Betrayal of El Borne (Noble path spoilers)

[fedorkkk]

All right, I know morality is complicated, there is just one question that keeps me wondering.

In the Noble path, chapter 4, you have to "betray" Augustine El Borne to get the Court of Honor ending. And you have 3 major opportunities to do so.

One is fairly straightforward: you make a deal with Remy El Verman who makes you spy on El Borne and tries to kill him later in a coup (Night of the Serpents). You can switch sides and warn El Borne at the last minute, but it's still betrayal.

Now, the second and third opportunities are what I want to talk about. You have 2 chances to start working directly for Gaius Tempest. You can gather evidence against Otton with his help and you can also accept a promotion from him.

I get why you can't judge Otton in the Court of Law if you make these choices - no way an Arknian Overseer would allow to bring such shame upon his fellow Arknian, no matter how they hate each other. And I get why thesr options count as "betrayal" mechanically - El Borne has a thing against Court of Honor. But two things in this setup keep me thinking.

1) El Borne and Tempest are not enemies. They are on the same side, and both want the same thing - to reform the province and expand the rights of commoners. Yes, Tempest disapproves of El Borne's methods and blames him for being too reckless, but they are still allies. Hell, if El Borne helps to suppress the Revolt later, he becomes the Overseer's close advisor. So, how much a "betrayal" is it to work for your bosse's boss?

2) Earlier, El Borne offers you to join him in his crusade for the Law. If you promise him that, and THEN turn to Tempest and Court of Honor, I get why this would be "betrayal". You break your promise. But what if you decline El Borne's offer? How can you break a promise you've never made?

What do you think? From a moral point of view, is working for Gaius Tempest counts as "betrayal" of El Borne no matter the circumstances, or does the morality of it changes depending on your choices?

[Dragon Master]

I think this is one of those incredibly grey areas.

This is a world with two active gods who are part of every person's life to some degree and have created a divine law for people to live by, but these gods are also imperfect and can make mistakes, and to err is mortal. The path of will shows that the Gods can be usurped by those who have great will (with our Brante able to become a god himself).

Morality is an interesting concept. Whom decides what is moral? Is it mankind? Society? God?

If it is determined by society then you can be just and moral in one society and the moment you move elsewhere with a different culture or society you can suddenly be the most immoral person around because morality changes with location and who you associate with.

If it is determined by mankind, the individual, then it technically doesn't exist. What is moral to one person would be immoral to another, and if you have polar opposites debating it and say A is moral and B is not as well as Vice Versa then A is both moral and immoral at the same time thus they cancel each other out and morality ceases to be. Everyone would actually be amoral when placed with someone else who disagrees with them.

If morality is determined by God or the gods (particularly in-game) then anyone who seeks to live outside of that are, by default, sinners and immoral. There are hard lines for what is and is not, no matter what people experience in their lives, whatever tragedy they suffer, whatever injustice happens, the gods will is absolute and deviating from that is sinful and immoral.

In the sense of "betraying El Borne", I suppose it depends on if you see a "promise" you never made as justified or not. It may just be that him being betrayed is just how he feels about you, whether it makes sense or not. From the divine law of the twins, working with Gaius is the morally correct thing to do because Arknians are over all humans, including nobles of the sword by divine law, and I think society-determined-morality also has that. Gaius IS the Emperor's brother, after all. He also does want to make life better for the commoners without rocking the boat.

Sir Brante also lives in rapidly changing times. Gunpowder is a thing and guns are growing more and more widespread, there's a schism in the church and commoners are starting to make and earn more money than Nobles have. In fact, it's easiest for a commoner Brante to become wealthy than a priest or a Noble one.

It could be argued that Gaius is moving slower than the times and El Borne is just a reflection of the societal changes of nobles getting tired of seeing commoners being abused for the sake of it.

[fedorkkk]

Originally posted by Dragon Master:

I think this is one of those incredibly grey areas.

This is a world with two active gods who are part of every person's life to some degree and have created a divine law for people to live by, but these gods are also imperfect and can make mistakes, and to err is mortal. The path of will shows that the Gods can be usurped by those who have great will (with our Brante able to become a god himself).

Morality is an interesting concept. Whom decides what is moral? Is it mankind? Society? God?

If it is determined by society then you can be just and moral in one society and the moment you move elsewhere with a different culture or society you can suddenly be the most immoral person around because morality changes with location and who you associate with.

If it is determined by mankind, the individual, then it technically doesn't exist. What is moral to one person would be immoral to another, and if you have polar opposites debating it and say A is moral and B is not as well as Vice Versa then A is both moral and immoral at the same time thus they cancel each other out and morality ceases to be. Everyone would actually be amoral when placed with someone else who disagrees with them.

If morality is determined by God or the gods (particularly in-game) then anyone who seeks to live outside of that are, by default, sinners and immoral. There are hard lines for what is and is not, no matter what people experience in their lives, whatever tragedy they suffer, whatever injustice happens, the gods will is absolute and deviating from that is sinful and immoral.

In the sense of "betraying El Borne", I suppose it depends on if you see a "promise" you never made as justified or not. It may just be that him being betrayed is just how he feels about you, whether it makes sense or not. From the divine law of the twins, working with Gaius is the morally correct thing to do because Arknians are over all humans, including nobles of the sword by divine law, and I think society-determined-morality also has that. Gaius IS the Emperor's brother, after all. He also does want to make life better for the commoners without rocking the boat.

