Westernesse: A Númenórean Colony Quest
- Thread starter Telamon
- Start date
Melkor
Belegûr
Please do continue to argue about how the Valar are evil, and Eru is a evil-coated bastard with evil filling. It brings great...ah, joy to my heart.
Now do I personally think the Valar should have let them in anyway to show the Men of Numenor irrefutable proof that Valinor wouldn't grant them immortality? Yes.
Probably would have made them even more bitter, but it may have at least stopped Numenor from invading. Maybe. Or let them ship Sauron to them in chains when he got too big for his britches, and inevitably got slapped down by Numenor.
Is that going to ever happen? Not a chance in hell.
Like you can argue about how the Valar are absolute shit at actually doing their duties as stewards of the world, or effectively communicating with anyone who isn't part of the Ainur. I truthfully won't disagree outside of one or two of the Valar like, say, Ulmo who actually help the Firstborn/Secondborn anyway even if Manwe says not to.
It is the Secondborn who are fundamentally immortal, not the Elves. Sure the Secondborn eventually die physically, but then they get to leave Arda afterwards. Death for the Secondborn is not the end of the line in any way, shape, or form. Whereas the Elves (and Valar, it must be said) are quite literally stuck inside of Arda until it's remade no matter how they might wish otherwise, and their fate afterwards is uncertain at best.
The Gift of Men also comes with that nice perk of being able to choose in spite of whatever Fate/the music of creation might say. For better or worse.
Seriously though you're objectively wrong. As in "I am arguing against a fundamental aspect of the setting as written by the author" levels of wrong. Morgoth is quite literally the entire reason that the Secondborn fear death. The result of that being that they ironically have much shorter lives than they should, and lack the direct connection to Eru they had upon waking up in Arda. Before, y'know, Morgoth convinced them to worship him and outright denounce Eru with predictable results.
Making them bitter and resentful is only part of it. It would also cause them to die faster. The Secondborn outright cannot handle being in Valinor for the same reason that mortal-Luthien and Beren couldn't handle the Silmaril.
Now do I personally think the Valar should have let them in anyway to show the Men of Numenor irrefutable proof that Valinor wouldn't grant them immortality? Yes.
Probably would have made them even more bitter, but it may have at least stopped Numenor from invading. Maybe. Or let them ship Sauron to them in chains when he got too big for his britches, and inevitably got slapped down by Numenor.
Is that going to ever happen? Not a chance in hell.
Like you can argue about how the Valar are absolute shit at actually doing their duties as stewards of the world, or effectively communicating with anyone who isn't part of the Ainur. I truthfully won't disagree outside of one or two of the Valar like, say, Ulmo who actually help the Firstborn/Secondborn anyway even if Manwe says not to.
Also this.
It is the Secondborn who are fundamentally immortal, not the Elves. Sure the Secondborn eventually die physically, but then they get to leave Arda afterwards. Death for the Secondborn is not the end of the line in any way, shape, or form. Whereas the Elves (and Valar, it must be said) are quite literally stuck inside of Arda until it's remade no matter how they might wish otherwise, and their fate afterwards is uncertain at best.
The Gift of Men also comes with that nice perk of being able to choose in spite of whatever Fate/the music of creation might say. For better or worse.
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ChiefTurtle117
The Sigillite
- Location
- Holy Terra
Speaking of the King's Men, maybe we should see about enticing those of them with the worst lot to live in our colony and see if we can get them to culturally assimilate into an egalitarian mindset. And, yeah, the Faithful are just the friendlier face of an Imperialist civilization.
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KnightDisciple
Brotherhood. Unity. Peace.
- Location
- Midwest, USA
*Narrows eyes thoughtfully*
Hm.
Hhhhhmmmm.....
Hhhhhhhhhhhhmmmmmmmmm......
I feel suspicious all of the sudden but I can't put my finger on why.
I don't know Jim, it sounds like a duck, it quacks like a duck, and it sorta looks like a duck. But is it really?
K von Carstein
Likes to go for a walk
- Location
- Belgium
- Pronouns
- He
I genuinely don't understand the joke. What is it?
- Location
- Space
Regarding Kingsman vs Faithful position i kinda still want to keep to the neutrality until the end and forge our own path.
We are after all city of Shaper's so we might as well live up to that and be city of the learned and wise. We can be allies with both factions, but ultimately we should try and chart our own path.
