#for clive

bro why are the lines in this game so good i'm so shook

OKAY I'm actually really glad they added something like this into Echoes, and it means a lot when it comes to Clive because as with my long rambles over Clive, this is such a perfect show that he's finally landed himself a principle that he'll follow through. He has a core belief that he tries to stick by but up to this point, he's been struggling hard to follow through it because of the rumors about Alm not being Mycen's grandson as well as Alm doing something as reckless as saving some commongirl Delthea.

While there isn’t any dialogue difference with Clive if you kill Mathilda, I feel like this line hits a little harder if you didn’t save Mathilda:

Unlike you, Alm, I have been too willing to put people’s lives on the line. I stand by my belief that a commander must put reason before emotion. But failing to rescue Mathilda or my sister was cowardice, not reason. The truth is, I chose not to act for fear it would undermine my authority.

It feels like he’s just taking up the blame himself for not rescuing Mathilda and even Clair rather than blaming Alm. By saving Delthea and knowing that Alm wanted to save both, Clive starts self reflecting and questioning himself more than anything -- the kind of leader he is and in turn that brings back the grief he feels towards not saving Mathilda. 

And from then on it’s pretty much just a cascade for Clive into his grief, with his endcard stating:

His heart still heavy from the loss of Mathilda, Clive was appointed captain of the One Kingdom's Brotherhood of Knights. A few short years later, he was killed in a skirmish with pirates. The people grieved deeply over the young loss of so fine a knight.

Even after the war is over, he still grieves and while it’s not very descriptive to why or how Clive gets killed, personally I feel like his grief would drive him to do more reckless things and thus this happens.

This was a post I wrote several months back, and since then I’m kneedeep into Act 4 and nothing else has shown up to make me think more about Clive’s development, but it still was nice to think about. I can only imagine how difficult it might be to put in so many dialogue differences based on one event, so I don’t blame them for not adding to those details, but it would’ve been neat.

But I really love the conversation that Clive and Alm have about saving Delthea. Originally when I was playing through it, I thought this was going to be a conversation that would help Alm realize more about his position and mature as a result, but Alm proved me wrong in that he IS very much aware of his position. And Alm does make a good point with Clive, saying that if Delthea were a noble or a princess, people would be more willing to help. He’s consistent in his message of balance in his acts. Even if he did take up the mission so instinctively as he did with saving the girls earlier in the game, this scene’s actually showing he is thinking more thoroughly about his acts: so it means something more than just saving.

Also it’s a little hypocritical of Clive, considering he reaaaally wants to go save Mathilda from Desaix. I wonder if it wasn’t Desaix that had kidnapped Mathilda (in that, Desaix wasn’t already one of the big enemies of the Deliverance and was instead some rando pirate for example), would he be just as dispassionate?