Have you ever wondered exactly what's going on with all the dead bodies in the Wyrm's Rock audience hall, if you leave and come back after Gortash's coronation?
I did some in-game research while working on a fic recently, and in the name of sparing anyone else from having to lay all this out, too—here's a list of the victims, and some notes-based educated guessing on Gortash's motivation here.
(Beyond Iron Counsul Nuff's summary in the screenshot above: "My lord requires a clear path to his magnificent future. We cut away the troublesome bramble.")
Lord Petric Amber
Lord Amber's Bodyguard
Lady Ailis Belt
Lady Haeril Birch
Baron Callem Bormul
Lady Alia Durinbold
Lady Durinbold's Bodyguard
Lady Durinbold's Attendant
Lord Sarken Eomane
Admiral Peil Hullhollyn
Lady Winstra Hullhollyn
Lord Raylen Jannath
Lord Jannath's Bodyguard
Duke Dillard Portyr
Lord Portyr's Attendant
Lord Portyr's Bodyguard
Lady Beatrice Provoss
Lord Myer Ravenshade
Lady Silifrey Sashenstar
Lord Rugger Shattershield
Lord Shattershield's Bodyguard
Lord Shattershield's Attendant
Lord Milton Tillerturn
Lord Randolf Vammas
Lady Madeline Whitburn
9 Unnamed Patriars
First I'll note that not everyone you see lingering after the coronation ends up dead: I could talk to Lady Eshvelt Guthmere, Lady Ruth Linnacker, and Lady Freida Oberon, and their bodies aren't present in the hall later.
It also doesn't seem to be connected to vocalizing support for Gortash or not—you can overhear Portyr and Shattershield challenging him in the ambient dialogue after the coronation, but when you walk around and talk to everyone else the only one who has anything negative to say is Silifrey Sashenstar. Everyone else on the list above sings Gortash's praises.
So, here's what I think it is!
In the corner of the audience hall, you can find this note:
The Parliament of Peers is the body that's responsible for electing new dukes, and they held a formal vote to raise Gortash as Archduke and dissolve their own political body. Note the numbers: there's 23 members.
So who are these members? Up in Gortash's study, you can find this note discussing bribing, blackmailing, and threatening members of the Peers, which gives us the names of eight:
Five of these eight end up dead in the audience hall (Portyr, Jannath, Whitburn, Sashenstar, and Eomane).
As for the three Peers listed who don't end up in dead in the hall—Lady Ruth Linnacker, Lord Hir Rillyn, and Lady Haeril Vanthampur—let's look to this note:
Gortash has leverage against Ruth Linnacker through the abduction of her granddaughter, and I don't think it's unfair to assume Hir Rillyn and Haeril Vanthampur are similarly under Gortash's control, whether tadpoled or blackmailed (this is the one big assumption I had to make—bear with me!).
The other two with non-murderous leverage against them in the note above do end up dead, but I think there's some added context: I imagine Raylen Jannath is the husband of Wisteria Jannath, who Gortash canonically had an affair with (maybe it's personal? Maybe Raylen didn't care enough about the leverage of his own affair, if he knew she'd had one too?). For Portyr, there's the following in Gortash's study, noting he considers him a threat that shouldn't be underestimated, so he may not have wanted to stop at threats:
The inclusion of Portyr on the list of eight Peers could imply that the other three dukes are members of the Parliament of Peers, too. There's a book in Franc Peartree's house about the current state of who the dukes are, which I don't have my own screenshot of, but here's the relevant text from the wiki:
We know Belynne Stelmane is dead as part of the Bhaalist plot. Ulder Ravengard is tadpoled. The fourth duke was Thalamra Vanthampur, who's dead. They were waiting to replace her until Ravengard was found or confirmed gone—and Gortash was given this seat.
So, back to the original list of people murdered after the coronation. I bolded the names of those who aren't seemingly collateral damage (the bodyguards and attendants, and the unnamed patriars): there's 17.
17 killed after the coronation
Plus three Peers controlled through blackmail or other means
Plus Duke Stelmane and Duke Ravengard, dead and tadpoled respectively
That adds up to 22.
Add in Gortash's own vote, which he would have from taking (Thalamra) Vanthampur's seat, and you get 23.
The same number as the members of the Parliament of Peers.
Gortash didn't just orchestrate the Peers naming him the city's first Archduke, and he didn't just influence them to dissolve the political body that could vote another duke in. He made sure the individuals were destroyed, too.
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The day before yesterday I was looking at statistics about reading habits in different countries (average book count per year, age, most read genre, etc) and then yesterday i came across a poll here asking how many books youve read so far this year and now im wondering:
The highest I saw (not just in that poll's tags but on other socials as well) was 365! With the person in question being a lil under 300 rn.
The lowest (and no shame here! I myself have picked up reading again after a long time and it's quite the challenge) was 1! But I also saw lots of people aim for 5.
The average seems to be anywhere around 30 to 60!
And the second most common bracket (interesting that it's also the one made up of mostly late teens and early 20yos) is 10-30!
Idk if anyone will read this but if u do, id love to know more about your thought process in the tags!
(Just pls be kind to each other and no fucked up elitism lol)
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I have a question. Also, you're my favorite Royai artist (the characters as individuals and together). You've mentioned that you consider Riza autistic many times, but have you ever given your support for why you think that? I'm just curious what your thoughts are.
comparing to my own experience but it's common to see autistic people be taken as uninterested and rude for being unexpressive and blunt. so it's mainly about riza being presented as stoic and somewhat scary but gradually being shown she's very kind and fun and even makes bad jokes with a straight face (it's so moe........) but is bad at expressing that, which makes both other characters and viewers think she's always annoyed and no-fun when that's not true.. it's so important to me
she also barely understands other people's feelings and takes things too literally, or say things out loud you probably shouldn't
like at the hughes' funeral scene when roy says it's raining and riza's immediate reaction is to go "it's not??" LOL or when roy is coming up with problems as excuse to not fight ed in flame vs fullmetal and riza very promptly solves them...! it's all very Autism to me.. my mom works for arakawa and she told me it's true
basically:
(i haven't watched brotherhood in so long but i'm like 80% sure these panels i used are all scenes that didn't make it into the anime which is why i'm an avid brotherhood hater and you should read the manga)
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