Hey again forum and lord @Havenstone ! After a good 2 hours of heavy working, and with LOTS of help and suggestions from the discord, I have crafted a Choice of Rebels Iceberg.
In case you don’t know what an Iceberg image is, it is basically a compilation of theories/half-facts from a piece of media, getting more hard to believe and convoluted as the level lowers. I have also added an anarchy meter on the right of the image, that increases as we delve deeper into conspiracy territory.
Without further ado, please enjoy the XOR Iceberg!
Calea is the cousin of the noble MC. We do know she takes helot boys as lover but she might also be unwilling to pursue a relationship with her cousin.
I wasn’t asking why she wouldn’t romance her cousin. Rather I was confused on why she would only romance a helot. Like would she reject a merchant, a yeoman, or an aristocrat?
I dunno. maybe I misunderstood it. I thought it was a general statement and didn’t consider that it was a statement in regards to the MC.
Control probably, with a helot she calls all the shots and can dispose of them when she tires of them. Which is why I hesitate to call it “romance”. It’s more of a fun dalliance for her and an invariably lethal one for her boytoys.
As for her only romancing helots, we don’t know that, just because she won’t romance her impoverished and low status (among the nobility) cousin, doesn’t mean she won’t romance another noble ever, just that that noble will never be the mc.
Yep, poor Dann. My mc may also have had a crush on him, as did half of the other helots apparently.
One thing that’s unlikely is that it’s all about power dynamics, because she’s willing to romance a helot MC at a point when said MC is not under her control and she can’t have him Harrowed to clean up after herself.
Couldn’t she kill the MC though? I remember the MC feeling fear when they ran into Calea and Hector with Brenden during the beginning of the game. Haven’t helots been killed for less?
The difference is that you’re a rebel leader. In dialogue with Calea as an aristo during Chapter Three, it is revealed that the nobility are generally afraid of you (whether out of reluctant respect or animosity depends on your revolt). In particular the rebellion springing up in the Keriatou district means that the blame pretty much falls on them. Calea understands that, but also knows that if the Archon herself fails to contain you, then most of the blame is lifted up from them because this revolt was unlikely to be stopped by them anyways.
Now fast forward to a time where Calea becomes a potential romance for a helot MC. If she’s going to get close with you, then she is forced to acknowledge you as an equal, and to delay your demise as much as possible unless the Keriatou themselves can take you down and regain their status.
It’s not so much a romance though, at least at first, due to the nature of a ex-servant/master relationship. You also have Calea’s atrocities to account for, and even if she didn’t wrong you in particular, she definitely wronged your fellow helots. And most of all, she’ll still try to kill you if the benefits suddenly outweight the cons.
And as for a personal take on why it’s only for helots, well, helots are handicapped already. Some exclusive stuff like Calea and Carles the Jongler may be permitted for them.
Well…unfortunately you only get use out of that unique content if you’re playing either a man attracted to women and a bit of a masochist to boot or a homelander type of mc. I mean my mc saved Carles too…but he gets nothing to show for it. Then again if he had known Carles to be a Hallasurq spy in league with the Laconniers he might not even have bothered in the first place, as in the case of the Laconniers and Halassur it would appear the enemies of his enemies will still be enemies.
True enough, and this is only book 1 out of five, I just hope that somewhere down that line there will be some unique content for gay male and/or more cosmopolitan minded helots too.
Well, the game isn’t meant to be perfectly balanced - if it were, there wouldn’t be much point in playing it. Aristocrats have a major advantage due to their birth. Helots have interesting content of their own, but not all helot content will be unlocked in a playthrough, any more than aristocrat content will.
I think that was a different guy. It is inferentially assumed that Carles is a Halassurq spy (or at least a propaganda spreader) because he dedicates an entire night with the most people to sharing a Halassurq tale. It’s not complete evidence, but it gives something to chew on.
