Success! Thank you Reader!Anon, sorry about the angst I've induced, but if it helps you any, I'm sitting here angst-ing away, too...
The funny thing about war, is how both sides try their best to make monsters of their enemies. Life is so much easier in black and white. But how much in Life is ever that simple? Who wants to face the tragedies that lead up to conflict? Who wants to take responsibility for being part of the causes? Everyone has a story that makes them who they are, and every story is full of misconceptions and outright lies, many of which may be fed to us by the very ones we love and trust. And that's the worst part: they don't do it out of malice, but out of concern for our well-being. These lies may seem "validated" by the actions of others, who have also gone through the same exact thing.
That's not to say that the pain and suffering of either side is invalid. How could the pain of loss and betrayal not be valid? The problem is that such powerful emotion can blind us to the suffering of those very people whose humanity we want to deny.
The thing I hated the most about "Season Unending" was watching how everyone in that room, could only be what they had been shaped to be, by everything that happened before. I remember feeling much the same as Elisif, at first: lost, angry, and having to trust people I wasn't certain I could trust at all. It wasn't until later, that I found myself agreeing and sympathizing with Balgruuf, and especially Rikke, and I am happy that Bethesda wrote those two the way they did; two similar sentiments, but from very different perspectives and experiences. Tullius was also interesting, because he seems older and more tired than Ulfric, in many ways. Too tired to care, even if he understands. Perhaps that's what makes him brush off Rikke at times: he understands on some level (I suspect he served in the Great War), and knows that he has to defeat a man who many not have been that different from him, once.
A!A
The funny thing about war, is how both sides try their best to make monsters of their enemies. Life is so much easier in black and white. But how much in Life is ever that simple? Who wants to face the tragedies that lead up to conflict? Who wants to take responsibility for being part of the causes? Everyone has a story that makes them who they are, and every story is full of misconceptions and outright lies, many of which may be fed to us by the very ones we love and trust. And that's the worst part: they don't do it out of malice, but out of concern for our well-being. These lies may seem "validated" by the actions of others, who have also gone through the same exact thing.
That's not to say that the pain and suffering of either side is invalid. How could the pain of loss and betrayal not be valid? The problem is that such powerful emotion can blind us to the suffering of those very people whose humanity we want to deny.
The thing I hated the most about "Season Unending" was watching how everyone in that room, could only be what they had been shaped to be, by everything that happened before. I remember feeling much the same as Elisif, at first: lost, angry, and having to trust people I wasn't certain I could trust at all. It wasn't until later, that I found myself agreeing and sympathizing with Balgruuf, and especially Rikke, and I am happy that Bethesda wrote those two the way they did; two similar sentiments, but from very different perspectives and experiences. Tullius was also interesting, because he seems older and more tired than Ulfric, in many ways. Too tired to care, even if he understands. Perhaps that's what makes him brush off Rikke at times: he understands on some level (I suspect he served in the Great War), and knows that he has to defeat a man who many not have been that different from him, once.