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Is it just me, or does Erika look really tall in Leiftan’s illustration?

(Either way, they both look gorgeous. 😍)

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Guys, I’m dying! 🤣  I was replaying NE Ep 3 on the French server using Google Translate.  I got to the scene where Gardienne sees Lance for the first time in the market, and this is what Google gave me:

DED.

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I’ve only been playing the event for 15 minutes now, and already I’ve seen so many spelling/grammar errors on the US server version.  It’s unprofessional and jarring when it’s so frequent...

(On the positive side, I’m really enjoying all of the dialogue!)

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I still need to play episodes 5 and 6, but I have no motivation to get through the Koori drama. 😪

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Is anyone going to point out the hazardous waste bin amongst the sea trash???  Gardy?  Mathieu?

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Lance’s talk about Huang Hua’s and the guard’s trust in him was sad to read.  The situation is exactly what I expected, but it was still heartbreaking to hear Lance himself acknowledge it.  He’s aware he’s nothing but a tool for the guard to use, and due to his guilt, he’s fine with it. 😥

I can understand why this mentality came about at first, but to keep up with it seven years later is absurd to me.  Lance has done terrible things, but he’s not the only one.  Yet, he is the only one in this whole game busting his ass to right his wrongs. The mnemosyne potion incident was brushed aside with little fanfare after some very pretty (but ultimately empty) apologies, Ezarel accidently caused the slaughter of an entire village that one time??? and just ran away to the guard, and most faeries have participated in or were okay with the actual genocide of the remaining dragons and aengels/daemons without a single acknowledgement for their wrongdoings. 

 All I’m saying is, sure, Lance Messed Up, but after seeing him work so hard (without a doubt harder than anyone else) for seven years, how can the guard still see him as an untrustworthy person?  If only every person who did something wrong worked so hard to make it right…

It sounds like everyone has fallen into a comfortable pattern of thinking (“we tolerate Lance because he’s Useful”) without ever stopping to wonder if it’s still relevant. This makes me believe that Lance’s redemption arc is still in-progress and not finished like we thought (and no, Gardy and her feelings are not the last piece).  Gardy will be a catalyst that will push the rest of the guard to reevaluate him in a fresh light, and this will finally move the arc along, because it’s been stagnating for a while now.  

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After Mathieu comments on the cold in Genkaku. 😆

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A lot of people have faith in Huang Hua, especially compared to Miiko.  In general, I think Huang Hua deserves it.  She’s mature, thoughtful, and sensitive to others’ feelings.  However, it could be a double-edged sword.  

When Miiko made mistakes, there was no doubt she was wrong in-universe or out.  With Huang Hua, people have already made the point that they think her empath powers make her especially trustworthy.  Chrome says something like, “She saw it in his [Lance’s] mind.  Do you think she would lie?”  (They also rush to defend her decisions, usually with that same point—do you think she would lie?)  To Karuto you have the option to say, “It’s true that trusting Huang Hua is always the most reasonable choice.” Then, nearly everyone says, “I have faith in her [Huang Hua],” at some point.  

Additionally, even though most people weren’t/aren’t happy about Lance being free, I’m not sure if they put up a big fight against his freedom.  It sounds like Huang Hua said he regretted his actions and they needed him, so everyone shut their mouths and made it work.  They trusted Huang Hua and her forgiveness policy (which we don’t know yet what precisely that even means) more than their own judgements.

It’s understandable that people hold her in such high esteem, but from what I’ve seen so far, people might accidently confuse Huang Hua’s high esteem and abilities with the idea that she can’t be wrong.  This is a problem, because one, nobody’s perfect, and two, even if she doesn’t have a nefarious secret plan, she still has her own subjective perspective and biases which could color her “readings” of people (she could “see” what she wants or expects to see and miss the truth).  