Sir Brante also lives in rapidly changing times. Gunpowder is a thing and guns are growing more and more widespread, there's a schism in the church and commoners are starting to make and earn more money than Nobles have. In fact, it's easiest for a commoner Brante to become wealthy than a priest or a Noble one.

It could be argued that Gaius is moving slower than the times and El Borne is just a reflection of the societal changes of nobles getting tired of seeing commoners being abused for the sake of it.

>>him being betrayed is just how he feels about you, whether it makes sense or not.

That's actually kinda funny to me. Like, if you never make any promises to this guy, make it perfectly clear that you can't promise him your unconditional support and then do your job perfectly fine (Otton is still found guilty and dishonorably discharged) but not in the way he wanted, he is still like "NOOOOO, how could you not do as I wanted?"

Actually, I have a suspicion that developers expect you to make a promise to El Borne no matter what. The refusal doesn't even give you any mechanical benefits, so I think the game is subtly encouraging you to side with El Borne. That way, your "betrayal" really counts as one. But imo if you decline his offer for purely ethical reasons, El Borne's complaints look kinda silly.

[Ramidel]

I think that "betrayed" is used as a shorthand here and the idea gets a bit muddled. It means that you've committed to standing against El Borne, and in favor of the existing system of noble honor.

Supporting El Borne requires committing to him and holding to that commitment, while bringing Otton to the Court of Honor requires making a commitment to the noble system. For some reason, there's no way to just do your effing job [i[regardless[/i] of whether you're politically allied to El Borne.

"Here's my evidence against Otton. Let's take him to court."
"Nooooo! You didn't make a promise to support me! I won't bring Otton to trial even if we've been working toward that end for this whole chapter!"

It's poor writing that's mostly there to punish you for not picking a side. El Borne should be willing to work with you if you have enough Justice and Evidence to bring Otton down regardless of your loyalties. If I were modding it, I'd side you back with El Borne if you betray El Vernan, and have an option to suffer a death and betray Tempest if you want to proceed against Otton in the Court of Law.

I'd also like there to be an option to arrest Otton and enforce the Law (not the Court of Honor) against him in a pro-Empire playthrough, instead of that forcing you onto the rebel team. Rebellion is the definition of unlawful, and it also means that El Borne can't ever get what he wants.

[fedorkkk]

Originally posted by Ramidel:

I think that "betrayed" is used as a shorthand here and the idea gets a bit muddled. It means that you've committed to standing against El Borne, and in favor of the existing system of noble honor.

Supporting El Borne requires committing to him and holding to that commitment, while bringing Otton to the Court of Honor requires making a commitment to the noble system. For some reason, there's no way to just do your effing job [i[regardless[/i] of whether you're politically allied to El Borne.

"Here's my evidence against Otton. Let's take him to court."
"Nooooo! You didn't make a promise to support me! I won't bring Otton to trial even if we've been working toward that end for this whole chapter!"

It's poor writing that's mostly there to punish you for not picking a side. El Borne should be willing to work with you if you have enough Justice and Evidence to bring Otton down regardless of your loyalties. If I were modding it, I'd side you back with El Borne if you betray El Vernan, and have an option to suffer a death and betray Tempest if you want to proceed against Otton in the Court of Law.

I'd also like there to be an option to arrest Otton and enforce the Law (not the Court of Honor) against him in a pro-Empire playthrough, instead of that forcing you onto the rebel team. Rebellion is the definition of unlawful, and it also means that El Borne can't ever get what he wants.

You've made a spot-on point about picking a side and comitting to one "system" or the other.

About El Borne's weird behaviour... I think it's not so much bad writing as it is representation of El Borne's indecisiviness. Truth be told, while El Borne is a good and decent man, he is a horrible prefect. One minute, he is all like "I'm gonna judge the ♥♥♥♥ out of this arknian Fess, even though it will piss commoners and nobles alike, because LAW!" But then he is like "Oh, a family of commoners killed a nobleman in self-defence? TOO RISKY, man, totally should find them guilty".

So, basically, El Borne can't work with you to bring Otton down unless you're actively and vocally commited to his cause. He's that much of a coward.

Also, I would argue that bringing Otton to the Court of Honor IS your effing job, or at least one way to do it. You use an existing jurisdicial structure to bring the bastard down.

I'd also like a pro-Empire way while enforcing the Law. But I guess the idea here is that you can't make such radical a change (make EVERYONE equal under the Law, arknians included) in the framework of the Empire, at least now. If you want to prosper in the Empire, you have to respect the ways of old etc.

[Ramidel]

You make a good point about El Borne being cowardly and indecisive, definitely. And if he were more decisive and committed to his beliefs, he'd have had his head kicked in already for the reasons above (being decisive and committed to the written Law of the Empire means being committed to a fantasy).

[fedorkkk]

Originally posted by Ramidel:

You make a good point about El Borne being cowardly and indecisive, definitely. And if he were more decisive and committed to his beliefs, he'd have had his head kicked in already for the reasons above (being decisive and committed to the written Law of the Empire means being committed to a fantasy).

Imo El Borne's idealism is kinda sad if you don't help him pick a side. He wants to extend the rule of law, but the thing is, Imperial legal system can't contain Arknian nobility, who are by definition above the law and only accept the Court of Honor (which El Borne stands against). El Borne, just like you, has to pick a side and stick to his guns. If he wants to make progressive reforms while preserving the Empire, he has to accept the Court of Honor as a legitimate jurisidicial system for nobles, especially Arknians. If he wants to make the secular law the only legal system there is, he has to become a revolutionary.