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kinda love that Claude is like "I'm as close as you get to a pacifist route, I like to avoid bloodshed" and his right hand man can kill you six ways from Sunday and left hand lady has a giant axe and can KO u in one hit and his named retainer is a war hero and --
not to get into it but imho this is actually a pretty accurate way of how pacifism tends to operate. Claude is the ideological focus but the pragmatic approach demands violence. and there's something to look into re: how Hilda, Lorenz, Judith and Nader carry violence in his stead
I think people get into this when they asses Claude bouncing his ideology off Edelgard's violence because that's essentially it - it doesn't mean Claude facilitates this violence, but of course a pacifist angle doesn't exist without something to oppose. so they work in tandem.
Claude deals in violence too, though I think he manages to avoid too much of it - but the necessary violence doesn't go away, and I'm interested in how it then becomes the responsibility of those in his immediate vicinity. some would call that cowardice. and they do!
on the flipside they could call it a sort of moral integrity that's difficult and must be protected. Claude distancing himself from the violence keeps Claude afloat, and they need Claude to keep his clear leadership. so protecting his integrity by violence is... good, then?
in any case I just love the dynamic of compassionate scheming diplomatic leader sitting at the centre of like five murder machines all willing to throw their lives on the line to protect his vision of peace whew yeah that's the good shit
and the best bit is that Claude is under no illusions, so if you consider that Claude always offers an out, and never wants bloodshed, and sees the inherent value of all people, then you gotta wonder whether he's withering away every time someone dies for his cause. aha! eek!
tis a moral conundrum, no?! he needs to empower people to fight for him even if he's morally opposed to the subsequent fighting. Claude doesn't deal in cognitive dissonance so you can rest assured that the violence he inspires is just as internalised as the violence he commits.
how do you sleep at night when you believe whole-heartedly that violence isn't the answer but have to choose that answer anyway? all the lords say "it's necessary" but the other two seem more inclined to say "and it's right" (whether they believe it fully or not) - Claude doesn't
also interesting to me that Lorenz prefers to avoid bloodshed and Hilda just hasn't really thought about it, because I think both of them need that guidance from Claude to avoid falling into that "necessary righteous violence" angle that war-faring Fodlan has BUT IN DOING SO...
they become frightfully powerful allies for Claude that are capable of all the violence, and also, all the sacrifice. so proximity to Claude's pacifist outlook bolsters your willingness to die for Claude, if you wanna look at it that way. damn LMAO that's rough buddy
Claude inspires you to live! and in doing so inspires you to! uh! die. for him, this time. whew. lucky Claude spent most of his upbringing fortifying himself mentally otherwise this spiritual predicament might just kill a guy's spirit haha hee hoo
and I haven't even started on Byleth, where Claude dumps the task of violence AND leadership. he doesn't feel good about it though. and the cool thing there is that Byleth is arguably not into the idea of needless death either, and is OP enough to handle it... which Claude knows.
I guess this is all surmised by the "yet you participate in society! curious!" comic where just because Claude doesn't like a thing doesn't mean he won't utilise every aspect of that thing because that's the resourceful, productive thing to do when faced with unbelievable odds.
