deliverusfromsburb:

I like that Lan Fan is the one who brings up sparing the other clans, because she’s the one who lost the most to this conflict (who’s still alive, anyway. Fu’s dead and can’t ask favors. Lan Fan lost her grandfather, we don’t hear anything about her parents so we can assume they died in the line of duty since it’s stated their whole family has been serving the clan, and ofc she cut off her arm and went through painful surgery). Compared to her, Ling almost coasted into success – in most cases being possessed for five months would be a harrowing ordeal, but it worked out for him, and if anything he seemed most upset about getting un-possessed. 

She’s the one who secured their clan’s victory… by being in the right place at the right time to pick up a vial, not because they did anything better. It might be different if she’d accomplished some feat to ‘earn’ it, but she just took it out of the pocket of a dead man. It’s hard to feel like your clan is superior or the process is fair when you ‘win’ like that. 

Plus, in her role, she’s been on the front lines of dealing damage in this fight too. She was so deeply embedded in the rivalry mindset she was willing to murder a 10-year-old. Knox told her about Ishval, and she’s just lived through a coup where most of the soldiers fighting each other didn’t even know the real reason why. The battle for the throne is mostly cast as a competition between the heirs of each clan, but it’s the regular people like her and her family who are going to suffer most. So it makes sense for someone who’s not one of the heirs to make that request, to set up a dynamic of the ruler actually listening to the people rather than making decrees and forcing them to live with it.

Bradley’s taunting might also have prompted her to speak her mind, but anyway, at least if he gets too cocky she can take off her arm and whack him with it.