Li'sar's Characterization in HttT (Spoilers)

[zookeeper]

Hate to be a killjoy, but if you put that side-to-side with the existing lines, aren't the latter quite a bit more... compelling? Besides, neither Asheviere nor Eldred hardly come off as any less dumb in that scenario; instead of dueling Delfador and losing, Eldred has some of his soldiers incinerated first, and then he duels Delfador and loses. It's still the same thing happening with the same result due to the same miscalculation.

The fact that Eldred comes off as an overconfident brash fool who didn't have what it takes (especially in the intro dialogue of S11) is what gives him a distinct personality. The young arrogant prince getting himself killed precisely because he was an idiot who wanted the glory of a personal victory in a duel instead of letting a random soldier get the kill isn't the world's most innovative thing, but it works and perfectly makes it clear what his problem was. Besides, he was probably personally really pissed off at Delfador for dragging him by the ear back to Weldyn in DM. Asheviere's advice is obviously brash as well, but then again she isn't the most intelligent evil queen. Eldred probably got his overconfidence and delusions from her.

If anything, I think the existing two lines could be even further condensed by merging them, to avoid the subtle repetition in "made war upon Delfador and his forces" and "did indeed meet Delfador face-to-face in battle". Something along the lines of:

Code: Select all

"Eldred made war upon Delfador and his forces with his mother’s advice ringing in his ears: <i>“Fight no one great or small except the old mage, whose head should be severed from his shoulders.” Sword clashed against staff in the hinterlands near Tath, as the wise old mage fought the brash young warrior face-to-face."

[Turuk]

If anything, I think the existing two lines could be even further condensed by merging them, to avoid the subtle repetition in "made war upon Delfador and his forces" and "did indeed meet Delfador face-to-face in battle". Something along the lines of:

Code: Select all

"Eldred made war upon Delfador and his forces with his mother’s advice ringing in his ears: <i>“Fight no one great or small except the old mage, whose head should be severed from his shoulders.” Sword clashed against staff in the hinterlands near Tath, as the wise old mage fought the brash young warrior face-to-face."

That actually makes sense as far as the story images as well, since image 4 repeated for the first line, and now it can go straight to 5 with them both being condensed.

[name]

The fact that Eldred comes off as an overconfident brash fool who didn't have what it takes (especially in the intro dialogue of S11) is what gives him a distinct personality. The young arrogant prince getting himself killed precisely because he was an idiot who wanted the glory of a personal victory in a duel instead of letting a random soldier get the kill isn't the world's most innovative thing, but it works and perfectly makes it clear what his problem was.

I actually prefer this concept for Eldred. Maybe he just did not heed his mother's tactical advice and that is what got him killed?

Delfador and his forces were ultimated routed, so if Eldred had kept himself alive and just concentrated on commanding his forces to cutoff any retreat, all would have worked out as Asheviere desired and had suggested. But glory seeking got the better of him and he engaged Delfador directly as soon as he spotted him in the fray.

[TheGreatRings]

The fact that Eldred comes off as an overconfident brash fool who didn't have what it takes (especially in the intro dialogue of S11) is what gives him a distinct personality. The young arrogant prince getting himself killed precisely because he was an idiot who wanted the glory of a personal victory in a duel instead of letting a random soldier get the kill isn't the world's most innovative thing, but it works and perfectly makes it clear what his problem was.

I actually prefer this concept for Eldred. Maybe he just did not heed his mother's tactical advice and that is what got him killed?

Delfador and his forces were ultimated routed, so if Eldred had kept himself alive and just concentrated on commanding his forces to cutoff any retreat, all would have worked out as Asheviere desired and had suggested. But glory seeking got the better of him and he engaged Delfador directly as soon as he spotted him in the fray.

Mind you, I don't think Ashevier exactly comes off as a cool-headed tactical genius either in the existing campaign. She seemed more like a proud, power-hungry idiot getting by on money, ruthlessness, well-timed backstabbing, and some magical power rather than any true genius.

Edit: Which could be a secondary reason for Li'sar turning against her.

[TheGreatRings]

Just to throw a quick bit of feedback,

I personally enjoy the aspect of Asheviere actually loving her son, Eldred, instead of sending him too to his death and becoming extremely mad with power. With her grief over her son's passing, it shows that even the Dark Queen Asheviere had some remnant of humanity left in her.

Agreed.

