#like theres a way to discuss his faults and mistakes and flaws

[wellnoe]

tbh i think in looking at xavier’s relationship w scott some people find it very easy to swing into caricature. despite charles being a whole and coherent character.

[crystalelemental]

“archer3-13: could dheginsea have done something else though. Non intervention is his prevailing flaw, the game spells that out, but the situation involving his kids more so falls on almedha making a mistake and ashnard being a dick. Outside of open warfare or sending more dragons to be captured and abused, your options at that point would be either negotiation [wich isnt happening with ashnard and is implied to be the reason rajaion offered himself up to ashnard in the first place] or trying to get a secondary power involved, which could be constrained as picking sides and possibly inciting war which dheginsea is commited to not doing. Theres also potentially kidnapping but that leaves open the question of who you get to do it and if they could even do it and the fallout of getting caught.

Additionally you could argue that time is a secondary factor in this, dragons consider even 4 or so years to be a relatively brief time [like a days worth given ena and nasirs reactions to ikes dont be a stranger] which if we stagger that out over however old soren is is like... the feeling of 3 days worth of time for a dragon. speculation on my part but it is possibly something to consider.

Like this isnt a dheginsea did nothing wrong sort of thing, a major aspect of his and lehrans characters are old sins coming back to bite them in the ass, but getting upset at him over ameldha and rajaon feels like splitting hairs over something thats not particularly his fault and only tangently related to his isolation policies.  Especially since tibarn already has a better drag for him about something thats a direct result of his isolation policies

Tibarn: I never would have believed that one day I'd be facing off against you. Life sure is funny, sometimes. Dheginsea: Even you, Tibarn? Don't make me kill you. You haven't got a chance. Tibarn: Don't be so sure about that. You just might be surprised. Besides, you've got a lot to answer for, Dheginsea. You'll finally pay the price for all those years of inaction and indifference as your kin were butchered and enslaved. Dheginsea: You shortsighted fool, you still don't understand... All right, I'm waiting. Show me what you've got.”

Yes.  He could have. While negotiation may not have worked, it was an option to try.  While all-out warfare isn’t something dragons want to get directly involved in, that’s still a choice.  If he’s that worried about it, endorsing the other nations’ retaliation against Daein would’ve been a start.  But at the top of this long list of possibilities, had they ended Daein’s threat outright, the rest of the continent wouldn’t have been drawn into war either.  The medallion’s pretty specific about the scope of war needed to unleash Yune, and one nation’s battle wouldn’t be enough.  As someone with the most immediate knowledge of what was happening, had he acted and put them down sooner, things could have resolved even faster.  Not to mention if we draw this back further, had the dragons stepped in to intervene in the history of laguz oppression, Daein might not even be the way it is in the first place.  This can get granular, but yes, person with the most ancient authority on the planet, you did in fact have options and influence enough to avert this disaster.  You can argue the skewed perspective of time thing, but skewed perception of time doesn’t skew your judgment, and when you have a whole squad just go missing and presumed dead, reasonable judgment’s gonna tell you this is something you should at least start preparing to address.  Not to mention, while a personal nitpick, I can’t stand that idea of just “perception of time is skewed” as a reason for years-long inaction.  There’s no sense of scale that would make an entire year’s worth of events seem like nothing happened.

I mean, I have mentioned that the major problem is his isolationist policies being the major issue, several times yesterday.  The children thing comes from three points:

1) It’s honestly the best narrative showing of the intensity of his policy.  A foreign leader remaining neutral in a situation where other similar nations are under threat but they aren’t?  That’s easy to do.  But this was his own kids.  Kinda hits closer to home.  Yet he still didn’t move.  That’s why the kids thing sticks so hard.  Because if you’re not even going to break that policy to do the right thing for your own children, you weren’t gonna move for anything at all.

2) The Heroes paralogue wanted to focus on him being sad about the loss of his kids, which, given everything, is still totally his fault, and therefore the paralogue’s story just wasn’t working in the way it intended.

3) This whole discussion started on a post where I expressed that this whole kids thing would be a sticking point for Ninian.  It was meant to be specific to how she would respond to him, if she knew about his history and actions, not my own stance on “this is the worst thing Dheginsea ever did.”  Pretty sure tacitly endorsing genocide and slavery of other laguz through perpetual inaction wins that contest.