We are after all city of Shaper's so we might as well live up to that and be city of the learned and wise. We can be allies with both factions, but ultimately we should try and chart our own path.
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- Location
- barking
I am not sure if you are joking but if you are not its because melikor is the first dark lords name and I believe the image is of him as well
K von Carstein
Likes to go for a walk
- Location
- Belgium
- Pronouns
- He
Ah ok, i didn't think to pay attention to the username.
If we made it the entire raison d'etre of our game run, then I think possibly there would be a way to butterfly the Downfall of Númenor a bit. It would probably mean picking somewhere near Pelargir or the South, choosing to be as directly related to the King as possible, and involving ourselves with the King's Men pretty intimately from basically Day One, whilst presumably harbouring secret Faithful intentions. This would allow us to be intimately involved in the councils and intrigues of the King and try to move closer to him, and be in a position to alter the course of the ship of state into a more pro-Faithful course*.
Probably quite a fraught, politics heavy game, and not the kind of one I'm sure we'd enjoy as much as this, although potentially interesting - there's a lot going on in the South and I'd love to see Telamon's take on it. It would also almost certainly mean coming into direct conflict with Sauron at some point, a contest we would likely not survive, but one which could still perhaps have significant historical effects.
However, I say "butterfly" rather than "stop", because ultimately the Downfall of Númenor is ordained by the design of Eru. The gift given to Men by the Valar was always meant to be temporary, and Men were always going to fuck it up. Our actions could perhaps alter how that unfolds a bit (and may still do even by accident), delay it, but trying to stop it is to swim upstream against Fate's current.
*(Probably the most high-risk high-reward option would be to try and start an aggressively evangelical Faithful organised religious movement. Would probably cause both Sauron and the Valar to have a seizure. On the plus side though, I bet Imrazôr would look sweet as the first Pope. Before he was burned alive by the King's Men and became a martyr, of course.)
Probably quite a fraught, politics heavy game, and not the kind of one I'm sure we'd enjoy as much as this, although potentially interesting - there's a lot going on in the South and I'd love to see Telamon's take on it. It would also almost certainly mean coming into direct conflict with Sauron at some point, a contest we would likely not survive, but one which could still perhaps have significant historical effects.
However, I say "butterfly" rather than "stop", because ultimately the Downfall of Númenor is ordained by the design of Eru. The gift given to Men by the Valar was always meant to be temporary, and Men were always going to fuck it up. Our actions could perhaps alter how that unfolds a bit (and may still do even by accident), delay it, but trying to stop it is to swim upstream against Fate's current.
*(Probably the most high-risk high-reward option would be to try and start an aggressively evangelical Faithful organised religious movement. Would probably cause both Sauron and the Valar to have a seizure. On the plus side though, I bet Imrazôr would look sweet as the first Pope. Before he was burned alive by the King's Men and became a martyr, of course.)
- Location
- Australia
"The author says so" isn't really a refutation of the argument that it's morally wrong to forcibly separate people from their families and homes and the world that they love, especially when in-universe, the text that makes those claims is written by, and from the perspective of, the Eldar, and eventually translated by Bilbo. It's specifically canon that the story isn't an infallible, 100% accurate description of fact; it's a history, written by in-universe historians, with their own biases and assumptions just like history in our world. I put no more stock in Elven historians' accounts of things than I would in some nineteenth century British dude. To be clear, here, I'm not claiming that it's deliberately falsified or even inaccurate to any large degree - I'm just saying that the in-universe authors of the story have their own ingrained and unexamined beliefs that influence their work.
Also, heck, there's probably an out-of-universe letter with Tolkien confirming that yes, the Morgoth is the cause of the fear of death thing is 100% accurate, but that still doesn't matter. Death of the author. Tolkien has certain attitudes towards the concept of death that informed his work, and I don't think I'm being particular unreasonable by pointing out that there are some pretty compelling problems with those attitudes.
I don't know how you guys get the idea that I think death for Tolkienverse mortals is the end of existence. I specifically said, in my previous post, that even if wherever they go after they die is some amazing paradise that's better than anything the Elves ever get in Arda, it's still wrong to force it upon them. If Eru wants some of his children to be inexplicably tied to the world, and others to be able to move beyond it, great! Offer them a choice.
Also, heck, there's probably an out-of-universe letter with Tolkien confirming that yes, the Morgoth is the cause of the fear of death thing is 100% accurate, but that still doesn't matter. Death of the author. Tolkien has certain attitudes towards the concept of death that informed his work, and I don't think I'm being particular unreasonable by pointing out that there are some pretty compelling problems with those attitudes.
