Everyone likes the bad girl.
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Being a Helot is about going balls to the walls. Helots (or Aristo class-traitors, which are de facto Helots in gameplay) can get well over 1200 arms with a spectacular victory at the end.
I view them as different gaming experiences rather than better or worse game strategies. Aristocrats play clean and try to get Noble (and Merchant) friends, while Helots live by the German aphorism: viel Feind, viel Ehr.
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Hey now, my Helot theurge employs sweet mercy to get the people’s support
…and then collects the arms of the Phalangite dead.
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“Honour” and glory of that kind will be of little use in the rebuilding phases. Though, yes, helots walk more of a tightrope by necessity. At least if you want your own successor state with a decent chance of coming out on top.
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That’s your perspective, and a valid one.
But is your in-game character a hardheaded pragmatist? Would a pragmatist be likely to lead an uprising against bloodmages, run off into the woods with a pack of ex-slaves and outlaws, and then fight a battle against a force of veteran soldiers, bloodmages, and giant demonic dogs?
I think not. If my character was a pragmatist, he would have gone Jailbreak and Evade rather than Uprising and Battle. You need to be some degree of idealist and romantic to make certain XoR paths consistent with your character.
ESPECIALLY if you’re an Aristocrat. If you’re a cynical combat-minded Aristocrat, you would have just joined the Phalangites and gone off to the Halassur Front. And this is before I get into aristocrats being grass-fed on tales of gloire and military romanticism, which will obviously inform how an aristocratic character approaches his rebellion.
I should add that the most successful rebels in real life, including Mao Zedong, were romantics by disposition-and this filtered into their decision-making, for better or worse.
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A certain amount of idealism is baked into XoR’s character by default - your character isn’t just rebelling for power, but has specific grievances that they give to Breden. However, there’s nothing stopping you from having a pragmatic - dare I say ruthless - approach to achieving those ideals. Sure, Mao was a romantic, but Lenin had rather pragmatic tendencies (and Stalin even more so). And conversely, Che Guevara was the epitome of the romantic rebel, and his later efforts were anything but successful.
So you can absolutely be looking forward to what kind of state you want to build and how you’re going to get there. Horion, if nobody else, encourages that.
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You don’t have to be an aristo class-traitor to beat the Archon.
Does anyone know what max anarchy is? I got it to 62, I’m sure it can be higher though.
To my knowledge (correct me if I’m mistaken), I have the current record with 84. The screenshot is posted towards the end of the thread.
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Insane. I recently did a high anarchy Inner Voice run. I got the theurge-sword and gave it to Kalt, leaving him in charge. What have I unleashed on the world…
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Unless you count merchandise sales…I mean having a Che t-shirt was practically mandatory when I was in University…and ironically not just among the more left-leaning students. 
Is there anyway to end game 1 with a Plektos-spear intact? Everytime I’ve played through chapter 4 with the spears, MC breaks one and Simon/Suzane breaks the other.
You only ever need to use one as a pacifist, since you just tell your followers to run.
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It’s kind of insane how many dialogue differences there are for things such as helot vs aristo, theurge vs not, etc.
Just going from a helot play through to an aristo one, it actually feels like I’m playing a completely different game.
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But what if a pragmatic and rather ruthless Aristocrat has barely any land or influence and generally a legal standing not much better than a helot’s. And probably no profitable marriage prospects, either. Knowing that his/her chances of rising through the ranks without money or connections may be non existent, wouldn’t he take the chance of leading a rebellion that was already in the making? He doesn’t need to share their ideals, barely grab the opportunity to acquire a small (if absolutely untrained) army. Especially if he already has an advantage like theurgy or good knowledge of battle tactics. What if he wasn’t planning to start an uprising so unprepared, rather the Harrowing forced him to act so as not to lose authority?
I think the main point of XoR is that even as an Aristo the MC doesn’t have that much of a bright future laying in front of him, anyways. His only beneficial connections might be to Calea and Hector, but I wouldn’t build my future plans relying on any of them😏.
I guess, in my opinion, rebellion sounds reckless, sure, but less so for a capable calculating and ruthless character.
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Not possible, an aristo always has a much, much, much better standing than a helot. Helots aren’t even seen as people, they’re livestock. It’s not merely a different world it is a different galaxy.
The in-game mc Aristo may not be much better off than a small time merchant and indeed some perhaps even many former aristo’s fall into that caste and class if they’re unable to keep up appearances for long enough, but that is still a very different deal than being a helot.
But they have a future, true without the game intervening their only hope may have been to become some sort of official or to distinguish themselves in the military, but that is still a future with potentially good outcomes. The future of a helot is both certain and nonexistent it is always to die the most gruesome, painful, wretched death imaginable after a life of backbreaking labour.
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Comparing an Aristo’s legal position as being close to a helot’s was a bit farfetched, I admit it (that related mostly to the part, where they could be eliminated any moment without any court proceedings, as well as the general dictatorship in their empire).
I rather meant that while on the lowest end of the nobility, in a former conquered region, with oppression and lack of resources, MC’s prospects weren’t the best.
Of course it’s nothing compared to the horrible living conditions of a helot, but my main point was, that as an Aristo you don’t need to be idealistic in order to take part in the rebellion, on the opposite, you might see this as an opportunity as a Machiavellian character. An Aristo would have more to lose, as you said, than a helot, but it might still be worth it.
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In many ways, the aristocracy are just as oppressed as the helots, their livelihoods being ruined by arbitrary exactions, corrupt Alastors and helot revolts manipulated by the Kryptasts.
At least, that’s what they’ll tell you.
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I finally have all 53 achievements! 
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Can I have a link to COR discord pls