I feel like the fallout of the events of her paralogue are something I’m going to come back to a lot when I write about Ingrid, because I feel like it must have been such a defining (on top of traumatizing) moment in her life.

Like, by this point in time, I feel like most of the fandom knows about what happened to Hanneman’s sister: she had no Crest of her own, but since she came from a family with a bunch of people with Crests in it, people saw “potential” in her, and her husband got her pregnant over and over again, with no regard for her well-being, until she died, with the strong implication that her repeated pregnancies had weakened her health to a dire extent. This is probably not the only such time something has happened in Fódlan, and gives us a potentially quite grim insight into the level of bodily and reproductive autonomy married noblewomen have in the Empire, if not the whole of the continent. I don’t think I need to tell any of you how fraught an issue those two things have been in our own world—most of us know how difficult it is for any woman, even in this day and age, to achieve true reproductive autonomy with the powers that be convinced that it’s their God-given right to interfere with women’s reproductive affairs, and I think most of us know something of how ill-understood the concept of marital rape is by a lot of people. It’s not too hard to imagine that Fódlan is a place where women, especially married women, especially married noblewomen whose reproductive affairs are also dynastic affairs, have very little reproductive autonomy. It’s easy to imagine that in Fódlan, if you are a woman, especially a noblewoman, your reproductive decisions are being made for you by other people, primarily by men—first, by your father or by whatever relative has guardianship over you, then, by your husband, and only if you outlive your husband and you yourself aren’t still able to bear children when he dies are the odds of your being able to make your own reproductive choices in your favor.

And even before the events of Ingrid’s paralogue, I have no doubt that she’s aware of all of this. She doesn’t come off as having been especially sheltered, and certainly doesn’t come off as being especially happy with the fact that her primary value to her noble house is as a marriage pawn. I’ve no doubt that she felt the unease that comes with the dissonance between what she wants for herself and what her family and society expect of her.

But then comes along her paralogue and this scumbag, and everything changes. Ingrid has a brush with kidnapping, a brush with forced marriage, a brush with a life of domestic abuse, of being raped repeatedly and indefinitely, of being used as a broodmare until either she can’t bear children any longer, or until she just dies. That’s what he wanted her for, after all—Ingrid surmises that he wants her Crest for his bloodline, and there aren’t too many ways that the layperson is going to get a Crest that isn’t already part of their bloodline into their bloodline.

We have the example of Hanneman’s sister (it would be really nice if the game had given the poor woman a name) to tell us what happens to women when people want them for Crests they bear, or Crests they can potentially pass on to their children. And going back further, the Elites won their Crests through an act of bodily violation. I would hardly call it a stretch to assume that we can see that theme perpetuated throughout the generations that follow them, if ever we get any insight into those generations—Crests won for a bloodline through further acts of violation.

This happens, and it changes Ingrid. She always knew on an intellectual level what the men pressing for her hand wanted from her, but now, it all solidifies. It’s all too real, that in the eyes of so many, she’s not a person nearly so much as she’s an empty vessel for other people’s desires, a vehicle for other people’s rise in power and prestige. She’s forced to see herself distorted through the dehumanizing lens of those who consider her only as an object, possession of which can benefit them. You think the experience didn’t traumatize her? You think something like this wouldn’t change her?

And her father, too…

I think of Ingrid and her father, and what springs most clearly to mind is nine-year-old Arya Stark asking her father if she can be a king’s councilor and build castles and be the High Septon, and Ned telling her that she will marry a king and that her sons will be knights and lords and maybe the High Septon. I think of Ned employing Syrio Forel to teach his nine-year-old daughter swordplay not because he’s had a turnaround and now supports her desire to be something other than what society demands, but because he is indulging what he considers a childish whim that she will no doubt outgrow. And don’t get me wrong, Ned Stark is not a bad father; in terms of fathers in ASOIAF of whom we know anything at all, he’s easily one of the best. But while he is a loving father, his views of what his daughters can be is ultimately very conventional for the culture he inhabits, and very restrictive.

This is how I view Count Galatea, as well. He lets his daughter train as a warrior not because he is especially supportive of her desire to be a knight, but because he either considers it a whim she’ll outgrow, or because the harsh life enjoyed by the people of Faerghus means that even married noblewomen who would normally never be out on the battlefield may have occasion to defend themselves often enough that Count Galatea thinks that his daughter will need to be able to defend herself as a married noblewoman. His vision for Ingrid is not that of a knight serving her liege lord. His vision for Ingrid is of her becoming wife to a man who will make their family rich, and mother to that man’s children. Very conventional for the culture they inhabit, and very restrictive.

And speaking of money, I think Count Galatea let visions of it blind him to what should have been glaringly obvious. Because if a bunch of teenaged sleuths and their twenty-one-year-old professor can uncover compelling evidence of Ingrid’s would-be suitor’s wrongdoings over the course of a single weekend, I think that Count Galatea could easily have unearthed that evidence himself while he was vetting this suitor, as is his duty as Ingrid’s father in the culture he inhabits. And he didn’t, pretty clearly because the amount of money he was offered for her hand in marriage banished all such concerns from his mind.

I doubt he’s proud of it. What Ingrid tells us of her father’s reaction in the closing cutscene of her paralogue suggests that he’s just as mortified as he is horrified over what occurred at Ailell. But Ingrid now has to live with the fact that she nearly wound up married to a complete scumbag who also happens to be a Schrödinger’s Rapist because her dad got distracted by all the money this guy waved under his nose. And no matter just how badly House Galatea needs a fresh influx of cash in order to survive, that has to sting. It really has to sting, being reminded in such a stark fashion just how much your father arranging potential marriages for you really is you being sold off to the highest bidder like a cow at market, and that your dad isn’t always thinking too hard about what that bidder will do with you once he has you.

And now Ingrid has to live with it. After all of this, I doubt she’ll be able to look at her father quite the same way as she did before, ever again. There’s always going to be that slight hitch in her confidence, in her trust in him, because while she’s always known on some level that most of the men vying for her hand in marriage regard her more as an object by which they will attain greater power and prestige, now she’s wondering if maybe, on some level, her father doesn’t regard her the same way.