#interpretations

mysticdragon3md3:

Still thinking about how Claude, despite usually being fairly guarded, evasive, and careful with his words, just confesses anything and everything, during his S Support. He doesn’t even try to word things in a way that make him look good. He just word-vomits everything, good and bad. He completely trusts that the person he loves won’t interpret him in a suspicious light, so he confesses everything.

Please forgive this rant I’m going to give under the cut:

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It’s takes like this that made me post a while back about Claude’s love confession, where he didn’t bother to word things in an advantageous way.  So many people hear “I originally wanted to use you” as “Claude never had any kind of loyalty or affection for others at all, still doesn’t, and is lying in wait to discard people once his goals are fulfilled”, as if his whole character arc wasn’t about him learning and growing into someone who could be that sincerely and earnestly connected with others.  And as if his goals aren’t all about creating a world where people genuinely empathize with each other.  In the end, _HE’S_ the one shouting “But we have the strength to scale the walls between us! To reach out our hands in friendship and open our true hearts to one another! That’s how we win!”  He had to grow into that ambition.  

During his childhood, he grew up with VALID reasons to not trust in anyone, nor even believe in the goodness of the world.  Maybe if he hadn’t grown up with that defiant disposition (probably inherited from Tiana), maybe he would have let the world convince him it was evil and people are just cruel and of no worth (besides being used for one’s own selfish survival).  But instead, he rebelled against such hopelessness, and reached to defy it, by believing that even seemingly cruel people could become understanding of others, and thus even a cruel world could become a safe and happy place for kids like him.  Maybe Claude isn’t running on Spite, to get through his past traumas, but he is running on Defiance, to survive them.  

He continually works for a dream, that is DEPENDENT on an unwavering faith in others.  He has to believe that people could get along if they just understood each other, enough to empathize with each other.  He persistently works to solve problems through conferences, diplomacy, talk, and persuasion, which is fully dependent on sustaining belief in people always having the ability to understand, compromise, sympathize, and work together, regardless of how buried such aspects of people are.  He has so many cutscenes with the Golden Deer, where he reasons them out of preconceived notions and explains his goals, for them to understand him.  Claude also maintains an unbelievable patience, for his faith in others to be proven justified.  Heck, in Azure Moon, the last time he saw Dimitri at Gronder, Dimitri was ready to fight him, even though, from the Alliance perspective, the Kingdom had turned against/betrayed them for no reason, even after the Alliance had *just* helped them—and yet still, Claude soon afterwards asked Dimitri for a rescue at Derdriu, having full faith that somewhere, even inside that angry prince at Gronder, was still the Dimitri he met at the Academy who was always so selfless and eager to help others.  At Derdriu, Claude even tells Dimitri, “I knew you wouldn’t hesitate to put yourself second and come running to our aid.” (And then Claude goes on to advise Dimitri, “both the living and the dead cling to us without any regard for our own lives. It’s up to us to break free of that weight and follow the path that we believe in.” As if Claude had thought long and hard of how to understand Dimitri, during all this time, even after Gronder.)  Claude canonically proves he has an UNREASONABLE amount of faith in other people’s goodness.  No matter how buried it may be behind callousness, he will still believe and patiently wait for it.  This trust in others, as well as the emotional sincerity, that Claude idealizes and aims for, is his ambition, because he has to believe that a better world than the one he grew up in, can be created by people coming together, in trust and sincerity, to understand and sympathize with each other.  

