FE 25 :
Uwu:(...) I question the way in which our society is designed. No matter what strength a person has, it is the station he is born into that controls his destiny. And you cannot control where you will be born. Do you believe that a person of low birth should simply endure the curse of his station? I think not. If you are stronger than those around you, you should benefit from your strength. This is why I will use my strength to remake this world. Class and rank will not matter. Human and sub-human will not matter. The strong will possess everything. The weak will submit to their will. Is this not the meaning of peace?
A subhuman: Are you saying that the lives of those without strength have no value?
Uwu : If after all of this you believe the weak will still be weak, that is only because they are too used to relying on others instead of on themselves.
A barbarian and potential subhuman lover : There are those who cannot live without their faith... and those who cannot go on once they have lost their reason for living.
Your path will not be able to save them. It is the path of the strong, and so, it could only benefit the strong.
Uwu: That is the natural order. The only way for the weak to survive is to cling to the strong. Our discussion is over. Tell me, frail little bird who cannot fight; which do you choose? Submission? Or death?
A subhuman: …Life proffered to me by your hand is something I would never accept!
A barbarian and potential subhuman lover : (...) I finally understand…what you believe is right.
The context is different, Dimi has a special background with Supreme Leader and is her step-brother, so it makes sense trying to reach for her and at least try to understand what is going on in her mind, than Reyson, a frail and weak laguz by birth, trying to understand and reach out for Ashnard.
But are we really supposed to think Dimi's reply here is pretty different because he personally knew his Ashnard? Or because he isn't a weak and frail thing by birth, like Reyson, so he isn't as angry or as passionate in his replies?
I know this scene plays a role in Dimitri's arc - he tries to reach out for her (hand) when he earlier only wanted to end her life, because he isn't driven by revenge or vengeance anymore and wants to save people, even Supreme Leader.
So this convo is less about Supreme Leader and more about him.
And yet, imo, this always felt sort of wrong, because while Dimitri cannot do a thing for the people who are already dead (killing Supreme Leader won't bring them back, he has to think about the living now and not to avenge the dead) - Dimitri is still talking to someone who gave means and opportunities (and fodder!) to Izuka to create Feral Ones thus most likely knows there is a Gritnea Tower around, started a war and killed thousands, was involved (as far as he knows?) in the brutal killing of his family and has pretty biased views on Laguz.
Of course in the following scenes and maps, he resolves to put an end to the war thus defeat her, and we know Supreme Leader refuses his mercy and prefers to die - but the way this development is frailed is not a straight up rejection of her POV or her so called "IdEaLs", but it's framed as a tragedy because Dimitri couldn't "save" her.
No, kill that, it's even worse :
We have no choice but to destroy each other… Such is the destiny we were born to.
Now this fight - aka Dimitri wanting to put an end to Ashnard's war - is the result of fate, and not the will/choices both parties made to reach that point (which is, in a way, hilarious, because he mentions just after his line her "iron will", so pick your horse Dimitri, is this war the result of fate/destiny, or is it due to Ashnard's "iron will"?).
Ultimately, the themes and arcs of both games are different, so it's no wonder that the solution each Lord(s) offer is different - Elincia wants to avenge her parents and justice for her dead countrymen, Reyson wants to have the right to exist even if he is a weak thing by birth, Ike is out of the loop / Dimitri wants to accept Supreme Leader and "save" her because vengeance and justice drove him to a wall and got his close father figure killed, Dimitri now wants to protect the living, even Supreme Leader herself (or at least he tries).
So even if Ashnard and Supreme Leader share the same dubious ideals, keep a lizard in cage/captivity, used feral ones and started wars - the reaction to them is different, because the Lords have different character arcs and development.
That being said, even with all his character development, would a post-Rodrigue death Dimitri who, idk, is warped in FE9's Tellius, after befriending Laguz, witnessing racism, seeing Gritnea and the "wildlife experiments", witnessing Daein's army ruining civilians, learning about Lillia, Rajaion, etc etc, would that Dimitri still have reached his hand out to Ashnard upon his defeat?
If we want to stay in Fodlan, a Dimitri who befriends Nabateans (who reveals themselves to be Nabateans!), learns about the Relics, learns about Supreme Leader's goal to free the world from their existence because their race isn't allowed to have power over humans, seeing Gritnea or at least still giving fucks about the humans who were painfully transformed in Demonic Beasts (and maybe solving the question about who are they made from, random Adrestian civilians or war prisoners?), reacting to Ferdie's paralogue, learning about Rhea's zumba lessons in her 5 stars resort, etc etc, would this Dimitri still have reached his hand out to a Supreme Leader whose core belief (or least one of them) is Nabateans shouldn't be allowed to live in Fodlan, and Faerghus and Leicester should never have existed and should return to her?
Of course the game makes it so that we will never learn the answer to that second situation, because Hresvelg Tea and whatnot, but if we want to stay true to his character arc, then AM!Dimitri would still have reached out for her hand.
A Dimitri who becomes the kind of ruler Elincia is after her arc in FE10... wouldn't have at all.
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tbh i think oda meant to reach wano and make it all about zoro the same way he reached whole cake and made it all about sanji. I mean like, at the very beginning, back when he made him japanese and then said "there is a country that's one piece's japan, btw, and that's not where zoro's dojo is" - I think that's why his original backstory is so simple, it was supposed to follow the same trend as luffy's and sanji's and turn into this whole grand thing once they reached wano and discovered that he's the only direct descendant of one of the last daimyo and also of the greatest samurai ever lived, those are great bases to start some form of conflict on? tbh? and also directly mirror our finding out that sanji is some form of prince himself, but then instead we got to wano and the only thing we found out on page was that kuina's relatives were from there, and everything about zoro is revealed in a sbs family tree with oda going "I don't think I'll ever say this in the manga at this point so here". Imho what happened was that oda wanted to form some kind of conflict between zoro's family rights/what was expected of him in wano and his belonging in the crew, but then the way he evolved as a character through the story made it so that his only plausible reaction to finding out all that would be some form or another of I don't care and you don't really write an arc on that, do you. zoro's so simple minded and goal oriented that it's impossible for him to have any serious drama that's not about luffy, at this point. I do prefer it like this, though? everyone in the fandom likes to draw comparisons and parallels between zoro and sanji one way or another but my favourite one is the narrative foils one and zoro's lack of a proper backstory and complications to his being part of the crew make for a great black-and-white situation with them. something like sanji's story being all about running from his past and zoro's being all about running towards his future, I love that so I'm glad this is the zoro we got in the end
still, would be cool to know what oda had planned for him exactly
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