He looks like such a cutie

Wait, is the prince supposed to be the "good guy" here, because when I first saw the interaction between the king and the prince I thought that the prince was the antagonist to the king's protagonist. We have the king, who is the ruler of the kingdom, being a bit objective and weary with age to the point that he's very direct and then we're presented with his son who shows up late for dinner and blatantly back-talks his father at every chance. Yes his dad is rude, but he's the KING. Show some respect and understand that he's been running an entire kingdom for the longest time now. If anything I always saw the prince as being a stuck up, self centered, unappreciative brat looking to undermine his dad every chance that he gets and needs to learn that even if he's his father's son he still needs to learn to shut his mouth, especially in the presence of subjects and staff, and understand the pressures that come with leadership.

Point is, I've been siding with the king this entire time. Lecturing your son for openly being a brat and trying to discredit/undermine you is perfectly acceptable and even more-so in front of people you're supposed to be ruling over. Heck, who knows how long it's been going on too. It wouldn't surprise me for a second if this "nice guy" persona that the prince is putting on in front of the scribe is to try and convince him to change some wording on the will in order to have everything left to him. Power play and all that.

His father is a pompous asshat. The man ordered death on innocent villagers, takes not even the slightest criticism, treats everyone like ass, and then has the balls to declare himself the law. That is not a wise but weary king. That is a man with no regard for those under him, the people he is to govern. There is a rule when it comes to the people- People who are not nice to the waitstaff are not nice people. It may be a power play, but Drayven knows the kingdom is falling apart under his father's rule. The king shows no respect, therefore deserves none.

He's the King of an entire kingdom. It's not his place to show respect to others unless they present him with it first. If anything Drayven is the one that shows no respect and deserves none in return. On top of that the only time we see him mistreating normal folk is after Drayven has pushed his buttons and his attention is forced to turn from his son to them. Of course that puts them in the line of fire. I put forth the case that he's presented as a pompous asshat because of how we see him during his interactions with a disrespectful, unappreciative, spoiled brat of a son who does nothing but piss him off constantly. A Kingship is a position of authority, it's not a country club, it's not a boy scout troop, it's one man running the affairs of an entire kingdom (thousands of people) and having to put up with a jerk that does nothing but shit on every order that he tries to make. It's by no means an easy job to have, and made worse when your kid constantly undermines you every time you open your mouth.

Again, you are showing a prejudice toward the son. The son has been acting on behalf of the people, unlike his father. A king is not the law, nor is he above the law. The king is the ultimate paragon of the law, and has to be willing to follow the very laws he creates. You are merely focusing on actions, and not on the words. Drayven has every right to speak out against his father, especially when he is aware of what his father's rule is doing to the people. If the people rebel over the tyrant and the son shows no outward support for them, his whole family is dead, but if he can find a way at a peaceful resolution, which is what he wants, then his family is saved.

I wouldn't consider it a prejudice towards the son, but instead a favor towards the father. As the king he IS the law, his word is just that. If he says every Thursday is chicken kicking day then so be it. A king is the law to his people, his word is what they follow. If I have any standing against the son then it's because he speaks out against his father every time his father speaks. Even a broken clock is correct twice a day and yet the son ALWAYS speaks out against his father no matter what. If Drayven was looking for the best for the people and his family then you'd think he'd be ok with his dad sometimes, but instead it's not like that. In Drayven's mind his father is always wrong no matter the situation. To me that means that Drayven is interested in his own self, not the people, not his family, but wanting to discredit his father no matter how he can and take over. That doesn't make Drayven the good guy, it makes him selfish, arrogant, and disrespectful.

A broken clock being right twice a day is referring to a mechanism that cannot be accurate on its own, and cannot move forward. In this case, the king cannot move forward. The king is wrong, and that is what Drayven realizes. It is the responsibility of anyone in the courts, whether it be the Prince or the council members, to not just follow blindly, but to look and listen, to gauge the situation, and to rule according to the people. You seem to have this authoritarian complex, one that mandates that a king can never be wrong, and actively warning him that he is going off the deep end is being selfish. Again, you are not seeing the forest for the trees.

You're not going to deter the conversion, or run me off of it by making claims about what I am and am not. I'm more than capable of staying on point and this topic isn't about me, it's about about the relationship between the King and the Prince in this story. So let's do a full break down of the two then.

