@fourspiceblend tagged:
#also Lambert wanted to try radical reforms and got beheaded for it so like#maybe just maybe Dimitri is trying to be a little more careful about his approach to things#because he knows the changes he wants to implement won't be liked by the corrupt lords who are a bit too comfortable#and he's not some tyrant who will crush anyone who disagrees with him and actually bothers to try and reason with people beforehand#Dimitri: tries a careful nuanced approach to change that doesn't involve sacrificing his own innocent citizens#stans: is this an idiot?? is this a centrist?? is this me projecting a bunch of fanon into a character i feel I'm supposed to hate??
I've mentioned the Lambert thing as well before, because I feel like Dimitri likely understood what his father was trying to do and that he was killed because of it. In this route especially, as compared to AM, he learns a whole lot more about what happened in Duscur and why, and in SB we also learn Cornelia was defeated (meaning her role in SB was the same, just offscreen). That means in SB, he learned all the same things, etc, and the post's screenshot happens in SB.
Considering Lambert tried to do the same things as Dimitri presently does but was trying to do it more openly and "loudly", it makes sense that others would become aware of it and those who disliked it would act. Dimitri has likely learned from that, because he and Lambert have one very key difference to their approach, and that's how bold Lambert is about it. He's upfront about what he's aiming to do. Dimitri finds political ways to explain it to people and can find other ways of saying why he's doing things like protecting or not protecting the Church, depending on the route. He knows how to placate everyone and keeps things leveled. If he announced similar intentions as Lambert, he could explain it in a way that would satisfy even the whiny politicians who don't agree with his morals.
Lambert was so certain of his path that he just went for it, but Dimitri is aware of how being so bold can cause discourse within the upper circles. By being rational about it in a way that people can't argue with, he can get what he wants and bring about change without truly angering anyone. I'm sure there would be someone here and there who would be unhappy with it, but I doubt Dimitri would have incurred enough wrath from any groups of people that they'd be able to be manipulated the way the last group of Cornelia's pawns were. There wouldn't be enough manpower to stage something as devastating as what happened at Duscur. He saw what Lambert tried to do and how he failed, and I believe Dimitri understands why he failed. Dimtiri is very smart and he knows how to bring about change without inciting any kind of violence, including indirectly via people unhappy about his changes. If other people became violent because they didn't like what he was doing, that would be an example of violence caused indirectly from the changes, but he does everything he can politically to also keep that from happening. He avoids doing things the violent way himself, but also avoids causing violence through politics.
Based on what we see of Lambert in the AM flashback and what we know of him from Rodrigue in AG, it's safe to say once he made up his mind that he was going to go through with whatever it was and had a very direct way of confronting problems. It's not necessarily a bad quality, but it is what got people against him and labeled his changes "radical". It sounds like he wanted to things quickly and push in changes as soon as possible, but people can't ease into it like that and so took issue with his changes. Dimitri brings about the same changes, but he does it slowly and carefully.
I agree though that all the people I've ever seen hate Dimitri never use actual facts to justify hating him. It's always some excuse and a warped version of things he's actually said and done. If people didn't like him for legit reasons then whatever, sure, but it's wild to me how people will twist and destroy very clear concepts to try to justify their hate. Usually, it's really just that they hate him for being the opposite of Edelgard story-wise and character-wise. I've yet to ever see an actual, legitimate, detailed, factual argument against what he does. Usually it's whiny retorts from people who think they understand politics and throw words around that they apparently don't know the meanings of considering the context they use them in.