Likewise, I would interpret her fury at the end, as I recall, over Li'sar's betrayal as being more than just a mad tyrant enraged that their will is being defied (though it can certainly be that in part)- rather, I see it as the fury of someone who's last close human connection has been severed, who has been betrayed by the one person (their child) who they thought, or at least hoped, would never turn on them.

[Whiskeyjack]

Well if we go back to her instructions to him on killing Delfador:

"On the eve of battle, Eldred scanned the loyalist army with his mother’s advice ringing in his ears: “Fight no one great or small except the old mage, whose head should be severed from his shoulders."

It sounds like she is telling him not to take any unnecessary risks fighting nonessential targets and save all his strength for Delfador. That is good advice, but apparently not good enough. It could be she just greatly underestimated Delfador due to his age or had never seen him in action and thought he was some kind of pretender orbiting the throne, much like she was.


But if she should have known better, then I think this can be cleared up by simply enhancing her advice to Eldred. Something like:

I am not sure how you are able to now even see a warning in this against taking risks!? That would be to not attack Defaldor. Attacking Defaldor is always a bad idea and bad advice.

The way DM is currently going, her underestimating Defaldor like that is out of the question. She (or her underlings) clashed with him several times before and she was part of the kings court for most of the events meaning she has heard of his deeds from up close. But most of all, she had a peek at the Book (where her knowledge of dark magic seems to come from) and thus should never be able to think of Defaldor as weak (underestimating him is another matter, but that is understimating him way too much IMO).

zookeeper, I like your changes, so I hate to reiterate: If we don´t change DM I still think there is something missing here about Asheviere either giving some more advice (wait until he is weakened/tired) or an explanation why she underestimated Defaldor so much (and Defaldor´s telling of the tale later in the campaign is not suited for this). If a player knows his Wesnoth the scene can still easily be seen as Asheviere willingly urging Eldred towards his death, which I thought we wanted to cut out/obscure!?

[zookeeper]

I do still think that's such a small detail that it just doesn't matter.

Campaigns have some leeway regarding small details, they don't need to form a more consistent overarcing plot than you'd find in any other game/film/book series. There's a reason why almost any series always has some continuity issues: because the internal narrative of the individual game/film/series takes precedence over the details of the overarcing plot. Fixing major plotholes makes sense, but compromising the quality of a campaign's story text for the sake of a minor cross-campaign continuity detail like that seems very counter-productive.

In any case, DM is a prequel to HttT (which is the more important campaign), and if there's a problem it makes tons more sense to address it in DM. They are both part of the same game, yes, but even so, HttT remains the original and DM a prequel, and by that nature DM is allowed (and even expected) to feature some extra exposition if it's needed to fit the two together, whereas HttT isn't; HttT is the self-contained standalone story which doesn't need DM to exist, whereas DM is largely dependant on HttT.

[Whiskeyjack]

Well, if you take it like that... makes sense.

I just thought that one line in HttT would be easier than a couple big changes in DM, but I´m probably to puristic on this and you´re absolutely right about the scale of the problem.

Just pointing out any issues I see (which I take as somewhat of my role in this endeavor), if they warrant any actions is not mine to decide.

[name]

The way DM is currently going, her underestimating Defaldor like that is out of the question. She (or her underlings) clashed with him several times before and she was part of the kings court for most of the events meaning she has heard of his deeds from up close.

So this is basically an issue with DM then.

I would say that in the HttT narrative, she doesn't clash with anyone before the assassination of the king, and then everything goes down on the same day. Picking fights within the court, let alone with the king's most trusted adviser (I assume?), would tip her hand flat. She also doesn't seem like the warrior type that would have seen Delfador do anything serious on the battlefield. As far as him being a threat, she probably respected him as a loyalists rabble rouser, but not as a proficient in personal defense.

But most of all, she had a peek at the Book (where her knowledge of dark magic seems to come from) and thus should never be able to think of Defaldor as weak (underestimating him is another matter, but that is understimating him way too much IMO).

This is also a DM-ism. There is nothing darkly magical about here in HttT, if I recall. She is just a tyrannical monarch. When you attack her personally in the final scenario of HttT, she doesn't even use any extraordinary skills to save her own life.

[Whiskeyjack]

I would say that in the HttT narrative, she doesn't clash with anyone before the assassination of the king, and then everything goes down on the same day. Picking fights within the court, let alone with the king's most trusted adviser (I assume?), would tip her hand flat. She also doesn't seem like the warrior type that would have seen Delfador do anything serious on the battlefield. As far as him being a threat, she probably respected him as a loyalists rabble rouser, but not as a proficient in personal defense.

