Talk:A Crack in the Slab/@comment-36170398-20180712204232/@comment-1500935-20180717081215

I think the idea behind corruption is that it's never perceived immediately. This is even more true with dictatorship like the Duke's. For any foreigner, Karnaca is "the Jewel of the South", a vibrant cultural metropolis, the promise of wealth for anyone with the will for it, etc... Stilton illustrates this well: a lowly Morleyan miner who struck rich and became a mine baron, now rubbing elbows with the city's elite. The harsh reality though: the mines are running dry, forests are being destroyed for illegal export, movements are restricted by the Grand Guard who hardly deal with the bloodfly infestation. Compare this to the reality in USSR and the image it gave off through its propaganda.

Also the issue with dictatorship is that people can never leave easily. To do so, they may have to leave behind family, friends, personal wealth and confort, all that could be threatened in their absence. Because of that, people are reluctantly compliant with the situation.

So in the end, it can appear less severe, but it's all in appearance only. That-s whate makes dictatorship like these difficult to topple.

About Ramsey. While I don't like that stupid brute either, he was still a man of the Watch with respect from his men. He was no mastermind, but was advised by people mastering the arts of deception. All they needed for the coup was to order the shifts in and around Dunwall Tower to keep enough men loyal to their cause with them and keep everyone else out of the place. Then it was easy to play on the confusion and the 3 years long smear campaign against Emily to convince people Delilah was right.

About Corvo, I think the first comics were a rehearsal of the coup. Blind the Protector/Spymaster to strike at the Empire's heart. I don't even think he found out about that witch behind his own assassination attempt. He seemed more organised and cunning in the novel, but he wasn't up against people using politics, money and the people's opinion to attack the Empire. Zhukov didn't even care acting in front of everyone as long as he could craft his mirror.