#but it sort of reinforced my belief of what type of 'hero' marth is at his core

[arcstral]

05.  the hierophant  :  what are your muse’s morals / ethics ? do they follow their moral code strictly ?

05 .   the hierophant:   what are your muse’s morals / ethics? do they follow their moral code strictly?

Marth’s moral compass is straightforward for the most part. Uncomplicated to understand save for its few nuances. He is the Hero-King not only in name but ideology: he believes people should be saved, no man should be left behind, evil should not be overlooked, unlawful leaders should be put to justice, and so on. Textbook stuff.

During his first war, he liberated every village he found on his path to Dolhr. Rescued the rural hostages victimized by his more underhanded enemies. Later, when faced with four murderous and brainwashed clerics under Medeus’ control, he chose to find a way to rescue these four lives despite the greater scale of a world at risk. His sense of good is therefore upheld with extreme faith. Faithfully, but not constantly.

There are times when even Marth permits his morals to be swayed. In order to escape a hopeless tactical situation, he was advised to choose one man out of five who would stay behind to die as his decoy. He chose his senior knight, Frey. Later, despite his initial protests, he allowed two innocent royal children to be taken from his custody: to be extradited in another country and executed. This was necessary to avoid a international dispute and he despised the decision, later going back on his word, but it shows that even Marth is not immune to decisions of greater good. When faced with the choice to keep his kingdom’s neck or a pair of children’s, he will choose his kingdom at least initially. 

The Dragalia Lost spinoff shows a similar side to Marth’s moral color. Mirroring his games, he is placed in a situation where he must decide who and what to save. Whether to defend his custody of the young Emblian princess and allow a village to be massacred in turn, or to save the village and give her away to a fiend like Loki. Similar to the Grustian royal children, he protested and refused to surrender Veronica—perhaps knowing of how little Loki’s promises can be trusted—but eventually buckled when she threatened to kill a hostage. Though he favored the decision that would save more lives in the end, it was one he greatly regretted due to the loss of an innocent child.

The bottom line is that Marth, while a very morally upstanding man, is also a partial utilitarian. The trolley problem discussing whether to kill one person to save five people is loosely accurate in his case. He will usually, but not always, follow whatever choice saves the most people, and whenever he protests it’s still fairly easy to advise or blackmail him into making the decision anyways. Still. He absolutely makes allowances to this pattern when he can, whenever it’s possible, by going back on his word at a safer opportunity. 

#◜ ╰ ♕ ◦ › royal mandate ‹ ASKBOX. ◞ #◜ ╰ ♕ ◦ › gathered wits ‹ INTROSPECTION. ◞ #elegaic-boar #oops this got long but thank you dewa ! #marth surprisingly has a lot of interesting stuff going for him #in the morality department #i was pleasantly surprised by his role in the DL crossover #but it sort of reinforced my belief of what type of 'hero' marth is at his core #though i will say the one thing i dislike about intsys' treatment of marth #is that they don't allow him to experience the consequences of his actions #marth's hamartia is that he wants what he can't have #he wants peace. he wants to save everyone. he KNOWS it's impossible #and whenever he makes decisions that test his own ideals #they always occur in his favor anyways #frey turning out to be alive. him saving all four clerics. #hardin was the only person he couldn't save but beyond him #intsys is allergic to unhappy realistic outcomes that even remotely test their poster boy's character :/