When we first see the king it's in page 87, where the king is literally being carried into his throne room and told that a siege is happening, that, not only did one of the king's generals get killed but all of his elite knights too. Now they're requesting aid. He asks for more information and that an ancient artifact is missing. Do we know what this artifact is? This is apparently a huge deal and even the guards and advisors seem to recognize it as a troubling situation. It's likely the same artifact that sesame has attached to her arm now, but who knows? Point is, this is a big issue and the king wonders were his son is because he should be there learning how to be a King. The detail I want to bring up here about their relationship is that he calls the prince his son. Not, "the prince", not "my heir", he calls him his son, which is important.

When we first see the prince he's playing with swords. I'd say that he was sword fighting, but it's pretty clear that he's only there to showboat and get praise from his cheering drones that adulate him for defeating a knight, but if you look at the knight standing beside the queen it's pretty obvious she's un-amused by the entire thing. I'd say that this is probably more of a Golden-Child complex if nothing else, but the fact that a knight lost to the prince is both ok and seriously disappointing. What's the point in having knights to protect the royal family if the royal family are better fighters? Maybe he was a new knight, I don't know because we never see this guy again. About the relationship, though, the prince is told that his father wants to see him and how does he respond? "Please tell my father I'll be there shortly" No, he doesn't say that. He sighs. The fact that his father is requesting his presence in what the prince is told is a meeting involving the affairs of the kingdom, and Drayven sighs like it's a bother for him to learn how to do the job he was literally born to do. I'm sorry there aren't anymore knights to let you kick them around, get your ass in the throne room!

Next page the King yells at and lectures the pup because well... he wasn't where he knew he should be, and I have to agree here that the king is right. Drayven is a spoiled brat. The prince could just take it and sit down, but no, he has to open his big mouth and down talk his dad right there in front of his advisors and knights. Should the King have spoken to him the way he did? Maybe there was a better place for it, but if Drayven was where he was supposed to be then it wouldn't have been a situation to begin with. Of course the king tells him to shut up and sit down. he could have just kicked him out of the hall after that, but the king really wants his son to learn these things, and the prince responds again with his unneeded and disrespectful backtalk proving that he needs actual discipline. We get talk of a rebellion in this page and more about the artifact, but I want to focus on the rebellion specifically. These kinds of actions are difficult to handle for royalty. If you give in to the rebellion then you might calm one, but then open the doors for many others to start their own until the point where if a chicken is lost to the wilds then the people start a rebellion to have the capital pay for it (or other equally ridiculous reasons). The only proper way to deal with a rebellion is to break the will of those wanting to fight, not because royalty is evil, and force is the only way, but because without effective leaders sitting on the throne there can't be a kingdom. One of the duties of the king is to get towns and provinces under his control to work together for the common good. If a rebellion comes up it's not just a threat to the crown, but the entire unity of everyone in the kingdom. Of course what you have to realize in this is that people will rebel over anything... near constantly. The prince is against spilling more blood which is noble, but he's young, inexperienced in how things are handled. It says way more that the advisors are calling for a stop to the rebellion on top of the fact that these people have already killed a general (probably a best friend to the king if you know the relationships between royalty and their higher military subjects) as well as a bunch of elite knights. Probably by kicking them in the stomach and telling them how brave they are for yielding before stabbing them in the throat. Of course I kid. Moving on!

Page 90, blah blah kingdom lore, all that good stuff that's important to the story, and of course we're talking about the artifact again which is really the mcguffin for all this. I'd say that the advisors know how dangerous such an item is, but they really don't know how dangerous it could be which means that the people who stole it don't either. So what's most important is that they get the item back. Can the king just go down there and ask for it back? No! He'd be killed on the spot, so would the prince for that matter, as preachy as he is. The only course of action that they really have to try and get this item back is to drive troops in and take it, but the king doesn't really seem interested in the artifact as much as he's interested in the rebellion. What we see of the king and princes relationship is actually worse than before. The last time the king made a sharp statement and Drayven responded with his own. This happened twice actually. This time the king gives an order, makes a decree if you will, and a rather effective one, but because Drayven doesn't agree he not only questions his father in front of the advisors and other people in the room, but throws a fit in the middle of the court room. The father calls him weak and Drayven, with his never shut mouth, has to make a final statement. Now does Drayven throw a fit because he values life? Sure, of course, that's obvious, but his flaw here is that he doesn't seem to realize that despite people casting fireballs at will he lives in a world of MAGIC and that this incredibly dangerous, possibly world destroying, artifact might actually be real and in the hands of people that thing it's a fishing lore. Valuing life is fine, but when those lives potentially put the entire world at risk, I'm sorry but they got to go. But then again it's always easy to value life when you've never had to really risk your own, right? Not you, as in the reader, but you as in the general statement of anyone... you know what? Moving on.

