Was Laurence the first Vicar a tragic villain?

I don't think he was really even a villain. We don't know what his involvement with the fishing hamlet was. If he was involved, he was a piece of shit, but if not then everything he did was for the betterment of humanity. It's wonderfully ironic that the miracle elixer god-blood he thought was the gateway to godhood and enlightment turned him into a pitiful, mindless animal in the end.

>>384726059
It depends on how much he had to do with the slaughter at the Fishing Hamlet and how many of the original policies he established at the beginning of the Healing Church. No matter how you slice it Lawrence was a piece of shit. Him and his cult were kidnapping kids to experiment on and ended up turning them into aliens. He purposefully seeded Old Yharnam with old blood until the Beast Scourge broke out so bad that the entire city had to be burnt down. Willam warn them that the old blood was dangerous, but Lawrence was so zeroed in on the idea that the old blood was necessary to evolve that he threw away concepts of safety and Humanity. Now I don't think that the Healing Church was as bad as it is now when Lawrence was in power. But things still sucked under his wing. So I guess I say all of that to say that he kind of had it coming.

>>384726319
Well, he was part of byrgenwerth leadership before leaving to make church, and it was byrgenwerth expedition who had fun in the hamlet

>>384726319
I think his intentions were good but again the road to hell is paved with good intentions. He probably genuinely believed that he was doing good. Or at the very least the ends justify the means. But at the end of the day none of it mattered. The end result of Lawrence's ambition is a city full of monsters and eldritch god aliens that nobody understands and they are tinkering with Humanity for their own Civil War

>>384726769
Yeah but no one knows if Lawrence had anything to do with ordering Maria and Gehrman to the Fishing Hamlet.