FULL OF SOUND & FURY.

or maybe i shouldn’t say ‘contrary’ so much as...nuanced in dissimilar prospects. granted, i am in no way well versed in fernand’s character, but some things seem to stand out to me (his reason for leaving the deliverance, some of his comments to clive, etc.); although, i wouldn’t take what i say as a serious reading of him as a person. from what i can tell, fernand thinks he and clive deserve their positions within the knighthood because of their noble station; his seems to be a more passive ideology than traditional rigelian. in other words, respect and honour should follow given his station in life.

the differentiation between the zofian interpretation of nobility vs. rigel’s is so nuanced i really can’t tell if i’m grasping at straws, or if it actually exists. regardless, i find that berkut has a more active viewpoint than fernand.

(granted, this isn’t to say that berkut holds a traditional rigelian set of beliefs, but i’m inclined to believe so; that also isn’t to say that this is healthy or beneficial, or even something to look up to. rather, i find his values quite...depressing, actually). (it’s also worth noting that the game insinuates that berkut was somewhat inundated with this unhealthy hinge on power and strength by his parents and his uncle / those around him, although he fails to see how misguided those teachings are).

imo, he’s arguing that nobility must work to prove that they deserve to be leaders; it isn’t something handed to you because of your birth. strength is everything, but moreover, it must be fairly-won and fairly-earned. which is an ideal that berkut alone seems to hold, given jedah has a fairly prominent place within the court, and considering how odd it apparently is that he loathes and fears the faithful so very much. 

however! it’s also clear from halcyon that jedah reformed the teachings of duma and excommunicated more ‘normal’ or ‘traditional’ worshippers. this leads me to believe that duma’s doctrines were more similar to the aforementioned rigelian standard, especially if we take into consideration what nuibaba and berkut argue over: “your god didn’t want you to be supplicating fools”; ie., he wanted you to be strong of your own volition and your own doing, which seems to be the underlying focal point of rigel’s nobility. 

honestly what i’m trying to delineate here is that there is a vast difference between the ideals that duma and mila eked out, in and of themselves; mila granted her people a bounty, and thus they never had anything to “prove”, whereas duma and rigel clearly honour those who strive and work to hone their personal strength so they can “deserve” the station in life they aim for. 

the strange thing to me is that rigel doesn’t seem to value people who rise above the social rank that they were born with. which...seems like a macbeth sorta mentality, imo, with that whole “overstepping one’s place in society is to unmake oneself”. honestly, i’m somewhat more willing to believe that berkut just holds a more classist viewpoint than other nobility (which more or less stems from his insecurity within that aristocratic rank, i’d imagine).