I don't know how you guys get the idea that I think death for Tolkienverse mortals is the end of existence. I specifically said, in my previous post, that even if wherever they go after they die is some amazing paradise that's better than anything the Elves ever get in Arda, it's still wrong to force it upon them. If Eru wants some of his children to be inexplicably tied to the world, and others to be able to move beyond it, great! Offer them a choice.
Dark Abstraction
Infrequent Participant
- Location
- United States
Your position is that afterlives are evil. Hot take.
It absolutely does matter, because your position is that the metaphysics that are the only tool to understand what's happening, as expressly written by the author to be canon, don't matter because you think they're icky. Which is an opinion, but one entirely bereft of worth.
Fictional afterlives have to be democratically operated to be valid. Another hot take.
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A Nation's Virtue
南國山河南帝居
It's amazing how you've managed to not only be wrong on the Watsonian level but the Doylist one as well. Yes, the Silmarillion is presented as a mytho-historical tradition in-universe but it's also explicitly canonically correct out of universe as well. You've introduced assumptions on the Doylist level that, ultimately, have no actual evidence to exist besides that on the Watsonian. Not to mention that you have this idea that the concept of an afterlife (a concept shared across cultures universally that is part of the founding mythology) is somehow inherently malicious. As others have said, this is such a supremely hot take (and also wrong because if everyone goes to the afterlife then they'll all reunite anyway) that I'm actually kinda baffled how you got there, not to mention the whole "hey Imma choose my own afterlife" bit. Ignoring how this would clash with his own personal belief system, not a single culture has such a belief; part of what he was doing was making a fundamentally believable mythology, something he achieves by mirroring other mythical events/tropes.
If your stance is that his viewpoint is meaningless, then why are you engaging with his work? This is about GRRM-tier "Is Aragorn really a good king? What about his tax policies?" fedora-tipping pedantry.
- Location
- Australia
I feel like you're being a little uncharitable here. My position is that being separated from your friends, family and home by painfully withering away from old age is evil. Afterlives are fine, if done properly. The Halls of Mandos, for example, seem pretty great. I particularly like the part where you're allowed to leave if you want to (and aren't named Feanor).
Again, is the hostility and dismissiveness really necessary? I obviously know we're talking about a work of fiction. I'm trying to immerse myself in the work of fiction by thinking about what it would be like to live in this fictional world. If I'm a mortal in Arda, holding my mother and crying by my father's bedside as he gasps his last breath - not from any illness or wound, but just because his creator decided to impose an arbitrary time limit - knowing that in a few years, I'll be by my mother's bedside doing the same, and that any children I have will some day suffer the same way with me, I'm not thinking "Oh, I'm so worried about the particulars of the afterlife - I'd normally assume it'll be great, but I heard from that trustworthy seeming fellow in giant spiky black armor who's name is literally Evil McDarkBad that it's actually really unpleasant!" - I'm thinking "I don't want to be separated from the people I love!"
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A Nation's Virtue
南國山河南帝居
You do realize this is why the concept of the afterlife is so universal right? People IRL don't want this, so the afterlife gives them hope to reunite. Having to part ways temporarily in Arda only to reunite for eternity at Eru's side addresses the issue you seem to be so concerned about. Again, I'm baffled by how you've taken an actual universal fear and somehow come to the exact opposite conclusion of 99% of humanity across its history.
- Location
- Australia
Okay, maybe I'm not explaining myself well. Again, I'm not opposed to afterlives! I'm not sure how much clearer I can make that. Going somewhere when you die, and hopefully being eventually reunited with your loved ones is better than ceasing to exist, but being separated from them for potentially decades - or even centuries, in the Numenorians' case - is still a bad thing. Also, the home you love and the life you've built for yourself don't go the afterlife with you.
Because of the 'inextricably tied to Arda itself' thing, if Arda ceased to exist - via Dagor Dagorath or otherwise - the Elves might cease to exist with it, which is also bad. So my whole argument is that, if there are two possible outcomes upon death in the Tolkienverse, why wouldn't Eru give his children the choice between them? There'd be plenty of mortals who would choose to leave the circles of the world and join him. Heck, there'd probably be plenty of Elves that would as well - especially the ones who suffered the most in the First Age. But for those Children of Eru, mortal or otherwise, who really like Arda and want to stay there while they can, what possible reason could there be to deny that to them? The King's Men wouldn't have a leg to stand on if the whole concept of involuntary death was something Melkor introduced during Ainulindale, but no, it's a 'gift' to one particular subset of Eru's kids. All I'm saying is that if someone gives you a 'gift', and you desperately beg not to receive it, if you plead with them to spare you from the 'gift', it's a pretty freakin' lousy gift!
