Made of Love

honestly that is the only situation in which that feature should ever be brought back

and so then they also maybe don’t know that it’s what drove john green off of tumblr??? (wait actually was that the whole reason or just part of the reason? I wasn’t actually here for that, i’ve just heard the story)

Are you just reckless or do you have a death wish?

I was checking a bunch of stuff on them a while ago for a fic and realised that I'd been treating them pretty differently to how they're actually presented. I've seen them used (and done so myself) as a sort of generic "guard" force that sort of exists and doesn't really do much, but they're really more of just a neighbourhood watch style thing at most from what little we actually learn of them.

There's so little on the Defenders that they don't even have a wiki page, and the game only gives us 5 clear points on them:

The Defenders have a base in Jouvente.

Isabeau was one, greatly admired them, and quit to help Mira.

They refused to help Mira.

Isabeau learned how to make Craft bombs when taking his exams, which implies training relating to potentially harmful substances and tools.

Isabeau says the worst thing most Defenders will ever deal with is "a robbery maybe!" which reinforces the idea that they aren't really much of a police/protection force, and more so community support.

There's two bonus points, the first of which is Isabeau's ability to control conversations really well when he needs to, but we don't actually know if this is just him or specific Defender training. (See the cloak conversation, where he notices Sif getting emotional and pulls double duty distracting everyone else, whilst also hyping up how good the cloak is to try and make them feel better.) If that is Defender training, it again implies training more in line with hospice/welfare sector.

And the other is Isa's lack of combat training. He isn't a higher level than anyone else at the start, nor more powerful or wielding better equipment, which seems to me like being a Defender does not involve combat based training.

My biggest and funniest point though, is the implication that the Defenders are completely unique to Jouvente.

We know little of the world outside of Dormont, but here's what we do know: Defenders are in Jouvente, they are not in Dormont, no one mentions any other encounters with Defenders from across the journey. Bonnie doesn't even have an anecdote from Bambouche or something. All in all, I think it's very funny that it's entirely possible they're a completely niche organisation.

If you approach the Defenders as being a small community service group based almost entirely in one city, then their refusal to help Mira suddenly makes way more sense.

None of them are trained for an actual apocalypse. They pick up litter and help organise events. They check in on people and look for lost pets. They defuse rowdy arguments and occasionally chase off Sadnesses. They don't march across the country to do battle with a man the size of a building who can stop time!

Quoted from the game:

Isabeau (angry1) And I could tell that they said that because they were scared! The worst Defenders see is like, a robbery maybe!

Isabeau (angry1) So suddenly helping to save Vaugarde was too much for them!

Isabeau (angry2) But not helping because you're scared... I just couldn't accept that. That's not brave.