Colonel Alan Richard, from Trails in the Sky.
This villain was absolutely, hands down 100% right, and is arguably the actual hero of the game.
Richard hails from the small kingdom of Liberl. 10 years ago, in the year 1192, Liberl was invaded by the neighboring Erebonian Empire. Erebonia is a huge expansionist empire and its military is highly experienced. The Empire blew through Liberl's borders with their tanks and steamrolled across Liberl. Liberl only really has like 5 major towns, and pretty much all except 1 were captured by the Erebonians within a few weeks. The Liberlian holdouts were besieged within the last town (the capital city) and a military fortress.
Red: Liberlian territory occupied by Erebonia during the war. Blue: territory still held by Liberlians.
Liberl only survived the war due to a fluke. Within the walls of their military fortress, they built a few bombing airships. They then flew out from the fortress and began dropping bombs on the tanks. They also used the airships to transport strike teams behind enemy lines to cut off supply lines (the first use of airships for military purposes in the setting). Eventually, the Erebonian military was forced to retreat... but not for long: the force that had just invaded Liberl? That was just the first wave. Erebonia was massing an even larger second wave that was going to totally crush Liberl... when the peace treaty came. This war became known as the Hundred Days War.
Newly built Liberlian airships dropping bombs on the Imperial Army that was besieging the capital city of Grancel.
10 years have passed. The Erebonian Empire continued its expansionist spree and annexed several other nations in the meantime. It has also significantly hulked up its army. Liberl's singular advantage, their airships, is gone as the Erebonians now have military airships of their own (and even flying carriers!) and a vastly larger air force. Liberl is also unfortunately sandwiched in between the Erebonian Empire and the Calvard Republic, two rival superpowers which are in an escalating cold war that is slowing turning hot. It is blatantly obvious that a world war is coming and Liberl is going to become a battlefield, as it will be an invasion corridor for either side to invade the other (the Erebonian-Calvard border between Liberl and Crossbell, and Crossbell and Nord is all impassable mountains, so armies have to pass through either Liberl, Crossbell, Nord, or Reimferia).
And yet... no one in Liberl is doing anything to prepare for this. The military has become rife with corruption, as officers are taking bribes from literally anyone. Most of the experienced officers from the Hundred Days War have retired, leaving complete newbs behind. The only actual veteran left has been stationed on border patrol duty (rather actually commanding the military or training the newbs). The Queen Alicia has been doing absolutely nothing about this. Furthermore, she has done nothing about Liberl's strategic situation: she hasn't been fortifying Liberl's borders, or ramping up production of military airships, or forging defensive pacts with other nations against Erebonia. She does literally nothing.
Queen Alicia. Probably the worst monarch in the history of Liberl.
Richard, one of the veterans of the Hundred Days War, can't stand by and do nothing anymore. He decides to take action. He lost a lot of good friends in the war and isn't about to see their sacrifices be for nothing if Liberl is just going to get steamrolled 10 years later. So he decides he's going to perform a military coup and save the country. He has four objectives:
- 1. Have the Liberlian Princess marry one of the Erebonian Princes, thus creating an alliance between Erebonia and Liberl and protecting Liberl from getting invaded by the Erebonians.
- 2. Keep good relations with the Calvardians, leaving the door open so that if relations break down with the Erebonians, Liberl can ally with Calvard and hopefully they will help out.
- 3. Reform the military. Clean out the corrupt officers, train up the newbs (he recruited fearsome mercenary warriors as instructors), build additional forts to slow down enemy invasion, and ramp up of production of weapons. In the event that relations with the Erebonians break down, Liberl will have way better chances.
- 4. Excavate magical artifacts in Liberl and research them (Richard has it on good authority from a knowledgable source that there is a pretty powerful artifact in Liberl that can be used to repel the Erebonians).
This is all sound strategic thinking, stuff that Queen Alicia SHOULD have been doing from the start. Richard is also rather tactful with his coup. This isn't some violent revolution he's running here; no. It's rather quiet and peaceful: he gathers information on the corrupt officers who need to be removed, and pressures them to resign, or has them assigned to some irrelevant post in the middle of nowhere. He places the Queen and the Princess under house arrest. And he has the handful of people who are trying to oppose him arrested or put on house arrest. The average citizen doesn't know what's going on at all and think everything is still going swimmingly. And Richard isn't power mad either; he's going to teach the next Liberlian ruler to be actually competent about protecting his kingdom for once. Once Richard is sure that Liberl will be in good hands, he will let go of the reins and step back.
It's rather telling that the heroes of the game... have absolutely no argument for opposing Richard. Richard clearly explains why he is doing what he is doing to the protagonists... and yet his words went in one ear and out the other of the protagonists. Estelle literally says "you can't rely on magic!" (this is before the drawback about the artifact was known). Queen Alicia dismisses Richard as "he's just being sexist" when Richard never had a problem with the Queen being a women; his problem was that she was incompetent (which is true). The heroes, by opposing Richard, actively sabotaged their own country just to reset the status quo.
(It's also especially rich that the protagonists say that Richard is wrong for his unlawful coup... when the protagonists are part of an international organization that is BY LAW AND CHARTER not supposed to intervene in the political affairs of other nations...)
And... the game unironically proves Richard right. Liberl is invaded (both by Erebonia and another faction), and it is only due to Richard's actions that Liberl is saved. The invaders casually rip through Liberl's newb army, only repelled when Richard's expertly trained soldiers are released from prison and do their work.
After Trails in the Sky, what does Queen Alicia do to prepare Liberl for the impending World War? Why, absolutely nothing. Wait, no, she does WORSE than nothing: she gives Erebonia new cutting edge engine technology... which, ofcourse, they install in their military airships. When the world war finally rolls around 8 games later, guess who has a technologically superior air force? One that is larger than everyone elses? Who was responsible for that? Who could have prevented that by NOT giving them the awesome engine tech? HMMMM?? (For the record: Liberl, Calvard, and Reimferia formed a collaition against Erebonia... and Erebonia was WINNING the world war anyway). Queen Alicia is Liberl's biggest teamkiller.
I guess I should write another post for the villains of Ao, who also unironically did nothing wrong. The protagonists of that Trails game were even stupider for opposing them than the protagonists of Sky for opposing Richard.