We don't see the king or prince again until page 151 at a dinner table. The prince is late because he refuses to let the waiting staff do what they're paid to do. He wants to be hands on, ok, fine, sure, no problem, but there was a better way to state it that didn't come off as defensive, but does the mother say "Respect your father." or "Go easy with your father, he's still very ill." NO, she refers to him as "My dearest" and ignores the very clear struggle between the two. And all I can think of is "where does that leave the other two if he's her "dearest"? Golden-child syndrome, I'm serious, it's a thing. And of course the prince asks about said illness, but the king rightfully expects an apology for the way that Drayven acted yesterday. Does he get one? No. Why would he? That would be humbling and as we've seen in every page he's ever been in, Drayven has no humility at all. Does he need to bend over backwards? No, he just has to apologize and the next few pages wouldn't even exist, but yet Drayven can't manage to say that he's sorry even to make amends with his father, and where is the mother in this? Sitting quietly. "Son, please just apologize to your father, you know he isn't going to be around forever and I don't want this to tear you two apart." Nope, just sits there quietly giving no cares at all. The king mentions that he fears the day when he's no longer in charge, and Drayven responds with an inquiry about his father's apparent lack of faith in his abilities. Yo, dip-shit.. here's a thought.. maybe this situation isn't only about YOU. It's about the kingdom, your dad even said so. Stop making everything about you! Self-Righteous asshole!

PAGE 152! Because I just can't stay on 151 anymore. They keep arguing, but there's an important point here to be made. The king calls his son "disobedient, arrogant, and stubborn" which is all true, and then follows it up with a comment about him being a disgrace... kind of also true, but an opinion if nothing else. The very first line that gets me on this page is how Drayven responds, "I've been conceiving a way to repair the turmoil set forth in the kingdom." Page 88... kicking knights around in an arena so that you can be adulated is NOT going to help anything. If you're going to make a statement like that... at least don't let it be a bold faced lie. The other statement that gets me is from the mother who finally decides to chime in on this. Who does she side with? Drayven, telling the king to be supportive. He embarrassed his father in his own court by throwing a fit like a child! The king just wants him to apologize. Stop babying your full grown son and start raising him. And what kind of statement is that? "Be Supportive"... why do you think he was in the throne room at all? Sorry queen, but I think you're "Supportive" enough for the both of you. At least the king is trying to teach his son humility and respect, two things that will go a lot further for him on the throne than kisses on the cheek and being called "my dearest". No I'm still not over that. And finally "I'm a man, not a child like them" (referring to his siblings who are also at the table). Are you? Are you sure you're a man? Because you're acting like an obstinate child. Being a man is more than just how old you are, you know. Can't help but agree with Alphonse that his son is a brat.

So in 153 the king is now nice and pissed off for when the scribe comes and barks at him. Is this how he normally acts? Hard to say, but he's pissed off and the scribe is now his main attention. Unlucky guy. Regardless there's really nothing to this page, just the introduction of the scribe and how the king scares the daylights out of him.

154, The scribe starts to write the last will of the king, and this bothers Drayven. Why? Since when does someone need to be dying before they update their will? You know that he's sick and that the doctors are saying that their potions aren't working. Did you think it would all just go away? Maybe if you weren't kicking knights around an arena and been where you were supposed to be then you'd have noticed your dad being carried around the castle by a royal guard. I don't want to put everything on the prince, but really everything I've seen about him shows that he has no interest in running the kingdom and the only time he speaks up about it is to second guess his father's decisions. Why are we supposed to be on his side? This man-child who knows nothing about running a kingdom is only interested in the kingdom when it means him being denied his fancy chair, and yet he has an opinion about how things should be run despite not knowing anything. This isn't about that, though, this is about the father son relationship... I think, and of course the king is called away.

I can't really go into anything about 155 because it's not about the king and Drayven it's about Drayven being an all around nice guy to other people again, which is fine. I'd like for him to be an all around nice guy to his father, but baby-steps I guess. Of course I can't help but feel that Drayven is up to something because he's a spoiled dick that's about to be denied his throne. That's just my expectations, though. Kind of makes you wonder, if this scribe were to be offended by the prince for whatever reason, touching his item or whatever, do you think that the prince would apologize to him? I think he would, so why can't he give an apology to his dad when asked for it?


tl;dr - Drayven is a self-centered, arrogant, spoiled golden-child with no discipline or humility. He has no clue how to run a kingdom and when his father tries to involve him it starts this massive fight because he keeps undermining the king constantly and back-talking his father non-stop throughout. All he knows is that he doesn't like how his father runs it.. and that's it, and yet we're supposed to be on Drayven's side. Yes Alphonse is a bit intense and easy to anger, but that shouldn't be something new and if it is then Drayven should be spending less time arguing with his dad and finding out why he's been so hostile lately. Most importantly, this arch is all about running a kingdom and what is needed for that. No country/kingdom/sovereign in the entire world has ever succeeded due to emotional leaders. Just the opposite really. You have to be passionate about your vision for the kingdom, but emotionally displaced enough to make the hard decisions when it's needed... which is usually most of the decisions that you'll make.

