Read, reblog, and resonate!
Did you actively design Cresce and Alderode to be opposites of each other or did they sort of evolve that way as you were writing the comic?
They were designed to be foils. Can’t have a story without conflict! However I didn’t design one to be markedly or obviously “better” or more just than the other. They both have their problems. I’m not extraordinarily interested in the fight between them, because neither are ideologically pure. You can’t honestly cheer for either side. If you DO, that’s fine, but there is plenty of space and reason to dislike them both.
I’m more interested in the citizens of each place and how they deal with each other on an individual level, and how people in general are able to live in a world where no one is ideologically pure; where almost all institutions are self-serving and wicked. That’s a big theme in Unsounded. All group endeavours are rotten, or become rotten. Trust individuals, but never institutions.
This will all carry through to Alderode. There is no “right” caste. There is no “right” religion between the Ssaelit and Gefendur. There are good people, good intentions, and good days all carried along by a river of time and entropy. That’s life.