You confuse ESA with Lurian.
And I wouldn't sign on to be a puppet of Arnor either. That'd just turn the North into another Atamara, something I'm amazed you guys have failed to learn after Morek Empire fell apart.
And Arnor somehow gets a pass because it fits with your theory? HD isn't and has never been a Lurian proxy realm. We are a war realm and Luria fit into that narrative. We have chosen to prop up Antiqualia because we desire a diverse north lands of varied kingdoms and cultures. Whats the use of Morek splitting if its to be replaced by another realm that is basically the same?
One of the later offers to Antiqualia which was made was for them to surrender, join Spingdale to Arnor, and then refound themselves as a colony if they wanted to. They wouldn't have to permanently bee some puppet, they just had flat out refused every other (and early on they were pretty reasonable offers considering they got crushed on the field), we just didn't want them to immediately turn around and attack us again while we went fighting on another front because otherwise what the !@#$ would be the point of keeping them alive? Arnor doesn't want complete stagnation in the north and saying we want to turn it into another Atamara is silly.
Antiquallia was given plenty of chances to survive, but it has all the strength, willpower to live and character of a suicidal limp biscuit. Half their members were kicked out, fled, or went inactive and they lack anyone who has the time and energy to run the realm. They were given plenty of chances to keep living but they showed they had the same willpower and strength to live as a limp biscuit.
IC of course helping Antiqualia is perfectly valid reason. If a bit silly but whatever, the war had been boring for weeks since AQ was unable to fight back properly. Though it would have been nice to finish them off.
Personally I have never really thought of HD as a Lurian puppet, they just took advantage of the situation to go to war. On the wrong side :p