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- Location
- Australia
Alright, at this point I'm a little worried that I'm just gonna stir up further hostility, but can I ask the people upset with me to engage with a hypothetical?
Okay, so. Pretty much every reader of this quest was rightfully outraged by what the remnant of the guard at Tharbad has been doing to the middle men, right? Let's say, hypothetically, that the transparent excuses that Hazrabân offered up weren't just self-serving post-hoc justifications for kidnapping and slavery for his own selfish benefit. Let's say, hypothetically, that he was motivated by a genuine love for the men of the twilight, and he decided that the best possible thing he could do for them was to abduct them and integrate them into his society "for their own good." Let's say, hypothetically, that this actually worked - by any objective measure, the lives of the people he kidnaps and enslaves are just better than those of the ones left in their tribes and clans. Like, maybe the large scale agriculture around Tharbad means that they're better fed, Numenorean medicine means they're better protected from illness, the valor at arms of the guard are better at protecting them from the predations of orcs or nastier things.
In this hypothetical, in every way, they are genuinely better off being taken against their will to become Baradhrim in Tharbad than they would have been if left to their own devices. And if they cry and scream and plead to be left to their lives and homes and families, Hazrabân's goons assure them that don't worry, sooner or later every single one of the Enedwaithrim will be impressed into the wonderful life that Hazrabân has built for them, so they're sure to be reunited with their families eventually.
I know it isn't a perfect comparison, here, but do you understand where I'm coming from? Even if we accept that Eru's human-only afterlife is objectively better than life on Arda, it's still wrong to make that choice FOR people.
Okay, so. Pretty much every reader of this quest was rightfully outraged by what the remnant of the guard at Tharbad has been doing to the middle men, right? Let's say, hypothetically, that the transparent excuses that Hazrabân offered up weren't just self-serving post-hoc justifications for kidnapping and slavery for his own selfish benefit. Let's say, hypothetically, that he was motivated by a genuine love for the men of the twilight, and he decided that the best possible thing he could do for them was to abduct them and integrate them into his society "for their own good." Let's say, hypothetically, that this actually worked - by any objective measure, the lives of the people he kidnaps and enslaves are just better than those of the ones left in their tribes and clans. Like, maybe the large scale agriculture around Tharbad means that they're better fed, Numenorean medicine means they're better protected from illness, the valor at arms of the guard are better at protecting them from the predations of orcs or nastier things.
In this hypothetical, in every way, they are genuinely better off being taken against their will to become Baradhrim in Tharbad than they would have been if left to their own devices. And if they cry and scream and plead to be left to their lives and homes and families, Hazrabân's goons assure them that don't worry, sooner or later every single one of the Enedwaithrim will be impressed into the wonderful life that Hazrabân has built for them, so they're sure to be reunited with their families eventually.
I know it isn't a perfect comparison, here, but do you understand where I'm coming from? Even if we accept that Eru's human-only afterlife is objectively better than life on Arda, it's still wrong to make that choice FOR people.
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KnightDisciple
Brotherhood. Unity. Peace.
- Location
- Midwest, USA
That is your own personal, subjective opinion on the matter, @Anann , and not one shared by everyone.
Even within just the context of this Quest and the works of Tolkien, that opinion is not universal here. I think the big frustration point for many of us, or at bare minimum for me, is that your posts seem to primarily consist of you lecturing us on how Tolkien (and by implication his actual faith, which at least some of us share) is wrong and those beliefs are bad and evil and that you know better than Tolkien or the person running this Quest...
But what is your actual goal with all of these lectures on "The Evils Of Non-Immortality"? What are you hoping to accomplish within the context of this Quest? What is the purpose of all of these posts wherein you repeat your opinion about the evils of the metaphysics of Arda (and by implication your belief in the evils of the spiritual "mechanics" of many real-life belief systems)?