Please be so kind as to take a look at DM again. The story there is not nearly as bad as you make it out to be (my biggest problem with it is actually that the threat of an undead invasion overtaking Weldyn is just too closely mirroring EI plot-wise). Her clashes with Defaldor were of the secret kind, not known to king or court, as he was her directly opposed to her in political matters. And that she tried to meddle with those (and failed) is proven in the (current and future) HttT intro by the mention of her joy that Eldred would be easier to manipulate than her (Defaldor-hearing) husband (which means she at least tried to manipulate him)...

This is also a DM-ism. There is nothing darkly magical about here in HttT, if I recall. She is just a tyrannical monarch. When you attack her personally in the final scenario of HttT, she doesn't even use any extraordinary skills to save her own life.

Not exactly true. The book itself is a LoWism and just picked up in DM. Ashevieres dark (magical) aspect is mentioned troughout HttT several times (1x "Dark Crown", 5x "Dark Queen" one of those by narrator, 3x "Evil Queen", 1x "Reign of Evil"; - mind you, most of those come from the rebels, but they focus on the "darkness" part an awful lot...), once she actually is called "Witch" and her unit type itself is "Dark Queen" with the following description:

The evil queen mother Asheviere has terrorized Wesnoth for many years. Her knowledge of magic makes her a worthy foe in combat, although her power is mostly derived from those she commands.

Your point on gameplay is probably more a problem of HttT´s age and not of the campaign concept itself. Or why did every single campaign ever having to do with HttT pick this up? The whole concept of the Book and Dark Magic by Asheviere is strongly interwoven with at least 3 other campaigns (LoW, DM, Liberty) of which the last one mentioned even shows her magic at action (she (un)deadified the soldiers that helped Eldred in his betrayal and sent them against Elensefar).
IMO that is already going a little far and Asheviere as a weaker mage is fitting quite nicely, but adding some magical defense to her in the last scenario would help story- and gameplaywise...
If you absolutely want her to underestimate Defaldor in a fitting way for the intro you can easily take out her sneak peak at the Book in DM, but taking away her magic would mean you would have to greatly change 2 campaigns (in dialogue as well as some complete scenarios) because of one sentence in the intro...

On one hand we talk about Wesnoth evolving but on the other hand, the exactly mentioned evolvement in already set extensions of HttT through other (mainline!)campaigns is rebuked if it´s not fitting to the way we perceive the mainline story should go. Since this is not directly connected to bettering story, dialogue and characters of HttT (as it is so far away from the actual change-work and most times both sides of the coin could easily be implemented in a good way) I just can´t seem to grasp your view on this. To me it seems like trying to force your own version on an existing universe that decided the story would go differently... (of course this might be biased by my own perception of said universe, but said bias at least originates from recently playing pretty much all relevant campaigns )

Regarding Li'sar: Her first appearance in scenario 8: The Princess of Wesnoth troubles me somewhat: That she is currently portrayed as more childish than an able commander is a problem we already mentioned and which is going to be changed, but on a practical level: Why would a strong commander get handily beaten by the player´s bunch of rebels like that? I think this warrants either a mention of the queen giving her not enough troops or a change in gameplay as well as dialogue (the whole notion of calling up "reinforcements" in the duration of a battle is somewhat silly, if at all it should be her reserves; and having all her strategical skill manifest in an assassination-attempt by a fencer...)

[name]

(my biggest problem with it is actually that the threat of an undead invasion overtaking Weldyn is just too closely mirroring EI plot-wise).

If Orcs were the main enemy in DM, it would also make the campaign fit much better into HttT. In the latter's introduction sequence, a growing Orcish threat is what sets everything off.

Her clashes with Defaldor were of the secret kind, not known to king or court, as he was her directly opposed to her in political matters.

My recollection of DM is this matter was not handled as delicately as it should have been. Keeping Delfador in the dark should have been a top priority for the conspirators, instead of trying to take him out directly and tipping him off before the big play. I found it really hard to buy that "Delfador the Great" couldn't do more given what he had learned before hand.

It threw away a nice opportunity for sort of a twist, as well. It could have been, that Delfador towards the end could have had very strong suspicions about either Asheviere or Eldred, but not both. And this is why he fails to prevent the assassination despite all his knowledge, ability and status; he never suspected one of the two conspirators for what they were. Like he thought Eldred was very loyal, until he actually kills the king. Asheviere could have advised Eldred to keep Delfador's trust at all costs, and it even works to the extent that Delfador tells Eldred he must stay close to the king to protect him from what is going down!

