No, not at all. We hated and distrusted Johann until we forced him to stop being a lying, reckless git.
It wasn't just spending time around them. It was circumstances changing such that they were no longer people deserving of hate.
The issue is twofold:
-Mathilde doesn't trust anyone she lacks leverage over.
-The thread doesn't trust a mystery box.
Johann managed to fit in the space initially of having knowable but unknown mystery. This made people keep picking at the issue like a scab, they can't NOT poke it, and people theorycrafted and got increasingly hostile.
He didn't fit the expected stereotype.
It's also worth remembering that basically all the information we got about what Roswita was doing in the immediate aftermath of her firing us painted her as doing a horrible and/or shortsighted job. That's mostly because we didn't have the context to properly understand why she was doing what she did, or were missing crucial details of the actions themselves, but at the time we didn't know we lacked that information. As such, it very much seemed like Roswita was carelessly squandering the progress her father had worked so hard for, and the success that he died for.
People understandably got a bit upset over that.
It's fascinating how similar that is to Belegar's reaction to Thorgrim:
• Gets information that Thorgrim is doing a bad job.
• Lacks context and crucial details to understand Thorgrim's reactions.
• A feeling that Thorgrim is squandering their hard work with the reconquest.
I can see how Belegar got to this conclusion. All I can hope for is that, like the thread (and thus Mathilde), he's able to ease off on his dislike when he gets the full picture.
The parallels:
-Roswita fired Mathilde. This made Mathilde unhappy with Roswita, but nothing she'd act on.
--Thorgrim dismissed Belegar's achievements. This made Belegar unhappy with Thorgrim, but nothing he'd act on.
-When Mathilde receives news about Roswita's deeds, she(and the thread) interprets it unfavorably. When she crash modernized the army and half the army went AWOL, we thought she did wrong when in literally any other circumstances, we'd be the one suggesting that sort of thing. When she sold limited taxation rights for sorely needed funds, we declared she was dooming the county with incompetence despite knowing full well how poorly off the treasury was when we left, and thus how badly she'd need Right Now funds.
--When Belegar receives news about Thorgrim's decisions, he interprets the offense more personally and the motives more selfishly.
It wasn't ignorance, they came pre-judged because of a negative relationship