Even within just the context of this Quest and the works of Tolkien, that opinion is not universal here. I think the big frustration point for many of us, or at bare minimum for me, is that your posts seem to primarily consist of you lecturing us on how Tolkien (and by implication his actual faith, which at least some of us share) is wrong and those beliefs are bad and evil and that you know better than Tolkien or the person running this Quest...
But what is your actual goal with all of these lectures on "The Evils Of Non-Immortality"? What are you hoping to accomplish within the context of this Quest? What is the purpose of all of these posts wherein you repeat your opinion about the evils of the metaphysics of Arda (and by implication your belief in the evils of the spiritual "mechanics" of many real-life belief systems)?
- Location
- Australia
I...okay, am I missing something?! I have stated my goal, several times! I began by stating my goal, and I have reiterated that goal despite repeatedly being accused of arguing for positions I don't hold!
I want us to extend empathy and understanding to those of the King's Men who could potentially be swayed from their self-destructive canonical path. I want to try to convince them that their mistrust of and conflict with the Elves, in particular, is misdirected. I hope that if we can do this, we can also draw at least some of them away from doing all of the super evil stuff that it eventually leads to. I want to do this by acknowledging their grievances instead of lecturing them on how they're being silly and death is totes awesome actually and they should just shut up and rot gracefully and know their place, because the reason I'm stating my opinion on this is that it's an opinion that they share! I didn't just randomly decide to lecture you guys, I'm saying all this stuff because it's relevant to the quest. I want to redirect the justifiable resentment they have towards the state of the world into the pursuit of more productive goals - not the stupidity and arrogance of trying to invade Valinor and somehow defeat capital 'G' God by force of arms, but trying to do better than the cruel, broken, and neglected world beyond Aman that has been all-but-abandoned by its supposed guardians.
I want to tell them "Yeah, there's a lot wrong with the world, and you guys are absolutely correct to lay at least some of its injustices at the hands of Eru, but neither the men of the twilight nor the Elves of Middle Earth are in any way complicit with those injustices, so how about instead of Doing an Imperialism, we instead try to do better than the Valar, and the One above them? We may lack their might, but with what power we have, we should be working with the Elves and our distant kin to heal this broken world, to make it stronger and wholer than it was before conflicts between the Powers damaged it."
It's pointless and stupid and self-defeating to make enemies of the Valar - what I'm suggesting is that we turn the King's Men's anger at them into treating them as competitors. Basically I want us to convince them to save and mend and heal the world and all its people out of petty spite.
I want us to extend empathy and understanding to those of the King's Men who could potentially be swayed from their self-destructive canonical path. I want to try to convince them that their mistrust of and conflict with the Elves, in particular, is misdirected. I hope that if we can do this, we can also draw at least some of them away from doing all of the super evil stuff that it eventually leads to. I want to do this by acknowledging their grievances instead of lecturing them on how they're being silly and death is totes awesome actually and they should just shut up and rot gracefully and know their place, because the reason I'm stating my opinion on this is that it's an opinion that they share! I didn't just randomly decide to lecture you guys, I'm saying all this stuff because it's relevant to the quest. I want to redirect the justifiable resentment they have towards the state of the world into the pursuit of more productive goals - not the stupidity and arrogance of trying to invade Valinor and somehow defeat capital 'G' God by force of arms, but trying to do better than the cruel, broken, and neglected world beyond Aman that has been all-but-abandoned by its supposed guardians.
I want to tell them "Yeah, there's a lot wrong with the world, and you guys are absolutely correct to lay at least some of its injustices at the hands of Eru, but neither the men of the twilight nor the Elves of Middle Earth are in any way complicit with those injustices, so how about instead of Doing an Imperialism, we instead try to do better than the Valar, and the One above them? We may lack their might, but with what power we have, we should be working with the Elves and our distant kin to heal this broken world, to make it stronger and wholer than it was before conflicts between the Powers damaged it."
It's pointless and stupid and self-defeating to make enemies of the Valar - what I'm suggesting is that we turn the King's Men's anger at them into treating them as competitors. Basically I want us to convince them to save and mend and heal the world and all its people out of petty spite.
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KnightDisciple
Brotherhood. Unity. Peace.
- Location
- Midwest, USA
No, they aren't. That's the entire point. Eru is working through all of His children to make a melody we don't entirely understand. But He is not "doing wrong" or "doing injustice".
Our point is that there really isnt' a lot of..."middle ground" here.
