Minister Li.

[Arthelad.5418]

Basicly Rama and the commander want to go to Li to prove the PC (player character) is innocent and convince him to get us to Joon to have someone important to convince Joon to help us. So from what I understand, the commander is thought to be a criminal that possibly (allegedly) almost killed millions of people and he wants to stroll in a government's official office and convince him to take them to the inventor of the biggest thing since the invention of the wheel? Even if Li was absolutely convinced by them, the commander still needs to be under custody and be at their trial to prove their innocence there.

 

"That...doesn't spell "plan" to me. That's just the letter "p." Scrawled on a rock. In pink chalk." -Taimi. 

 

Let's say Li thinks that the PC is innocent. He is absolutely still required by law to arrest them because they're a wanted criminal (from what he knows) that just tried to corrupt a government official to make him take them to the richest person in Cantha and the unlegitimate sister to the queen. Judging from the commander's alleged crime of almost blowing up the reactor this seems to make Li very justified to arrest the commander under conspiracy to murder and property damage because from what he knows he could have had a grudge against Joon, they would blow up the reactor and then would have planned to go after her next. Am I missing something?

[Kalavier.1097]

Things to note: The commander and crew were wanted for questioning and as part of the investigation, not publicly being declared as the criminals who caused the reactor incident. "Krytans/outsiders fled the scene" is not the same as "Krytans tried to blow up the reactor" The Empress was also keen on keeping accusations low because of political controversy and not wanting to possibly start incidents with Tyria's nations.

Internally however, Li is latched onto this as an excuse to close the borders and banish all outsiders by making the commander be the cause of the reactor incident, and Joon thinks the commander may have tried something due to their reactions to the news about Soo-Won. Combo with the fact the Aetherblades buggered out quickly and left next to no trace of themselves, it appeared in the official reports that Mai Trin tried to stop the commander, got killed, and saved the reactor with her dying moments.

So the thing is they get the evidence that the PC was not the one who attacked the reactor, but was fleeing the building anyway after the Aetherblades struck. Rama notes it's enough to clear the PC's name as a suspect, and thus they head off. It's literally brought up in the previous instance. "We have laws, we uphold them. Li will have to accept this."

It's fairly clearly presented that Rama knows presenting the evidence is enough to remove the PC from the suspect list of "Having caused this" and by having already killed the actual person behind the reactor disaster (and present for her death) Rama also was the one wanting to take her alive to Li after all.

The plan was valid, legal, and would've worked in Li wasn't a purist (and thus tried to simply arrest the PC anyway on the room and was then outed as a Purist by the other officer).

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

SPOILERS FOR END OF DRAGONS

It had nothing to do with the Commander. Li had already been planning this ever since the borders opened and was just looking for a convenient excuse, and oh look, there's the PC and their questionable deeds.

 

That said, if you discard him being a Purist, his actions would be justified. Its too bad that one fact completely taints everything he was trying to do because he couldn't keep the law separate from his personal agenda, or rather the agenda shared by the party he belonged to.

 

Sometimes, that's acceptible. Nothing can stay the same forever and its important that even the law change with the times, which also needs instigators to push for that change. However, in Li's case, that change was basically "go back to how things were before" which is the opposite of progress, in a nation that had become a paragon of progress, had no intention of stopping, and also planned to capitalise on it with the whole world.

 

It just wasn't a very good idea from the start.

 

I'm not saying Joon was the good guy here. She's barely better than the Arcane Council and her digital age revolution and capitalist empire also almost resulted in climate change from hell. Reallly, the only real good beans in the End of Dragons story out of literally everyone were Rama and Yao.

Edited January 6, 2023 by Mariyuuna.6508

[maxwelgm.4315]

The story does a good job with regards to the purist plot IMO. Li's action are not justified because the whole point (as mentioned by others) of the reactor instance was to prove the Commander's innocence. The only (really big IMO) letdown was revealing Li as the White Falcon/leader of the purists, and I still even hope they may retcon or simply make it so this wasn't the case at all.

 

The letters from the White Falcon you find scattered across Kaineng paint the picture of a very disturbed individual as they intended to purposely unleash the Unchained into the city and even somehow harness the particularly large Unchained swarm in the old Raisu Palace. The White Falcon quite literally wanted to sneak into Old Kaineng and unleash the whole of the Unchained into New Kaineng, basically destroying as much as possible in the process.

 

I know Anet almost undeniably was inspired by the current political climate IRL when writing Li as a purist to show the extremists can be the people you least expect, and they even added in the detail that he had this lovable family man side to him where all he wanted after arrest was for someone to take care of his pet. But this part almost seems like an oversight when compared to the letters you can find across the map, and it's not like actual mob boss orders sent in letters can be a surrogate for "the internet" either. The White Falcon was not cosplaying or exaggerating as someone on the internet would - they actually planned for a full blown terrorist move and this is extremely incompatible with Li's dialogue even after Li reveals himself to Rama and the Commander. It makes more sense (and there's still time for this to be the case, please Anet) if Li was just the White Falcon's contact/insider within the Ministry.