I step away for a few days and come back to a smoldering crater of a thread, by Gotwoot standards!

I'll try to catch up a bit.

Quote Originally Posted by DarthEnderX View Post
I don't. That's pure victim-blaming.
To be clear, I think that both parties can be complicit in a tragedy like this. Falmuth for its leadership's greed, and Rimuru for not heading this situation off before the first attack happened (or even recognizing the possibility). I would certainly place the vast majority of the blame on Falmuth, and I don't sympathize with that nation's soon-to-be fate, but I think it was written this way to serve as a plot set up and consequently a bit of diplomatic potential seems wasted.

Quote Originally Posted by Kraco View Post
That's precisely what he's doing: Destroying the whole invading army will send a message nobody can ignore. The threshold of attacking Jura Tempest Federation (or whatever the official name was, I can never remember it) will be considerably higher for anyone. It's exactly how it works in RL as well. When a country is known to possess military might, expansionist countries will think twice before invading, as it might not be worth it. If a country is chaotic and poorly defended, a neighbour will be attracted to attack, just like Russia targeted Ukraine.
Understood, and agreed. I just feel like the story beats in the show up to this point made more of an effort to seek resolution before things came to blood or more blood. I agree that this will likely to some extent prevent future aggressions from other nations, so some good can certainly come from it. I sit at 'less than ideal, but better than plan C'.

All things considered, I would probably be disappointed if this hadn't ended up this way. There is certainly an air of 'justice' in how clinically the fights were framed, and everything we know about that nation and its intents suggested that diplomacy would not have worked. My issue is that the show runners/author assumed we weren't interested in going through the motions of the diplomatic breakdown when we have been conditioned to expect some very obscure minutiae over the episodes like the infrastructure development of Tempest and small cultural artifacts like the hot springs that serve no real purpose... yet this country shaping retribution was rushed in a less than thoughtful way, and it, upon scrutiny, changes my perception of the character in a way that I don't think was intended.