The game doesn't only point at Artorius being flawed but also Velvet as well, the game empathizes with both characters and doesn't always justify what they do and the actions they commit as the game treats them both as equal. They even understand their flaws and know what they're doing as Velvet knows that she's not a good person and even despises herself of what she is and Artorius at the end when dying says that the "Arthur you knew died that day" showing that his actions were flawed and he started to realize that he did foolish things as well just like the protagonist. She even tells Laphicet (Malak #2) to back off and know that she's a monster and a being that she despises so much. Artorius' action of killing her brother wasn't really that justified as he wanted to enslave the world by stripping all of their emotions so Velvet is more in the right in that point however the game isn't saying Artorius is all bad either as Velvet has done wrong as well and the game knows it. The game makes you feel bad for both of them and that's the actual point of how it was written.
The game definitely leans on empathizing with Velvet more than Artorius. Whether or not you're meant to empathize with both equally, the game shows Velvet in a more sympathetic light because of the lengths that Artorius is willing to go to, and the fact that he's willing to go to far more extremes.
The ends don't justify the means with Artorius. Whilst you can argue that Velvet's actions also can't be justified, and that she caused harm and damage (albeit the game doesn't really focus on it), she also wasn't going anywhere near the same extremes as Artorius. Her actions revolved around wanting revenge against him, not directly wanting to cause harm to everyone else. (She says that she has no issue harming others, and sure, the amount of lives that she'd have disrupted, would agree with that, but most of the people she actively hurts are shown to be working with the Abbey, so kind of ends up justified, even in-game.)
Meanwhile, Artorius wants to suppress all of humanity, and take away all their feelings. No suffering, sure, but also no happiness. No hatred, but no joy, and no love. He is willing to take away all the bad, but at the cost of all the good. What makes matters worse with Artorius is that he knows it's wrong, too.
The amount of malevolence and despair he produces shows he knew from the start that it was wrong, and that he was doing something bad. Unlike Velvet, he denies this, too. Unlike Velvet, he continues to pretend that he's doing the right thing (whereas if he truly believed he was doing the right thing, like Melchior, he wouldn't produce any malevolence).
This isn't to say Artorius is wholly evil, either. He's not an inherently evil person, but he definitely isn't a good person, and is wholeheartedly a hypocrite. He, like everyone else, is a flawed person. It's understandable why he'd feel the way he does, and that the betrayal that he's faced from people (which led to Celica and her unborn child's own deaths) led him on the path he inevitably takes, but I don't think the game ever expects you to sympathise with him anywhere near as much as you are with Velvet.
She even tells Laphicet (Malak #2) to back off and know that she's a monster and a being that she despises so much.
When she tells Laphicet this, though, it's clear that this stems from Velvet's own hatred of herself. She was forced to be something that she didn't want to be, and her comments on this feel far more rooted in the image she's built up for herself, and what the majority of Desolation sees daemons like herself as, and how she was raised to view daemons as.
I don't think it necessarily has anything to do with her character being a bad person, especially when you consider the point of her saying this is also to protect Laphicet. She was caught off guard after having a nightmare, and hurt Laphicet because she'd been having a nightmare, and hadn't registered it was him in the first place.
Telling him that he knows she's a daemon isn't even to really say she's a bad person. Actually, the opposite, it's her trying to be a good person, (albeit in a flawed approach) by trying to protect him. |
