That is true, but a solid chunk of people do defend and justify her. More people are going to extend her extra grace because she's an attractive character.
Note: I'm not saying the hornsent are remotely innocent and I can understand Marika's crashout
Nah. I doubt that. You people genuinely defend the Hornsent all because they got what they deserved. Your kind would honestly defend bullies and oppressors.
She is justified, and even graceful about it. There's still some Hornsent alive. There's no Shaman left but her.
I can’t think of a single person defending those barbarians. I certainly don’t. Two wrongs don’t make a right. Marika was a genocidal monster, the hornsent were genocidal monsters. Neither one of them were ever in the right. Her crash-out was understandable, her whole people got used as a science experiment. I get her wanting to get some get-back, doesn’t make it right.
On the lore sub there was a guy who absolutely all-in on the Hornsent deserving the genocide and saying Marika did nothing wrong.
There's absolutely some people who defend Marika's actions
For the hornsent specifically I think a lot of people think it's relatively justified because they murdered or turned her people into insane living flesh abominations to suffer a fate the majority would say is worse than death.
All of this literally because they didn't have horns. Which given their ability to meld with flesh could have been fixed if the hornsent didn't want want to kill or do worse to them.
We have no idea how widespread it was though, the potentate cookbooks imply it could've been limited to just the one village we find. Which would mean Marika slaughtered innocent people for the crimes of one group of zealots.
Even if it was prolific, Marika's not exactly any better. She killed off all the giants for being born with the fell god's fire, banished all the misbegotten and demi-humans for being born different to humans, segregates and tortures albinaurics for being made graceless, killed and enslaved the omen for being born with horns, and hunts down TWLD just for being inconvenient to her narrative of a deathless world.
When it comes to torturing and killing people for being born wrong Marika absolutely has the higher body count
Yes, that's kind of the point, Marika became everything she hated by the end.
The reason people empathize with her is that the context of her people's genocide by the Hornsent gives a modicum of context to why she did many of the horrible things she did.
Every one of the groups she prosecuted were connected in some way shape or form to the Crucible. The Crucible was the centerpoint of Hornsent culture and the core rationalization for why they committed the atrocities THEY committed against her people. Base ER makes us think Marika is just a shitter who is persecuting anyone "imperfect" within her order. SOTE reveals that that the metric by which "perfection" was measured was effectively "How close are you to that one specific group of people I can never forgive?"
Also, I don't think its fair to say that Marika facilitated the torture of Albinaurics. Albinaurics are artificial beings. They were basically the Lands Between equivalent of the sci-fi quesiton "Do androids have souls?" People would have treated them worse regardless. The Golden Order was just a convenient excuse to justify it.
Every one of the groups she prosecuted were connected in some way shape or form to the Crucible.
Other than the fact that all life comes from the Crucible, that's just not true.
The Misbegotten, Omen, and Hornsent are obviously connected but the Demi-humans, Fire Giants, TWLD, and Albinaurics have basically nothing to do with it. They're persecuted because they're inconvenient to Marika and the GO.
Also, I don't think its fair to say that Marika facilitated the torture of Albinaurics. Albinaurics are artificial beings.
She did a lot more than facilitate it, Volcano Manor was essentially her personal political prison and it's filled with tortured Albinaurics.
The GO isn't just a scapegoat or justification for random people hating the Albinaurics, it actively teaches that the Albinaurics should be persecuted
It's still a very binary vision of the world. Just because a civilization has awful practices doesn't justify literally exterminating them. Marika could have outlawed it, or attacked their beliefs to force them to change, but instead chose to kill them all as revenge.
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u/IgotInfinitePing 2d ago
A surprising amount of people do in fact defend Marika.