To suffer the misfortune of bearing elfblood! Agh! The tragedy, oh, the tragedy! (This is going to be a long one, friends.. Before I start, I will say that I love this IF and the RO’s; all very well written! Thianne 4ever :])

I, by all means, am a sort of human supremacist. No matter what genre or activity I'm engaging in, whether it's Stellaris, DnD, Warhammer 40k, or any other RPG; if there's a 'race selector' of any sorts I always go with the humans. Hell, I'd go as far to say I support the humans in the Avatar series (not the Last Airbender, the one with blue people.. Duh). Now, even with my tendencies to be unbearably biased toward humankind, I did attempt to give the Fae in the IF a fair chance to win me over. But bloody hell do they make it hard for themselves.

Let me start with the first of my many problems with the Fae. Hypocrisy. To quote our dear friend Lady Maeve: 

(“Humanity needs to be kept in check," she says eventually. Her tone is even, though you can tell there's a lot of conviction behind her words. "You’re fae and you’re the closest person to the royal family there is. Put two and two together. The Seelie Court hopes you’ll represent our interests. Convince the Prince that there’s no point in killing fae. Convince him that humans have no right to our living space. If he doesn’t listen, sabotage him. If he turns out to be a tyrant, do what you can to stop him.") 

Now, the Seelie Court is supposed to be the “peaceful” group, correct? Something like that, I’d assume. Now, Maeve, a member of the Seelie Court, which, apparently, is open to “coexistence” with humanity openly speaks like humanity is some sort of pest. Something to be culled; ‘kept in check’. No reaching out and engaging actual diplomacy. Hell, humans don’t even know the Seelie Court or Unseelie Court exist. Quite fairly, humans have assumed fae to be a monolith because of their actions; which is treating humans like lesser beings and attacking them in different ways. For a ‘peaceful’ group which is open to ‘coexistence’ the Seelie sure as hell aren’t reaching out to find a resolution. Instead, we’ve got implanting spies, coercion, and threats. Also, what’s a ‘tyrant’ in Maeve's definition? Someone who goes against Seelie motives? ‘Cause there’s definitely a different definition there. Seelie ‘peace’ seems to be about maintaining fae leverage, not preventing any violence.

To quote Maeve again: ("I’m not trying to put any pressure on you, but if you refuse… The Seelie Court won’t hesitate to resort to more drastic measures. The Unseelie Court has already made up its mind.” MC: “You’re threatening me.” Maeve: “Yes. As I see it, there are two options: you don’t cooperate with us and the conflict will continue to escalate, or you cooperate with us and there’s at least a chance to resolve this.”) 

Ah, I love some more hypocrisy. Again, the Seelie aren’t even trying actual diplomacy. ‘The Unseelie Court has already made up its mind’. And you guys are better, how? She says that the Unseelie Court resorts to violence and will not hear a word of coexisting with humans, but the Seelie Court seems to be the exact same. All the Seelie Court is doing differently is being just a tad subtler. Of course, that just means doing all the same things with a diplomatic flair. Next; (‘The conflict will continue to escalate’) Are the Seelie actually doing anything to deescalate tensions? And (‘or you cooperate with us and there’s at least a chance to resolve this.’) Ah, yes, resolving an all-out war in a peaceful manner by having a double agent, continuing to actively damage the relationship between Gaiapeia and the Seelie Court by lying to humanity, and having contingency plans to kill the human heir if things don’t go their way? I see no problems there. At least the Unseelie are actually honest. 

Now to address what seems to have been the biggest contending point for the fae. Land. Maeve says: (‘Convince him that humans have no right to our living space.’) Our. The fae. What makes it exclusively the living space of the fae? Since the exact origins of the fae & humans are unclear, no one’s actually sure if they were first. It’s a tad unfair of the fae to assume the land is solely theirs. Even if they “were here before us” what does that matter? Humans have actually made laws, cities, borders, and most importantly? CIVILIZATION. Actual bloody civilization. The fae have virtually nothing like that; just vague claims about “being here first”. The humans aren’t an invading force, they’re just doing what it takes to survive. Isn’t their fault if the fae resort to violence first. If anything, the land belongs to humans. Next, to address the claim that humanity is a ‘plague’ and ‘lives beyond its means’; (‘It is true that humans use a lot of natural resources’) Ok.. Well, all I’ll say to that is not all of us can use hocus-pocus fae magic to summon our resources or magically live off the land. Necessity maintains the expansion of humankind. Maybe, hear me out now, just maybe if fae had actual borders and cities then those pesky humans wouldn’t be so eager to encroach on “their land”..

I genuinely cannot understand why one would side with the fae. Humanity isn’t perfect, but the vast majority fae are the malicious ones in this situation. Gaiapeia is fighting to defend itself. Humanity is reacting. As brought up earlier, humans are very much ignorant of fae ways, and are swinging a sword in the dark when it comes to the fae. There has been no extended olive branch, no envoy nor messages. Instead the fae have infiltrated their society, replaced goddamn babies with changelings, assassinated humans in their homes, attacked innocent villagers, and much more. Humanity is, as a whole, traumatized. You can see it in the way they’re plating the walls with metal, training knights to fight fae, and how everyone fears or despises fae. Every interaction with the fae has been overwhelmingly negative to a T. We’ve all seen the effect that trauma can have on people [all my brotherly love goes to His Majesty Az’Lean]. Meanwhile, virtually every fae killed by a human has been in defense of the kingdom. The fae are ruthlessly assaulting Gaiapeia in one way or another and it is clear that Gaiapeia is more or less innocent. On that note, I will say this; I do not hate the fae. I definitely do not hate half-fae; Lester & the others have my heart. Them getting looked down upon just because they were born as (half) fae is pretty shoddy. There are outliers in the fae, I can’t deny that. But that does not change the fact that the majority are malicious.

Despite all I have said, though I do stand by it all, my choice was ultimately to go with the neutral path. Even with my gut screaming at me to wipe out every threat to humanity, I had to give the fae a chance [Well, for now, at least. Saves exist for a reason >:DD; I am not blind to the irony of me saying that with the MC as a fae btw]. At the end of the day, they’re all just people. Even the fae deserve a chance to live in peace, and I’d be damned if I didn’t give them a chance to try and change: the MC is living proof that it is possible. [Also, it’s just another thing to rub in the face of the fae later; having Gaiapeia actually be the ones that open up to diplomacy and real peace lol]

I had to ramble a bit, and I’m always open to some friendly debate. If you’ve read this far, thank you for ‘listening’ to me spew nonsense from the depths of my singular brain cell.

To end this long comment, I will leave you, dear Champion, with a quote;

“Dov wahlaan fah rel. We were made to dominate. The will to power is in our blood. You feel it in yourself, do you not? I can be trusted. I know this. But they do not. Onikaan ni ov dovah.

It is always wise to mistrust a dovah. I have overcome my nature only through meditation and long study of the Way of the Voice. No day goes by where I am not tempted to return to my inborn nature.

Zin krif horvut se suleyk. What is better - to be born good, or to overcome your evil nature through great effort?”

-Paarthurnax