In fe3h, when they were casting the American voice actor for Ashe, do you think they were specifically looking for someone who says "Lonato" like that, or was that just a hellish bonus?
You are so nice to Lonato. After Hopes he lost all points from me as he had the gall to guilt trip Ashe into surrender because he "doesn't want to lose another son" when he didn't give a shit about that when he raised his army.
And can't forget about his wonky theory of "betraying once is ok for you can blame it on the other side but betraying twice will doom your fame so it's unacceptable", and how he would praise Rowe as wise to keep siding with the Empire to "hold on to the pride of a traitor" but will lament if he eventually "turned over" to the Kingdom. In reality it's just him dragging others down with his personal vendetta and not to mention it was his thoughtless action caused Rowe to be in such a bad position in the first place. Acting all righteous and honorable as he wish, can't change the fact that he's just a hotheaded traitor helping invaders to conquer his own country.
Tbh yeah lol I probably am a bit lenient on him out of respect for Ashe and the way Ashe frames him in Houses. Like, the whole idea in general that he adopted a child who was stealing from him and even took in the boy's two siblings (so he literally just adopted three small children when he could've had them all probably thrown in a cell or some shit) is one of the main things that keeps him from dropping for me.
One of my main issues that stops me from liking him more is the way he raised an army and how he targeted the monastery/was heading there in Houses despite knowing full well that he had a son there. The way he handles things makes it seem like he loves his blood son more than his adoptive son, and it's even worse when in Hopes you have him guilt trip Ashe (especially in SB), and then you have Gwendal of all people tell Yuri to be careful out there and whatnot later on in AG (who, as far as we're to understand in Houses, didn't even have a good relationship with Yuri after they had a falling out after Yuri was enrolled in the academy).
A big difference between Lonato and Rodrigue to me, both as fathers living in Faerghus, is that Lonato seems to favor one of his sons. Rodrigue has both his sons and basically treats Dimitri as an adoptive son (and Dimitri reciprocates this seeing him as a second father), and Rodrigue doesn't, like Houses fans used to say (don't know if they still do), treat any of his children as caring for one more than the others. To me that's how it should be, and it leaves a sour taste in my mouth to consider any parent favoring one of their children over another, and more of a sour taste when it feels a lot like it's the adoptive son who always gets the short end of the stick (and forget Ashe's siblings, Lonato doesn't even seem to spare half a thought for them).
It really confuses me in a way because he seemed to cherish Ashe a whole lot. He taught him to read and that kind of thing takes time and patience. Kids rarely pick up on things like that just... quickly and intuitively; especially in a time period where peasants weren't taught to read growing up (growing up learning things makes them easier to learn, but once you're older it can be a lot harder to take these things in). Then Ashe got into the Officer's Academy? Like... there are definitely things about Lonato/things he's done for Ashe that I respect so I don't ignore those things when I think of how I feel about him... but he's also done equally shitty things including being willing to cut Ashe down and refuse to hear him out just because "rhea bad catherine bad my poor son" (conveniently ignores that Ashe is also his son).
For sure, I agree with you about betrayal. To me betraying someone once is still a betrayal no matter how you frame it. If he had legitimate reasons to do it like say Dimitri was a tyrant or something, I'd let that slide. It's different when you betray your entire land and sworn duty because "rhea bad" and he doesn't agree with Dimitri shielding the Church, thus making Ashe guilty of association in his eyes because in Hopes Ashe is a royal knight.
For example, in GW you hear about three lords who tried to flee Leicester because they didn't agree with Claude's actions. That's justified in the way all of his comrades are questioning his decisions and behavior. It's not to say Claude is the worst person ever and like, forcing heavy taxes on his people and making them suffer, but they had very legitimate concerns that made them want to flee to Faerghus. They were more or less just... out of the picture after that when they couldn't do so. They just stayed out of it. Imo if Lonato wanted to stay out fighting in support of Faerghus out of his hatred of the Church, he could have just said hey look I don't want to support Rhea and I don't want to take part in this war either way so I'd prefer to stay behind and just defend my lands if it comes to that. Instead he just decided "dimitri bad" because he was forced between the Empire and the Church, the latter of which his land and people had a very good relationship with. Then of course there's "ashe bad" because he's Dimitri's knight.
"Hold on to the pride of a traitor" is so funny to me ajkfhksjgdk. LIKE HOW CAN YOU HAVE PRIDE WHILE CALLING YOURSELF A TRAITOR "i betrayed everything that mattered to me and i am PROUD of it! -puffs chest victoriously-" like okay guys... okay...
Yeah see I don't like Rowe either but Lonato really did put him in a shitty situation, as well as Gwendal, simply because he had a grudge. He brought tons of others into it and like, yes, I understand he can't forgive them for what happened to Christophe, but he can't blame Dimitri for that and he should absolutely not be putting Ashe in that position. Also, the Western Lords DID have a hand in the Tragedy, so if Christophe truly was uninvolved, now it really doesn't look good for him because now it makes it look more likely that he was. If he was truly innocent, all Lonato served to do in his memory is make him look more guilty of treason imo.
Lonato should have found another way to plead his case, and really imo he should've taken his anger out on the Western Lords for being the ones to cause so many problems in the first place. Faerghus was a mess after Lambert died and the Church only took any authority over executions because there was nobody who could do it in Faerghus. The Church basically stepped up to help them because if they hadn't, Faerghus would've remained in shambles. They had to make a decision like any other modern day court case, with nobody really truly honestly knowing who was innocent and who wasn't. Lonato should have been angry at the lords who made it look like his son was involved, because if they hadn't done what they did then Christophe wouldn't have been a suspect. I'm not even sure how they/Catherine came to that conclusion, so either he was involved or the lords somehow managed to make it look like he was, possibly as a scapegoat. Catherine also mentions in Hopes that Christophe was a classmate of hers, so she wouldn't have turned him in unless she was absolutely certain he was involved, either because she had proof or she had scapegoat "proof"
I feel like Lonato was a lot like Matthias in the whole, he was a good and honest man until he lost a family member and then became a totally different person. I don't want to discount that he's the reason Ashe became who he became, but the only thing holding him up in my book is literally how much Ashe appreciates him/the things he did for Ashe and his brother and sister.
I guess ultimately Lonato is a mixed bag because of that for me, but he's one of the enemies you fight that once he dies I don't feel pity for him. It's not like Miklan where I feel sorry for him when he dies. Lonato brought his death on himself when he had an out. Miklan has excuses for what he became in Houses and how he got to that point. Lonato just decided that killing his son was worth it if it meant avenging his dead son. I did appreciate how in Hopes he'll mention with his sad portrait that to avenge one son he's sacrificing the other or something to that effect, so I guess he's not totally heartless about it, but it's still such a hard to swallow fact that he'd go through with that at all.
The Western Lords are so nutty, like, Baron Dominic you need to move somewhere else buddy, these people are batshit and you're too sane to be around them.
