Yeah, they're basically still just people, who have a vested interest in keeping their home safe of people who would disrupt their way of life (i.e. Garleans). And the King does have to appear reasonable and like he's taking an active interest in protecting their interests - like not allowing them to become Garlean conscripts, lol. So I think it makes sense they'd agree to help. It's not like Buscarron was asking them to do something that would only advance his own interests.
Buscarron is a really interesting outlier who seems to break a lot of the rules the Wood Wailers would have us believe are absolute; yet his presence is accepted, if not necessarily supported, by Gridania (and... seemingly, on account of the Druthers isn't a pile of splinters right now... the elementals). I think he also understands that the poachers (and bandits) are basically just people, with a vested interest in keeping their home safe, not suffering, and not dying. Treating them fairly and involving them as allies when it makes sense to doesn't necessarily mean he agrees that they're lovely people or that everything they've done in life is A-OK - it just means he recognises they're capable of wanting to protect their shared home, and of helping to do so, when the Gridanian authorities can't or, more likely, won't.
It's sensible of him, I think. I think he did the right thing, even if the worst case scenario is true - that the Coeurlclaws are run by an abusive sociopath who keeps all the women in his group under his metaphorical heel. The Garleans overrunning the forest would be an unequivocally worse situation for everyone in the South Shroud - bandit, poacher, immigrant, adventurer, beastman, and forestborn alike - and even if Buscarron took a hard line against shady sorts (which he doesn't seem to anyway), it's important to make compromises in life-or-death situations like that one had a very real possibility of becoming.
(Connie voice) Or that's my interpretation, anyway.
Buscarron is a really interesting outlier who seems to break a lot of the rules the Wood Wailers would have us believe are absolute; yet his presence is accepted, if not necessarily supported, by Gridania (and... seemingly, on account of the Druthers isn't a pile of splinters right now... the elementals). I think he also understands that the poachers (and bandits) are basically just people, with a vested interest in keeping their home safe, not suffering, and not dying. Treating them fairly and involving them as allies when it makes sense to doesn't necessarily mean he agrees that they're lovely people or that everything they've done in life is A-OK - it just means he recognises they're capable of wanting to protect their shared home, and of helping to do so, when the Gridanian authorities can't or, more likely, won't.
It's sensible of him, I think. I think he did the right thing, even if the worst case scenario is true - that the Coeurlclaws are run by an abusive sociopath who keeps all the women in his group under his metaphorical heel. The Garleans overrunning the forest would be an unequivocally worse situation for everyone in the South Shroud - bandit, poacher, immigrant, adventurer, beastman, and forestborn alike - and even if Buscarron took a hard line against shady sorts (which he doesn't seem to anyway), it's important to make compromises in life-or-death situations like that one had a very real possibility of becoming.
(Connie voice) Or that's my interpretation, anyway.
![[Image: tUzrT.png]](https://puu.sh/tUzrT.png)
