FOLKVAR FAMILY SPEED QUESTION TIME!
does hestal know that sygbarne is alive? how do blomi and hestal feel about each other? how does sygbarne feel about her situation? how would have gultopp handled sygbarne's condition had he not been a high king? why does juvella think folkvar's citizenship requirements should be highe? why hasnt gultopp forced hestal out to the battlefield himself? how does he and juvella feel about their grandson? WHATS GULTOPP'S FAVORITE COLOR?!
Q: Does Hestal know that Sygbarne is alive?
A: No. No one but her parents and a few select staff and doctors know about her existence at all. Even then, they may not know that Sygbarne is the king and queen's daughter. Gultopp may have lied and said she was some other relative or related to staff.
Q: How do Blomi and Hestal feel about eachother?
A: Hestal is quite a bit older than Blomi and doesn't spend much time at home (he's mostly running things in North Haze these days), so I imagine they just don't interact much. When they do, he acts like a typical assholeish older brother and teases her. Blomi just puts up with it and tries to act like the bigger person in front of her parents, but probably slips laxatives into her brother's dinner when he's not looking. That's just the kind of person she is.
Q: How does Sygbarne feel about her situation?
A: I'm not sure Sygbarne understands the scope of what's happening to her. She's spent literally her whole life locked up in one room, where she only sees the same small set of faces every day. She can see the world outside her window, but it has bars over it and she's never been out there. She doesn't know she has siblings. She knows she has parents and she's very happy when they visit, but they never stay long. She hates the doctors that poke and prod her and force her to take nasty medicines. She knows something is wrong with her life, she just doesn't quite understand what it is. At the very least, her parents buy her all the toys she wants and see that her caretakers are kind to her. If Gultopp and Juvella heard about any abuse going on (barring the medical experiments, which they believe are "helpful") they would absolutely flip shit and probably kill that caretaker with their own hands. But Sygbarne just wants her parents' love and attention more than any material object. They don't really know how to interact with her on her level, and they're too stubborn to learn. They think why should they change their behavior if she's the one who's messed up? So they try to change her to make her behave on their level instead. Really sad all around.
Q: How would Gultopp handle Sygbarne if he wasn't High King?
A: If he was a regular blue collar guy, I think Gultopp would've handled the situation much better. Definitely not great, but better. As the king, he has a strict political agenda to push and Sygbarne's existence throws a wrench in that. He can't just be like "rules for thee, not for me" and expect his people not to riot, so he hides her from them. But without subjects to appeal to, I don't think he would hide her. He would still make a lot of misguided attempts to "fix" her, but ultimately he would just do the best he could to keep her safe and happy. He would force Hestal and Blomi to care for her when he wasn't around. He would see that she was never unsupervised or left in an unsafe situation. He'd just work his ass off to pay for her snake oil treatments until he died.
Q: Why does Juvella think citizenship requirements should be higher?
A: Gultopp is highly focused on the military aspect of his kingdom. He sees every immigrant as a potential soldier, so he welcomes them with open arms. Juvella's concerns lie more with culture and society than military. She'd proud of her kingdom's unique culture, and she fears that too many immigrants will change the Folkvaran way of life, and that their old traditions will be replaced and forgotten. She wants less immigrants overall, and she wants them to be more assimilated into the culture when they do arrive. (Completely ignoring the fact that Folkvar Kingdom was built entirely by immigrants and refugees in the first place, but you know...xenophobes gonna xenophobe.)
Q: Why hasn't Gultopp forced Hestal onto the battlefield?
A: Gultopp did put Hestal through several years of military school and planned to make him a military commander...only to find out that Hestal really was not cut out for the job. Like, at all. He's an incompetent, arrogant goon, which is exactly the kind of person Gultopp does not want leading his troops. He knows if he put Hestal on the battlefield, the guy would cause more problems than he'd solve. So he just put him in charge of a small, rural city out in Frozen Hicksville that nobody gives a crap about and called it a day.
Q: How do Gultopp and Juvella feel about their grandson (Hestal's son)?
A: The fact that this kid exists at all brings them shame. They're embarrassed that Hestal knocked up a random prostitute, then quickly married her to save face. They're embarrassed that he then had her killed because he got bored of her and then begged them for money so he could dump the kid in boarding school for the next sixteen years. The whole situation just sucks and they'd rather not think about this kid any more than he does. Still, they pay for the boy's school, have him over for holidays, and are probably pretty cordial towards him. When he comes of age, they'll probably give him a chunk of money and send him to a foreign kingdom or something, because lord knows he ain't getting shit else from this family after he reaches adulthood. His father wants nothing to do with him and frankly, neither does anyone else. Hopefully he'll start his own family and make a happy life for himself one day.
Q: What is Gultopp's favorite color?
Red, of course! The color of life and death, and the official color of his kingdom.
