Viccy and Lima came as close contenders, but on behalf of turning his nephew mad, raising him/allowing him to be raised as a complete prick but apparently “loving him because he was as old as the son with whom he parted”, on top of creating a master plan where his son woud have to kill him but giving him the “luke i am you father” speech with his dying breath, ensuring that said son will feel like dirt for the rest of his life...
here he is!
Congratulations Rudolf!
About his douche nephew
Granted, he wasn’t berkut’s dad/mom so he couldn’t raise the kid as his own - but he could partke words of wisdom as in “don’t hunt peasants for sport” or even “stop hating everyone of low birth your empire is made of 90% of peasants”. Worse, give how his best pal Mycen is a man who was born in dirt but became a noble through his skill alone, you’d think the best uncle ever would try to teach this important lesson to his heir apparent and make him a better man, but... no?
Berkut craved for his recognition but what has he obtained in exchange? Scorn and a loving “a good emperor grants second chances only a fool offers a third” or something like that. And well, everyone was aware that Berkut would snap upon learning the truth and they stayed silent, like when he’s asking at the end if everyone wasn’t laughing at his dream to become the next emperor and his “hard work” to be worthy of his uncle’s name I just... can’t imagine Rudolf laughing, but yeah, you get the picture.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t like Berkut (at all) but even I can understand that Rudolf and Cervantes’ ancestor made a complete fool of him for the sake of a grand plan that isn’t so grand to begin with. And if it was all about protecting Alm from the Faithful that’s why he couldn’t let Berkut know about the true heir - but what about Zeke then? Zeke didn’t know that Alm was the prince, but he knew about the brand and Valentia’s fate, Rudolf asked Zeke to help Alm, why couldn’t he have asked Berkut to do it instead? He might have put his pride aside, for the sake of Valentia and also because he hated the faithful (maybe the one good thing his uncle taught him) and it’d have made the “reveal” more acceptable for him, or something like that.
But hey, maybe the devs didn’t thought a lot about it because Berkut is a new character that wasn’t here in the og gaiden - so him being the laughing stock to emphasize Rudolf’s cruelty/idiocy wasn’t maybe intentional.
About Rudolf the second,
Again, why that need to tell him, as he was dying, that he was his dad?!
I found grandpapa to be a bit of a hypocrite here, when he said “Rudolf wanted to die peacefuly at his son’s hand” and berates Alm when he asks about his own peace since he had to, you know, kill his dad. Rudolf wanted to feel proud of his son and voice it, at said son’s expense?
And the plan, damn it, WTF?!
He pulled a gambit about his kid marching over a continent, toppling two national armies, facing against hordes of undead and blue people just to be able to kill him?? What kind of shit is that? Has he even understood what kind of trials Alm would face for the plan to work? His last speech - asking them to surrender - was a last speech, he honestly sent his best soldiers to fight him in the Rigel campaign, thinking he’d be okay?
What if an arrow hit him what if random commander killed him what if - damn that’s too stupid and it relied - to work out in the end - on events Rudolf couldn’t have foreseen like the Deliverance led by Clive to accept Alm and give him the leadership of their soldiers and all...
or maybe he knew Alm couldn’t die because of that prophecy thing? But wait, he had Alm spirited away in Zofia because the Faithful would kill him if they knew of his existence...
So? Why sending hordes of soldiers - nearly flooding the country he was residing in - it was just to groom him into the next hero? Damn if F!Lewyn does a better job in grooming Seliph to be a hero and I rank F!Lewyn lower than Berkut in my appreciation scale. Rudlof was maybe the villain who wanted to be “just as planned” but damn if he isn’t ending up as the “welp it worked anyways so i was right” kind of cartoonish idiot.
Not taking into account that maybe, the rigelians won’t be super happy with their new emperor who trounced hordes of them a few weeks ago to kill his dad - hell this is lampshaded by Alm himself !
But hey, isn’t a kingdom full of people who hate you isn’t the best present the worst dad ever can offer to his beloved son?
i will write later about the purpose of the big plan - to remove the god’s influence on the continent because there might be a subtility i missed but given how the plot wants to understand that Celica is wrong (tm) i’m afraid it will be as salty as the rough draft i have in my mind