Granted, this would make Delfador seem foolish unless Eldred's character was developed completely differently in DM, such that the player, like Delfador, cannot help but see Eldred as a trustworthy friend (albeit with some issues) and a loyalist (if not for any knowledge provided by playing HttT beforehand).

throughout HttT several times (1x "Dark Crown", 5x "Dark Queen" one of those by narrator, 3x "Evil Queen", 1x "Reign of Evil"; - mind you, most of those come from the rebels, but they focus on the "darkness" part an awful lot...), once she actually is called "Witch"

My ancient, foggy remembrance of pre-v1.0 Wesnoth and its HttT campaign was that she was not a sorceress. Then some years later new campaigns came in that tried to embellish her a bit, gave her knowledge of magic, etc. But I could be wrong and maybe she was always intended to have extraordinary skills, not just political ones.

I just can´t seem to grasp your view on this. To me it seems like trying to force your own version on an existing universe that decided the story would go differently... (of course this might be biased by my own perception of said universe, but said bias at least originates from recently playing pretty much all relevant campaigns )

My only vision right now is that there be a vision. The evolutionary process you mentioned tends to leave a lot of noise after a few iterations. That's why you also need a selective process. In other words, characters that have evolved to be random and inconsistent across campaigns should have their "best" qualities selected and emphasized and retcons that feel out of place removed.

I don't personally care either way if Asheviere has magic of some kind or no, but this idea, be it retcon or original concept, should be evaluated on its own character-developing-merits and either fully explored (by us, not necessarily in the campaign dialogue) or fully thrown out.

What I don't personally want though is to have possibly high quality character changes held up by "canon" (which itself is probably someone's retcon of earlier "canon" material). So if Asheviere becomes "evil" or "eviler" because she simply read a book, that is bad for character development because it is simplistic and inconceivable. If on the other hand we explore the actual effects dark magic has on the mind, and this helps explain her actions and interactions with other characters, that could be very good.

Regarding Li'sar: Her first appearance in scenario 8: The Princess of Wesnoth troubles me somewhat: That she is currently portrayed as more childish than an able commander is a problem we already mentioned and which is going to be changed, but on a practical level: Why would a strong commander get handily beaten by the player´s bunch of rebels like that? I think this warrants either a mention of the queen giving her not enough troops or a change in gameplay as well as dialogue (the whole notion of calling up "reinforcements" in the duration of a battle is somewhat silly, if at all it should be her reserves; and having all her strategical skill manifest in an assassination-attempt by a fencer...)

I strongly agree; she is a thoroughly incompetent commander and dialogue alone cannot hide this. I guess the first question to ask is can this be fixed. Can the player be expected to fight and win against "Wesnoth's greatest commander" in a beginner level campaign? And if so, does the AI and scripting give you the ability to make her play better? If the answer to either is "no", I can think of three ways to explain some of her lack of skill:

1) She is a once talented, now burnt out shell of a person as detailed in earlier posts. She is hardly trying and is indifferent to the results of the battle.

2) She is NOT Wesnoth's greatest commander (is too young to be after all) but Asheviere's most loyal commander, being her own blood. Stomping out a justified revolt requires loyalty above all else.

3) She does as good a job as any commander, but Delfador has a trick up his sleeve that turns the situation on its head after X turns.

[zookeeper]

It'd definitely be good to make Li'sar less childish, but I don't think that her losing to Konrad necessarily needs much justification; it is after all just a case of the player prevailing against odds as usual. However, considering how incredibly quickly she intercepts Konrad after the previous scenario (especially considering that word would have needed to get to Weldyn first), it seems likely that she wouldn't be commanding a huge slow army, but some kind of faster and smaller force. I think it'd be enough for the story text or dialogue to imply that she really had to quickly rally troops and race to catch the rebels.

As for the fencer ambush, I do think it is rather tacky and ought to be replaced with something else. I'm not sure if there already exists a micro AI with which one could do it (probably not), but having her field fencers which would exclusively target Konrad (and/or other critical units) while staying out of reach of all of the player's other units could be a nice challenge. If you'd bring Konrad to the front lines they'd always attempt to wiggle through and hit him, and otherwise they'd circle around just out of reach of your units and force you to keep your guard up against several directions.

[Sire]

Going to throw in some more input. Of course, keep in mind that I am a story-driven player and do not mind walls of text, which may go against trying to keep lines to a minimum.

