the way that the desire to find justice for the matriarch dragon and protect the source dragons from a potential threat transmogrified into "we have to win the tournament at ALL costs" and a complete focus on the tournament to the detriment of the original mission is so fascinating to me from a character standpoint. Because Lloyd himself is so impassioned by the death of the matriarch, but he's also, quite frankly, terrible at the investigation work required to actually solve the mystery surrounding her death, as well as the social management skills needed to keep his team on task while preoccupied with the tournie. So not only does most of that work get shunted to poor Arin, but Lloyd begins to mentally hinge the success - nay, even the point - of mission itself on winning the tournament.
Doesn't that just make so much sense? Lloyd is being told to be a teacher, be a guide, be a leader in more than just battle, and those are things he hasn't learned how to do yet. But what he DOES know how to do, is beat the shit out of a guy. So despite himself, despite his own convictions, he pins all the gravitas of finding a murderer and saving the world on a competition. One very similar to that which he's played before, even, just to subconsciously assure himself that it'll all work out in the end.
And he still manages to lose.