- Location
- a place
Picking the option that would most guarantee that the lives of potentially millions of people are not lost in the aftermath of taking the ring, that is explicitly stated to minimize civilian causalities among it's benefits, is actually a million times more heroic then picking the options that only assuage his personal mental health because it reminds him of his old freedom fighters day or pecks at his sentimentality. It is extremely, extremely easy to get so caught up in the appearance and aesthetics of being morally rightous that you care more about the good feeling and psychological soothing it provides at the expense of bettering or protecting the lives of the vulnerable. It happens all the time in real life. Choosing Fairbright over Larissa would be one of those moments.
Considering one of the listed benefits was being able to carry out a evacuation that wouldn't cause a apocalyptic death on these people, at the expense of furthering his own personal power by having less picks, I would in fact say that choosing this very option is us being able to choose to what degree he actually cares about the livelihood of these people, with throwing the Silver Hordes of the Elderly by abusing them at their most vulnerable being the opposite extreme.
Even if we assume your worst case scenario, I 100% guarantee you that most Temple people would rather we secure the lives of their loved ones rather then allowing more of them to die.
However, I 100% do not buy that any option to influence the structure of this society is locked entirely behind choosing fairbright over Larissa despite all the repeated options we've taken to become ensconced in it and the benefits to working with it that come from a post Temple Crimson Flare such as mass empowerment, just like I didn't buy that their would be zero relevant allies for us to make use of if we picked Foment. While Hunger can respect people who try to the right thing against impossible odds, he also calls them a bunch of Naive fools of the type that he stopped being even while he was fighting the Tyrant. I think it's far more likely that Hunger will be convinced to stay by people who would use practical srguements over moral ones, as well building comradeship with people more enmeshed in the current ongoings of their civilization then people who have been in a prison for who knows how long.
But let's say this isn't the case and Hunger just up and leaves, which Rihaku also implied was a possibility for the Fairbright option. Lady Fairbirht is not being written out of existence unlike Selune. She and her followers will still be their after the Inner Temple is dealt with, with the Temple Civ having lost it's magic. Fairbright bloodline power possibly being different from Soul Evocation would guarantee her a incredible advantage over any other political faction thats crops up, and even if it doesn't not only is she a hypercompetent person with heavy ties to the Adventurers in the encampment through her daughter that would still have incredible power. Unless Hunger puts his thumb on the scales, I highly doubt that Larissa would win any political or military fights against Fairbright now that Larissa's Soul Evocation users are much less useful.
Sometimes, doing the moral or Heroic thing doesn't involve doing the thing that makes you most mentally or emotionally comfortable or even the best decisions for your mental health. Sometimes it doesn't involve taking on every responsiblity yourself like a gloryhound for the purposes of feeling 'heroic and instead allowing many more lives to be saved by letting people more suited to it handle it. Sometimes it's hard rather then easy on you, involves being humble enough to realize where other people's efforts are more useful, and making realistic, pragmatic decisions that keep other people's best interests at heart. That is what Lord Hunger understood when fighting the Tyrant, that is what caused him to fight the tyranny of Feudalism to his death sans the intervention of the Accursed, and that's what actually made Lord Hunger a hero.
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