1: Asheviere and Delfador - Politics
- I'm not one for political stories, so I'l leave this in the hands of someone who can handle that sort of political storyline. However, the way I see it, Delfador and Asheviere probably do clash against one another during the king's reign (with the king leaning more towards Delfador's ideals), and the conflict escalates immensely once the king is assassinated.

2: Asheviere and the "Evil Book"
- I enjoy the concept of Asheviere starting off as a "normal" queen but succumbed to the evils of the book. She may had have flaws before reading (or glimpsing) at the book, but the book perhaps exaggerates her flaws even more.
- I also like the concept of Asheviere using magic. Gameplay-wise, she does so (although as a unit she seems somewhat weak compared to other Tier 3 units). At the very least, I would like to see Asheviere buffed to at least resemble a proper Tier 3 unit.

3: Li'sar's First Appearance
- I agree that it is stated that Li'sar is apparently Wesnoth's greatest commander. However, in terms of revisions, I agree with Cold Steel's suggestions of...

2) She is NOT Wesnoth's greatest commander (is too young to be after all) but Asheviere's most loyal commander, being her own blood. Stomping out a justified revolt requires loyalty above all else.

3) She does as good a job as any commander, but Delfador has a trick up his sleeve that turns the situation on its head after X turns.

As a player who enjoys events that happen within scenarios to keep them interesting and to play up "Delfador the Great" even more, I really like the third suggestion listed here.

In addition, taking some of zookeeper's post, it is also possible that Li'sar leads just a strike force instead of a massive army at the time of the scenario. The Fencer ambush could also be redone with some AI magic, but I am not sure how that would be implemented.

[Whiskeyjack]

If Orcs were the main enemy in DM, it would also make the campaign fit much better into HttT. In the latter's introduction sequence, a growing Orcish threat is what sets everything off.

I don´t agree with this because of the following reasons:
1) DM is a story about most of Defaldor´s life. Him having a nemesis is better than him fighting the generic orcs to enhance HttT.
2) DM takes place over a large period of time and features a lot of enemies. The undead invasion I mentioned is much prior to HttT and while it is the most important enemy of the campaign, it is not the last. This leaves enough room for the orcs but there has to be a reason why Defaldor is called the Great and it´s certainly not meeting some orcish threat that is explored and resolved in one battle after the end of the campaign.

Switching the clashes with the queens agents and Eldred for some orcs is a possibility, but I don´t think a good one. Eldred´s attack on Wesmere can be switched around to better suit new HttT, but it offers a great way to establish his rash and foolish nature. And I agree with Sire that some clashes (not nessecarily of the martial kind) would certainly have taken place between Defaldor and Asheviere. An option that comes to mind would be to add a scenario with a small group of loyalists meeting with the orcs (which get stopped by Kalenz and Defaldor, or only the first who informs the latter). They suspect it might be the queen who tries to make some deals with the orcs but don´t have evidence.

My recollection of DM is this matter was not handled as delicately as it should have been. Keeping Delfador in the dark should have been a top priority for the conspirators, instead of trying to take him out directly and tipping him off before the big play. I found it really hard to buy that "Delfador the Great" couldn't do more given what he had learned before hand.

He is never tipped of directly regarding the assassination. He only knows that Asheviere is a political opponent and has something shady going on. Except if Asheviere planned to take power by betraying the king from the moment she met him your scenario of them never clashing on the political stage is highly unbelievable. I think she would have tried to influence the king, failed (partly because of Defaldor) and then started to develope her plans. You are right that there is certainly room for improvements.
I like your idea about Defaldor thinking Eldred loyal and missing this danger. I think him urging Eldred to stay close to the king is piling it on a little too much, considering he himself stayed close to the king (and probably some of his allies), while Eldred had to command another part of the army.

My ancient, foggy remembrance of pre-v1.0 Wesnoth and its HttT campaign was that she was not a sorceress. Then some years later new campaigns came in that tried to embellish her a bit, gave her knowledge of magic, etc. But I could be wrong and maybe she was always intended to have extraordinary skills, not just political ones.

I started playing Wesnoth sometime close to its release, but I only know that it was sometime before the first release of a Windows version. However I never got past the Horse Lords at that time so I´m not sure how Asheviere was portrayed there. I know for certain that she had a dark magic ranged attack the first time I encountered her and I´m 99% sure that was prior to (mainline) DM. Can´t speak for the original version, but I think the "evil queen dabbling in dark magics" thing is older than DM(s mainline status).