And on page 89, the advisor provides no evidence that the rebellion has anything to do with the attack or the siege, and Drayven calls him out on that. Page 90 further goes into that. Listen to the language, which you do not- Alder is the only "just" kingdom. Alder is also running itself into the ground in debt from a war that they may or may not have won, and want another war that could destroy the nation. Rather than finding a way to deal with the Rebellion in a way that would end it peacefully, the king chooses violence. You mention "breaking the will" of the rebellion, but therein lies the problem. This will only work as a bandage solution, since this can martyr them to a cause. If the people feel their rebellion is just, then that little spat will work, instead, to fuel the fans of the rebellion rather than quell them. The people are dissatisfied, and the king is merely adding rope to the noose.

Your reasoning only boils down to what you feel is Drayven backtalking to his father. To use that logic, Zuko was the biggest traitor to the Fire Nation for disagreeing on a plan that would slaughter troops for victory, then later for betraying his father again by helping to stop the "scorched earth" plan the Firelord had. Drayven at least has the interests of the nation at his front. The king only has the desire to keep his rule.

Thirdly- you do not update or create a will without good cause. There is no purpose otherwise.

If Alder was announcing the plan to kill everyone then yeah, I could see him being in the wrong, but he's not. He's specifically calling to have the traitors executed, member of this rebellion that has come about. What you have to understand as well is that just because some people want a rebellion doesn't mean all of them do. It's actually far more likely that most people don't want to rebel and this is a handful of people trying to "change the world" or whatever. I don't see why the siege that killed a general and his elite soldiers wouldn't be part of the rebellion. It's not like they changed topics or went on to the next subject of the day. Alder heard news that the general and soldiers were killed asked for more details and found out that this super dangerous item was missing. He sends for his son, Drayven walks in and they continue the subject. The king didn't order for the entire island to be purged, just that the rebels be executed as traitors, which they are. On the subject of martyrdom, not everybody that dies is a martyr, and if the king was trying to kill innocent people then yeah, it would fuel the fire, but he's not. He's ordering the killing of traitors to the throne. If anything that will help to make people think twice before joining a rebellion, and the prince just doesn't understand that. People won't see this as "The king dragged people out of their homes and slit their throats in the street", they'll far more likely see it as "Oh, these men killed all of the soldiers in this area and so the king had them killed as traitors."

Zuko questioned his father's decision in a court and was punished ruthlessly for it. Drayven threw a hissy fit in a court and had nothing done to him. Also Zuko went after the Aang for the longest time in order to try and make amends for his actions. Drayven is entirely non-apologetic about the situation. Zuko only really turned against his father when the Emperor wanted to destroy the planet. Alphonse isn't even close to being at that point. He just wants to control his kingdom.

That doesn't make any since. You should have a will regardless if you're planning on dying or not. Death sometimes happens immediately and you should always be prepared. Plus, updating a will happens when something changes and what you previously planned to happen after your death is no longer what you want. In this case I'm assuming that he's changing the heir to the throne to his wife instead of his son, which is just another thing that I figured he should have done in private.

And there is the problem. You don't see it, yet you assume it. The advisors gave no proof that the rebellion was a part of that siege, or even if the people of the nation were even in that siege. And the thing about a rebellion- you rarely see a rebellion in a peaceful, prosperous nation. The fact that you have an active rebellion means that there is something seriously wrong with the government, or (especially in the US) the ideology one holds is so warped that it feels the need to rebel. Also, we know the king will resort to violence without mercy, but to what end? What is "treason" to this king? Is it an actual act? Or is it merely disagreeing with the king's doctrine? That is the problem you are ignoring. He has incomplete information and picks the most violent response for it.

"That doesn't make any since."
And the word is "sense."

