Character Study #3: Name: Mathiu Silverberg Game: Suikoden MBTI: INTJ Here is my second favourite character in Suikoden, and the one that I think is the most underrated of my favourites. Mathiu Silverberg is not as friendly as Viktor and not nearly the warrior Viktor is but Mathiu is arguably more important than Viktor. Mathiu Silverberg is a military genius and the only reason the Liberation Army becomes the powerhouse capable of going toe-to-toe with the Empire. Mathiu was the brother of Odessa Silverberg but the two of them grew up very differently. Being quite a bit older than his sister, he had gone to serve as a military advisor to General Kasim Hasil. He proved himself with his tactical and strategic brilliance. Although he objected to the plan, he was forced to participate in the planning of the Kalekka Massacre. An outskirts region of the Scarlet Moon Empire was under attack from Jowston, a neighbouring country. Although the Emperor wanted to push back the enemy and ensure they kept this land, public support for his war mongering was waning. So in order to stir the people into action, the town of Kalekka was destroyed and the blame was put on Jowston. The plan was successful but Mathiu resigned in shame of what he had done. He became a teacher and swore to never again help men kill each other. That was until he was stirred back into action by Tir McDohl at the behest of a dying Odessa. Mathiu put aside his pacifism and became the head strategist of the Liberation Army. Mathiu was essentially the brains behind every decision made by the Liberation Army, but he was not much of a leader. He did not lead troops into battle and did not see himself ever being the official head of the revolution (this task he assigned to Tir). Never the less he was the brilliant man who turned a revolution of four people (Tir, Cleo, Viktor and Gremio) into a powerful force that destroyed an empire. Compared to Odessa, Mathiu is not an idealistic man. He did not believe in his sister's cause and thought she was foolish for trying to fight against an enemy as powerful as the Empire. Odessa thought Mathiu was a coward who squandered his gifts and avoided problems instead of facing them. In the end, it was his rational and realistic thinking that made him successful where she failed. To those who knew Odessa she was inspiring but her rebellion was little more than a bunch of bandits. Under Mathiu's guidance, the Liberation Army quickly had powerful allies and its first victory against the Empire. His tactical genius is shown many times, often allowing the Liberation Army to defeat forces well beyond their own. He is excellent at choosing where to push their advantage and how to win. When against the powerful cavalry of Teo McDohl the Liberation Army is at an incredible disadvantage. So he calls upon a trump card set up by Odessa: the Fire Spears. These allow a swift victory and lead to the death of the greatest of the Five Grand Generals. When they need to assault the floating fortress Sharazade, the Liberation Army does not have enough boats to move their entire army at once. So Mathiu uses the dragons on their team to make a hundred boats out of ice. His greatest (in my opinion) moment of tactical brilliance was when he became aware that there was a spy, or possibly spies, within the Liberation Army. He told the army that they were going out for a field exercise. To do so they would need food, equipment and everything else needed during a real battle in order to properly simulate the situations. They set up camp near an Imperial stronghold but the Empire never attacked. The forces within had intel from an inside source that the Liberation Army was only on exercise and to stand down (as the force garrisoned there was smaller). Once set up, Mathiu led the Liberation Army in a surprise attack and caught the enemy off guard. Not only had this trick allowed him to take the stronghold with little resistance, it also revealed that the enemy knew they were on an exercise. Mathiu was a man of strategy, logic and reason. He was cold when it came to the numbers of war and was willing to go to any length to achieve victory. That was not to say that he was unmoved by what he had to do. He was a man of quiet reflection. He rarely opened up to others about the pain he felt but to those he did it revealed a very tired and nearly broken man. He only survived because he knew he was needed, but causing the death of thousands of troops, on both sides, weighed heavily on his conscience. In his final words he said: "I despise war. I always felt that to take a life of another, for whatever reason, was wrong. And yet I became a military strategist, and took many lives. Did I do the right thing? Perhaps I should have remained in that village, fishing in my idle moments, until my death." Even though the Liberation Army had succeeded, he was unsure he had ever done the right thing. Unfortunately he died still in turmoil over the choices he had made. Despite this inner turmoil and his hatred for war, Mathiu would have always made the choice to fight for what was right. He believed that causes and the fate of the world were more important than his moral compass, and should he have to do something bad to make the world right he would do it. "I have realised something. Even if I close my eyes, the world will not disappear."
