A rule can be intended to prevent more than one thing, for example, a realm which has largely lost a war moving its remaining territories as much as possible into a third realm to prevent there enemy gaining there lands, realms merging into super powers certainly has its issues in the game however, setting precedent that upon defeat realms can dive for cover in a neutral realm allowing players to keep titles and such forth sets a terrible precedent which damages the game immensely. Claiming the "spirit" of a rule like this is bull!@#$ and limits the restrictions that a very good intelligent rule places on the game
Tom has never been a fan of maintaining an exhaustive list of rules and technicalities, therefore quite a few of them require interpreting in any given situation since they tend to be fairly non-specific. That is largely our function, and also one reason why these cases are public, so that we get the opinion of the community and everyone can see our reasoning.
Why do you think a Not Guilty verdict in this situation would be bad for the game? This is far from the first time this has happened. One example that I encountered a few years ago was a number of Caerwynian regions (including, I think, the city of Via) joining Asylon once their defeat at Astrum's hands became inevitable. I'm sure other people could come up with additional examples. It's not a common occurrence because it usually only comes about when a realm is effectively destroyed; not an every day occurrence.