In fact, her powers themselves aren’t flawless.  She either didn’t comment on or didn’t recognize the disgust Leiftan had for her when they first met, and she wasn’t able to see that Leiftan was the daemon they were looking for (her abilities are vulnerable to shielding magics).  She also couldn’t recognize Erika’s spirit in episode 26 or Ashkore as Lance in Balenvia (her abilities are not as specific or powerful as we are led to believe).  Her powers probably only give her an impression and nothing more.  

Also, as @desperatesentence pointed out in their Eldarya: A new Era of plot holes post, Chrome outright mislabels Huang Hua’s abilities and ascribes more power to them.  (He calls them mind-reading powers, which implies she can do more than just read peoples’ emotions.  It also implies that Chrome doesn’t understand her powers very well, either by his own ignorance or because she misled him.  How many people in the Guard are like him?)

For these reasons, I think that when she makes a mistake, she won’t be unambiguously wrong in-universe.  It’s not necessarily a bad thing story-wise if it’s handled well, but it would be really frustrating for us.  We’ve already seen hints in NE of her inability to be wrong when she neglected to warn Erika about Lance.  If you confront her respectfully instead of rudely, later, she still expects you to apologize for the confrontation (her LOM goes down if you don’t).  She seems to even view herself as someone nearly infallible.    

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Something I was thinking about recently: so far, the Guard seems more defined compared with the vague descriptions (and lack of in-universe weight) it had before.  This made me wonder about Mathieu.  Mathieu wants to be Obsidian but has the heart for Absynthe.  He complained that the Guard test was garbage because he didn’t end up where he wanted, but after I took it, I have to disagree with him.  The new test is significantly better than the old one.  (“I take my courage and a knife.”) 🤣  

I wonder if this conflict will have any payoff in the game?  It seems like the mindset of the two guards is different, especially when you consider Feng Zifu’s question about the boltue in the desert.  Mathieu may not have the head for books or meticulous work, but he may have the optimism/idealism for helping everyone, even when it’s inefficient or irrational. On the other hand, he clearly loves the physical nature and glory of the Obsidian Guard, but does he have the heart to make tough battle choices such as sacrificing the few to save the many? 

 Anyway, I could be looking too deeply into this. XD

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I’m interested to see how the writers will justify Leiftan’s presence on the Genkaku mission in-universe. 😆

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I miss the interactions where Lance ruffled Leiftan’s feathers. 😔

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Aaand it’s done! I just finished it! 

Happy birthday to the blue dragon 😍💕

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I like how Erika was the first—and at the time, only—one besides Fafnir to see the good in Lance and want to redeem him while the rest of the Guard (even Valkyon and Miiko) basically said, “Well, who cares who he is or was, he’s our enemy now,” and for her efforts she was thrown off a cliff.  But now it’s the opposite, where everyone except Gardy has accepted Lance as an ally. Poor girl’s always struggling with faeries and the Guard. 😆

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You’re right!  And then when Leiftan died and she had to save him from purgatory, does that count?

So she’s actually on her fifth life now? 🤣

Erika’s technically on her third life now.  The first the Guard took with the mnemosyne potion, and the second she sacrificed to save the world.  Third time’s the charm? 

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Erika’s technically on her third life now.  The first the Guard took with the mnemosyne potion, and the second she sacrificed to save the world.  Third time’s the charm? 

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Everyone has (rightfully) talked about how good Lance looks in the episode 3 illustration, but no one’s mentioned that Erika also looks gorgeous! ❤

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Do you think Lance ever told the guard why he became “evil” and tried to destroy the world?  His actions were terrible, but his anger was completely justified, and the victims of the faeries’ desperate genocides deserve proper acknowledgement. 

Unfortunately, Lance probably kept it secret because 

1) he was the bad guy and felt he had no right to call out the Righteous Guard after what he’d done

2) he didn’t want to appear ungrateful, childish, or insincere in the face of their forgiveness

3) the era of forgiveness means to completely let go of the past, even when you have valid points. XD