There is a constant struggle inside Claude between his childhood experience which tells him that “it is not safe to trust anyone”, vs his ambitious dream of “everyone understanding and sympathizing with each other and accepting each others’ differences”.  So I think it’s reasonable that even while Claude is working and gradually progressing towards this dream of everyone being sincerely empathetic with each other, he is still struggling to feel those emotions himself.  He uses people, he makes strategic friendships, he tells himself to not trust anyone too much or else he’ll get stabbed in the back.  (He even warns others to not trust him!)  But at the same time, he’s dreaming of a world where people can be honest and sincere with each other, and for those leaps of faith to be met with empathy.  Inside Claude is a struggle between his lived experience vs his idealistic ambition.  But he understands that to make such dreams into reality, he has to fight against his own reluctances and fears, his own weaknesses, and gradually learn to be as sincere and open with others as he dreams people will be in his perfect world.  He is working towards becoming a Stronger version of himself that he dreams of.  Because how can he dream of his idealistic, empathetic world, without making such changes within himself too?  Even if just to prove to himself that his world can be forged out of the current unempathetic one, starting with himself.  And I think Claude demonstrates his willingness to face his weaknesses and grow past them, when he has his preconceived notions challenged during his Support conversations, and always ends them with a respect for the other person’s new perspective. He proves to be always willing ot change and grow.  The Support with Cyril opened Claude’s eyes to Almyra’s failings vs Fodlan/Church.  That’s why Claude never falls into seeing the Church or Rhea as purely evil or just an enemy to defeat, even though he recognizes that Fodlan might be better in some ways without the Church.  His Supports with Ignatz and Raphael, though too brief, brought Claude to appreciate a *little* better the values he never paid much attention to, like religious devotion and knighthood.  But maybe more importantly, during these shorter Supports, where it doesn’t seem like Claude has his mind changed drastically, he still allows himself to get roped into their dilemmas and help them with whatever THEY FELT was important, rather than insisting they were ridiculous, wasting time, or Claude simply not trying to understand.  Maybe it was more a demonstration of Claude’s practice in trying to empathize with others.  Even during Claude’s Support with Petra, where half of it is just them agreeing with each other and hinting at Claude’s “secret” foreign status, Petra introduces an idea to him (sleeping in a tree vs on the ground) which doesn’t personally make sense to him, but he still tries it anyway, several times, and comes to appreciate it. Even during Ingrid’s Support conversation, Claude tries to accommodate her by awkwardly trying to act more formal, like a typical nobleman.  And Claude’s Support with Shamir seemed to have been his way of confronting his own fears about “not belonging anywhere” by exploring Shamir’s example of being comfortable with “not belonging anywhere”.  Many of Claude’s interactions with others seem to center around him growing out of his weaknesses.  Now maybe a more cynical perspective may say that he purposefully chose to interact with his Support partners, in order to face his weaknesses and strengthen himself for his own advantages.  But doesn’t that just describe a good person?  Or a normal friendship?  I would hope that all participants in a friendship help each other grow or at least support each other towards such.  Isn’t that what friends are?  Even if just enjoying each other’s company to rejuvenate one’s emotional state.  Getting too cynical in interpreting Claude’s motives sound more and more like the old argument that “there is no completely selfless altruistic deed, because people can feel good themselves for doing something good for someone else”.  As if that was a bad thing.  I would much rather the world be filled with people who take joy in doing good for others!  Sounds like a good world, filled with good people.  Isn’t someone who takes joy in being as altruistic/selfless as a human can within human limitations, just describing a good person?  In the same way, interpreting Claude’s motivations with cynicism seems to just be going around in circles for no reason.  Maybe he wanted to become stronger by eliminating his weakness, by confronting his fears of genuine rapport with people, by proactively interacting with people in positive ways, until he became practiced at forging bonds, and eventually find genuine emotional rapport with others.  What’s so sinister about that?  If that’s what counts as “selfish”, then we’re back at the fallacy of calling people “bad” for “selfishly” taking joy in helping others.  Ultimately, Claude has good intentions and a dream of an empathetic world full of understanding and acceptance.  Maybe he has to force himself into earnest actions, until his emotional rapports with people become genuine.  But he’s making that effort, it says a lot that he wants that goal, and reaching his goal would create a world that’s good for everyone.  And anyway, with the frequency that Claude confronts and reckons with his flaws and misperceptions, he demonstrably keeps himself in-check, too much to expect him to no have self awareness at any time he was becoming too selfish or evil.  He questions himself too much and seems to enjoy exploring and fixing his flaws.  He’s not the type to let his ideologies become too extreme and detrimental to others, without self awareness about that and a need to immediately fix it.  

It really gets me that so many of these takes assume that Claude’s ultimate goals, for which he’s “manipulating everyone” for, are cold, cruel, and selfish ends.  He blatantly says during FE3H that his dream is for people to get along peacefully together, to understand and empathize with each other, and have tolerance for each other’s diversity.  This is the guy people are assuming has “MaLiCiOuS” intent, just because people are whispering his reputation to be a “schemer”????  

For the record, most of those rumors come from Claude himself.  Likely because of some internalized low self worth that’s been conveyed to him by his childhood home environment.  Thankfully, seems like he’s winning that struggle, since he can joke about it, but he still makes a show of portraying himself as “untrustworthy”, though jokingly.  Or maybe it’s just a habit to throw people off balance: a common survival tactic.  Or maybe he’s testing people, to see if they have the will to see past the surface and have faith in others, as he does.  Maybe he’s issuing a challenge for people to do so.  Though it may be a mistake to assume everyone is motivated by Defiance, the same way he is.  Or maybe he’s just throwing around so much misinformation, so that if his secrets (being an Almyran prince) were ever revealed, it would be difficult for anyone to be sure if it was just another rumor or not.  

Ultimately, don’t fall for Claude’s “schemer” image. As someone once said in another post, anyone who’s actually talked to Claude for 2 minutes will discover that his “big scheme” is just for everyone to get along and end racism.  And his relationships may have started as “manipulations”, but he obviously wants that genuine rapport and earnest caring for others, that the beginning motions of friendship may grow into.  And this is evident in the type of empathetic dream that he’s been striving for.  And if you want proof of his dedication to a such an altruistic dream, then look no further than the fact that if he didn’t believe he could make the people into a better world, then he’d have to give up on all hope in his life, given all the ways life tried to make him give up on good in the world.