Thanks to my referring to a guide a few entries ago, I now know that I've entered into the penultimate chapter of Radiant Historia's Standard History. The plot runs rather simply: it's back to Granorg to deal with Eruca's stepmother Queen Protea, Selvan, and Dias.
Over the course of the game, you really do come to know these figures, but that they're evil? Not quite. General Hugo is very plainly a vile person with no redeeming motivations whatsoever. He is a true villain. Dias, Selvan, and Protea? Well, not so much somehow.
They're shown to be scheming, and at one point it's made clear that Dias and Selvan are in fact using Protea as a figurehead. The politics of Granorg are demonstrably broken, but not quite so much evil.
Alistel's General Hugo might resonate more with me because he either manipulates or is manipulated by something far more mysterious than himself: the as yet unseen Prophet Noah. Thus, like Darth Vader and Saruman before him, Hugo has some shadowy association with something greater than himself. Plus, there's the strong possibility that Hugo is wielding the powerful Black Chronicle.
The lack of this same shadowy something on the Granorg side of the game's expansive story makes them lack any real villainy. It seems as though none of them have any sense of the power of Eruca's bloodline or the ritual they must perform to maintain the balance of mana in the world. Thus, their only motivation is political, and in a game where the stakes are as high as the fate of the world, politics are hardly as interesting as otherworldly powers.
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