Why not use “eternity” (which existence is common knowledge for all the gods) to stop Thanos? Why didn’t the Ancient One use the book of vishanti to fight Dormammu? That’s because no one writing for Iron-man 1 thought that far ahead, and 30 movies after no one cares to look back. Every new movie wants to tell its own story and not be constrained by stupid rules that came before but at the same time take all the good stuff. That’s why MCU stories make no sense not only on their own but also constantly contradict those that came before.
Yeah, not a fan of MCU anymore, but that clued me to the presence of Arcadia in the world of AMR. What were they doing during the events of book 1? Why were they not in any way intervening in the war? After learning of their goals in book 2 it makes no sense to me for them to not do anything at all for 2 years. Were they maybe secretly fighting some unknown people with an unknown accent from an unknown continent and had no resources to spare? Were they even in favor of the war or against it? Did they do anything to prevent it or to ignite it further? Going through book 2 MC is constantly surprised by how strong and resourceful Arcadia is and by what we see their mages do they can topple a country on their own already.
That’s why I’m not in favor of skipping the war and ima gonna die on that hill. That’s when we could have been introduced to some shady characters whose identity stayed undiscovered in book 1 sabotaging our war effort or spreading disinformation. Even having to fight and kill some of them, and in questionable circumstances at that, for one sneaky spymaster to witness. Maybe the strangers have unexplainable familiarity with MC to the point of even calling them a traitor. Maybe they were the ones feeding Ante false evidence against MC or straight-up framing them for crimes just to sow discord and turn Ante and Leon against MC. Maybe we only learn that were Arcadians in book 2 and that’s why F hates MC so much at the start because they were unknowingly killing her people, and not just for using arcana (which I didn’t even get that was her deal on the first time reading). There is such potential in those 2 years, I just can’t live that skip down.
TLDR: Where was Arcadia when the Westfold fell? Where was Arcadia when our enemies closed in around us?
I agree that we should have at least seen one battle during the war. My vote goes to the battle that turned the tide in favor of Param. The one Saine talks about.
But I can see why it was skipped. Like you said, the war itself could have been its own book, and that’s the problem. There’s too much material for setting up the rest of the series. By keeping it contained, there’s no risk of the same spiraling you talked about that kinda drags down the MCU. The author said they dislike cliffhangers, so the lack of foreshadowing to mysterious enemies can be explained by just that. Keeping the story contained.
Our biggest question is why didn’t Arcadia intervene during the war. And it’s been answered, somewhat. Tahlia didn’t see a reason to pour any resources into the fight. Why bother? Mireil ALONE basically conquered Param. There was no need to loan out the scarce firepower Arcadia has in talented mages. Getting Arcadia involved and putting on blast that it still exists is something that they wanted to avoid. I forget who, but either F or Y tells MC that thanks to their usage of Phantasma all willy nilly has created a lot of problems. It’s not just Param that Tahlia and Arcadia need to be wary of, it’s the rest of the world too. That’s what I think anyway. With what has happened in Book 2 so far.
Maybe I’m reading too far into it, but it seems that Arcadia staying out of it was a part of Mireil’s demands? She wanted to prove she could do it alone. She practically did. It was her own hubris that she got beat by baby mage MC. But she also had a pretty decent contingency in place. Just in case. Worst case scenario, MC stops it. Which is exactly what happened, but regardless, Param is still in the same place. None the wiser of Arcadia’s existence and content to rebuild while oblivious to the mounting threat that is Arcadia.
To put it in Pokemon terms, why bother using Mewtwo against a Charmander? When other enemies have Darkrai and Genesect?
I guess I mostly wonder about the what ifs and whys to keep myself entertained while we wait for the next update on the game. I’m sure we’ll get our answers.
Don’t forget that Ante literally spent months whispering in Leon’s ear about the MC, so I highly doubt it was only the Church and the people putting pressure on him.
Manipulation has been used as a tactic for millenia because it’s a very powerful weapon. I don’t think many people actually consider how powerful it is.
Anyway, I’ll just be over here in my corner, basking in all the angst and loving Leon all by myself. 
Hey, scooch over! Lemme relish in some of that too xD
Don’t worry, you’re not alone in loving Leon. xD
We are just a small and very forgiving others for errors of their ways faction.
Very forgiving…