- Location
- Canada
- Pronouns
- Him/He
Like any work of fiction the Tolkien Legendarium is influenced by the RL belief of its author, religious and otherwise. A lot of it was good, some of it the product of its time in a negative sense, some of it bad but most of it was just who Tolkien was as a person, something that we can be free or not to agree with personally. What I would argue, though, is that we kinda do have to accept that the author's take on the nature of his own world is valid and take it at face value because the alternative is a take on death of the author so radical that it allow one to basically say ''I do not like this part so it isn't canon!'', which essentially remove canon as a thing, when that thing is the only real foundation all our discussion and the quest itself has.
More on the point, I do feel that any discussion on whether we can avoid the Downfall forget a key point: we are tiny, unbelievably tiny in the grand Numenorean scheme of things. The King can muster hundred of thousands of men, we can barely muster hundreds, or a few thousand at best, ourselves. The only reason the powers that be would give us even more then a passing thought is that we are the pet project of the Shapers (which was one of the reason why I wanted someone else as our sponsors but that's water under the bridge...) and that mostly make us an object of Numenorean politics rather then an actor. As Skippy said earlier, the only way we could even have a small shot at influencing events to that extent would have been to basically play as a Numenorean advisor who had a colony on the side, which IMO kinda subvert the whole point of the quest, which seem to be meant to center on our colony itself.
We simply don't have that kind of influence and honestly, that's ok. There is charm to be lower on them totem poll in a quest so lets just handle our little corner of Arda as well as we can.
More on the point, I do feel that any discussion on whether we can avoid the Downfall forget a key point: we are tiny, unbelievably tiny in the grand Numenorean scheme of things. The King can muster hundred of thousands of men, we can barely muster hundreds, or a few thousand at best, ourselves. The only reason the powers that be would give us even more then a passing thought is that we are the pet project of the Shapers (which was one of the reason why I wanted someone else as our sponsors but that's water under the bridge...) and that mostly make us an object of Numenorean politics rather then an actor. As Skippy said earlier, the only way we could even have a small shot at influencing events to that extent would have been to basically play as a Numenorean advisor who had a colony on the side, which IMO kinda subvert the whole point of the quest, which seem to be meant to center on our colony itself.
We simply don't have that kind of influence and honestly, that's ok. There is charm to be lower on them totem poll in a quest so lets just handle our little corner of Arda as well as we can.
KnightDisciple
Brotherhood. Unity. Peace.
- Location
- Midwest, USA
I think the more salient part of this is whether @Telamon , as the Quest Writer/Master, agrees with the assertion that Eru "did wrong" or created "injustice" with the afterlife system. There is a fair point that perhaps someone writing Fanfic or a Quest would have room to disagree with Tolkien himself within the context of that fan-work.
But if Telamon does not agree about how "bad" the general metaphysics of Arda are, then trying to take the angle of "oh yeah Eru fucked us" is...it's not going to end well, folks.
But if Telamon does not agree about how "bad" the general metaphysics of Arda are, then trying to take the angle of "oh yeah Eru fucked us" is...it's not going to end well, folks.
Really the problem I see here is that while we might like to chart a middle course, neither faction is okay with that, especially the faithful, with whom we want to stick with in the long term.
Every faithful lord we talked to seemed almost insulted by the claim that we are 'among the wise' without aligning ourselves to the faithful. They said you can either be with us, the faithful, or there can be no real relationship. Meanwhile the king's men are the sort of to be pragmatic enough to work with people they don't like, but they are also evil scheming manipulators.
If we keep trying to work with the king's men without joining them, they'll throw us under the bus at the first convenience. Not expecting betrayal from them would be unwise. The faithful will at least stick with us through thick and thin. And that's not mentioning the future knowledge that we have, which involves the king's men destroying themselves almost in their totality.
We need to pick a side sooner rather than later, and there's only 1 real option.
Every faithful lord we talked to seemed almost insulted by the claim that we are 'among the wise' without aligning ourselves to the faithful. They said you can either be with us, the faithful, or there can be no real relationship. Meanwhile the king's men are the sort of to be pragmatic enough to work with people they don't like, but they are also evil scheming manipulators.
If we keep trying to work with the king's men without joining them, they'll throw us under the bus at the first convenience. Not expecting betrayal from them would be unwise. The faithful will at least stick with us through thick and thin. And that's not mentioning the future knowledge that we have, which involves the king's men destroying themselves almost in their totality.
We need to pick a side sooner rather than later, and there's only 1 real option.