What I don't personally want though is to have possibly high quality character changes held up by "canon" (which itself is probably someone's retcon of earlier "canon" material). So if Asheviere becomes "evil" or "eviler" because she simply read a book, that is bad for character development because it is simplistic and inconceivable. If on the other hand we explore the actual effects dark magic has on the mind, and this helps explain her actions and interactions with other characters, that could be very good.

I can totaly agree with you there. And exploring more of the why of looking into the book turned her (more) evil is very interesting. My recent looks at DMs and LoWs dialogue left me with the feeling that the corruption of the book is (while a curse is mentioned) a lot deeper than "only" a magical seduction, but more of a "power corrupts" thing. Exploring a combination of both (in DM) would be worth the work IMO. That way we would have the psychological component, while maintaining a corruption that is not completely her fault (the latter part can of course be dropped and Asheviere be portrayed as completely evil only in the eyes of the rebels).
A thing that never sat quite right with me is that she only shows up in DM once she starts becoming an enemy. If we would change the following two lines in the timeline

478 YW
- Garard II marries Asheviere.
- Garard issues the Edict of the Scepter, providing that the crown shall settle after his death on whichever member of the royal family successfully retrieves it from the Caverns of Flame.

we could have Asheviere turn up a lot earlier (sometime while Defaldor is in the land of the dead for example) and thus have a lot more room to develope her character and her relationships to Garard and Defaldor. (This would also be a great option if we go with Sire´s point 2 suggestion).

Regarding Li'sar: I thought we reached a point of agreement of her perhaps being not the greatest but a capable commander?
I like your 3rd suggestion and zookeepers version. A trick by Defaldor could be an interesting element in gameplay while zookeepers explanation would certainly be enough if it gets a short mention in the scenario. Perhaps some combination of the two (which would actually work wonders for portraying Li'sars actual skills: She does not have the manpower and yet gives the rebels quite some trouble which forces Defaldor to intervene in some way (+ the point of actually showing off some of the Defaldor the Great stuff as mentioned by Sire))?

[TheGreatRings]

It'd definitely be good to make Li'sar less childish,

Its not Li'sar who strikes me as really childish, but Konrad. Some of his dialog makes me feel like cringing.

but I don't think that her losing to Konrad necessarily needs much justification; it is after all just a case of the player prevailing against odds as usual. However, considering how incredibly quickly she intercepts Konrad after the previous scenario (especially considering that word would have needed to get to Weldyn first), it seems likely that she wouldn't be commanding a huge slow army, but some kind of faster and smaller force. I think it'd be enough for the story text or dialogue to imply that she really had to quickly rally troops and race to catch the rebels.

Interesting. Certainly the army you face in the first battle with Li'sar doesn't seem huge. Although regarding travel times for a large army, maybe rather than bringing her army all the way from Weldyn, she just road to Dan Tok and took command of the local detachment there? Just a thought.

As for the fencer ambush, I do think it is rather tacky and ought to be replaced with something else. I'm not sure if there already exists a micro AI with which one could do it (probably not), but having her field fencers which would exclusively target Konrad (and/or other critical units) while staying out of reach of all of the player's other units could be a nice challenge. If you'd bring Konrad to the front lines they'd always attempt to wiggle through and hit him, and otherwise they'd circle around just out of reach of your units and force you to keep your guard up against several directions.

I like the fencer idea you've got, though I don't feel their's anything wrong with the existing scenario. In fact, I like that at least it has Li'sar doing something vaguely clever, which is the only time (other than her switching sides later and giving false information to Konrad's force) where I recall her really living up to her reputation as a competent commander.

However, I must disagree with Cold Steel's claim that she is outright incompetent. She only makes two arguable major errors that I see- the first is to hold back some of her forces when fighting Konrad initially rather than attack with everything, and the latter is her obsessive pursuit of Konrad into very dangerous territory with what appears to be an inadequate force. The former could be explained as either arrogance or a reluctance to commit her forces out of fear for her own men (which might make her seem a little less callous), and the latter is not so bad given that Konrad does much the same thing at Delfadore's advice and could be put down to fear of her mother's wrath if she returns home without victory or simply the need of a young commander who is likely often looked down on for both her age and gender to prove herself.

On that note, I must emphatically disagree with Cold Steel's claim that Li'sar is too young to be the top commander. Its unlikely, but not impossible (particularly if the standard is lower overall because Ashevier chooses commanders based on loyalty or nepotism rather than talent). Keep in mind also that medieval societies did not necessarily adhere to the same rules regarding how old you had to be to fight- having soldiers in their teens might not be uncommon, so Li'sar (at about twenty by HttT according to the timeline as I recall) could have several years of military experience.