Hunting down rebellion members and killing them for treason is not even close to the most violent response. He could have ordered the island purged, he could have sent in his troops to storm the entire village and kill every man, woman, and child there. That's what a tyrant would do, but he didn't. This king specifically wants to take down the rebellion, something that any person in power would want to do. He's having them killed because as far as we know they WERE part of the siege and we have no reason to believe that those are two different issues. If the king has incomplete information, as you claim he does without evidence of him having such, then is that really the king's fault? He's acting on the information that he has because he has no reason to believe that his information is incomplete. There's a rebellion going on in the same place where a general and elite soldiers were murdered and for what he knows may be a super weapon has been stolen. So yes, he should send in force to try and get it back before the rebels figure out how to activate it and turn the island into a crater. Force of action is justified when people become a known danger to other people, and the king has no reason to believe that they don't have the artifact and more importantly has no reason to believe that if they do (murdering his guards to get it) that they would hold off using it. And yes, you do see rebellion in peaceful nations, look at the IRA (Irish Terrorists trying to rebellion in order to gain Irish Independence from England). England is about as peaceful as a large world power can get and people are still rebelling despite the fact that most of Ireland doesn't want them to. You say that the king will resort to violence and if it's against a rebellion then I say he's just in doing so, but I don't see him as being all that violent because he could have slapped the prince for his actions in the court, but didn't, he could have had his guards drag the prince out of the throne room, but didn't. So you're allowing one situation where he's sending soldiers to quell a rebellion to dictate that he's this violent mad-man when the innocent people that live there should be just fine.

If I'm assuming that the rebellion had to do with the siege then in the same way you're assuming that they didn't. Either way we're both making assumptions. The difference being that if the king did send more people in just to investigate what's going on and it WAS the rebels then he's sending soldiers to their death at the hands of traitors. So in a way what you're saying is that the life of the soldiers are less valuable than the lives of the rebels that may not be guilty of attacking the previous guards, but ARE guilty of treason which is a crime punishable by death usually anyway. Even if we don't know what treason is to THIS king, we can't deny that building a rebellion to overthrow him would fall into that category no matter how lenient the definition is, or isn't. We at least know that it's not speaking out against him because the prince wasn't arrested. And we can't say that the prince got away with it because he needs to take over the throne when the king has another son and is already filling out a will to leave ruling the kingdom to the queen. The queen would very easily be able to run the kingdom until the 8 year old prince is old enough to take over and given the age of people being married back then he should be good to go in only around 6-8 years.

First off, the king did punish the entire nation, by pretty much stripping all of those citizens of their rights. If he was trying to be a wise ruler, he would appeal to the people, and let them keep their sovereignty. He would go in, and only take out the siege, and in good faith assure the people who were not at fault that no punishment would come to them. However, this has complicated things, and may add to the numbers because now the king is saying, "I don't care if you were a part of this or not, you will be punished. This will drive more people to join the Rebellion, since it now no longer matters whether or not you are a part of it. Also, if you are basing whether or not talking ill against the king would be treasonous on the prince, you have much to learn. the prince is nobility, and with that comes privilege. Kings were not known to kill off their children or arrest them as easily as some random peasant off the streets. Also, that level of bickering does not happen recently. The overall attitude I have gleaned from their spats is that the king thought very highly of him, until he began seeing things differently than the king, and questioning the king's decisions, and the king had no good answers for his son, only demands complete obedience. And who's to say the king didn't try that once or twice, and got owned by Drayven?

And if you assume anything, you are unfit to be king. A good king does not have to risk troops in their investigations, as a good king has eyes and ears all over the place. He can pull information relatively quickly and know whether or not the Rebellion is involved, and even possibly who the leaders are. Without evidence, however (and one should avoid the words "I am certain" without evidence), it is a rash decision that can be turned against you and only make your enemies stronger. Remember the Iraq War? Yeah, that was the same shit.

And as to your remark about the IRA, I have to admire your ability to gloss over a point. The point was a need, and just because there is "peace" does not mean there is not tension. The IRA wants independence from England, which is a worthy goal. Ireland should be wholly Irish. If you are from the US, how would you like for China to own the entire East Coast? If not, then a portion of your own country?

Also, adding to your comment about Joel, just because yu're pissed at someone, does not give you the right to snap at an uninvolved party. That shows a lack of control of your emotions- and since you spoke about emotional leaders, the king is far more emotional than he looks. He is ruled by fear, he doesn't want to look weak, but the louder one yells, the more fear one shows. There is a difference between making the hard decisions, and plain unnecessary massacre, and the king seems to favor killing possibly innocent people rather than providing aid to them.

Also, please only respond to one of them.

I'd like to see when Kylar gave Joel that little pendant. :D