#like spoiler alert guys: if your protagonist can physically assault the villain multiple times and the villain doesn't do shit back to them

[butwhatifidothis]

Is it bad that when I got to the last point on your Ch 58 about Cornelia showing up and stabbing Dimitri, I honestly thought for a second you were joking? And I had to go to the chapter to confirm it?

I mean, I’m fine with the idea of what Cornelia says (it would make a neat AU or twist on canon in a vacuum) but she just… shows up, in the middle of two enemy armies, just to… brag? And then kill Demitri so once again, a main character can be killed by someone else besides the ‘heroes’? I. Wow. Jeralt was one thing, but he was at least killed by the same faction if I remember right-

LMAO YOU THOUGHT I WAS PULLING Y'ALL'S LEG

No, it's definitely true - Cornelia does in fact pop up at the conclusion of the fight just to alleviate from Woobiegard the act of killing Dimitri herself.

Now, mind, Dimitri is still alive by the end of that chapter, but spoiler alert Cornelia does kill him in the next one. And Cornelia and Thales themselves just kinda... exist to be threats? But not threatening.

Thales is lauded as this mastermind giga genius who has spies and and eyes and ears any and everywhere and that's why Woobiegard just totally couldn't tell anyone anything about what he was doing... but also she'll just, like, punch him in the face. And face no repercussions for doing so. More than once. He has spies everywhere that can look like anyone, but apparently, um... doesn't know that his spies can shape-shift? According to Kronya? He brainwashes his spies for all of their lives to do what he wants, but also the brainwashing can be completely erased from one singular conversation. He's the leader of Agartha and rules it with an iron fist and the culture is rife with ideas of hatred and vengeance and it's been like this for (presumably) centuries, but also literally everyone not a bigwig can completely reject everything they ever knew because One (1) resident told them that Thales is Cringe. He's the one wearing the pants of his and Woobiegard's partnership and Woobiegard has to act submissive towards him... as he has to ask her to use the Death Knight... and needs her okay to use his men alongside hers... and needs her to consent to using Aymr instead of, like, I dunno, blackmailing her into using it by force or something? Y'know something a bad guy that's threatening would and could do?

Cornelia, in a double-edged sword kinda way, both benefits and loses from not ever being really a thing before the later chapters - there's literally no build-up for her being the one to end up being the bigger threat than Thales so it comes out of nowhere, but there's also nothing to contradict to "make up" for that. But even then she still somehow manages to be contradictory - she was distraught at the death of Thales, but did literally nothing to try and stop it despite her escaping Woobiegard's side from a slight distraction doing more than enough to show off that she very much could have helped Thales during that moment. She has all these golems and all this magic, but then kinda just... gets captured? Somehow?

They're there to suggest the idea that there is something Woobiegard ought to be wary of, but they never actually do anything in the story to prove that they're something that needs worrying about. All of their competence and fear factor that Woobiegard feels about them is left in their backgrounds; Thales conducted the experiments on Woobiegard, Cornelia helped instigate the Tragedy, and because of that they should be feared. But not for anything they're doing now - Woobiegard can Fortnite dance on their mother's graves and they still wouldn't do shit to her, because they never actually do anything to her. They wait until the very last minute to attempt to try something, and once they do Thales is immediately killed and then made into a literal joke. Cornelia only fares slightly better by Whack-A-Moling back into the story to kill Dimitri for Woobiegard, but that's about it.

So while it's HILARIOUS that you thought I was joking I honestly don't blame you for thinking that, because Thales and Cornelia are themselves jokes lmao