Quote from Zeo;405157:
Chapter 4 may be filler; yes. But the storyline ties with G12, and I think it's interesting. Plus we will see Cichol in G15, as the rumors there is going on.
Imo, Chapter 4 have best storylines I've seen so far.
The thing about filler is that it's designed to tie into the material but should be perfectly capable of being detached from the material without ripping a huge hole in the actual story. It tends to lodge itself into things the story has covered that it has a high chance of not contradicting later. Since all traces of the Parthalonians seem to be wiped out currently, implementing a chapter that revolves around a person whose crimes involved helping the Parthalonians is something that probably won't have any impact on the actual meat of the story. And since the people making the filler are the actual game designers (who are making the actual story), the only way that this chapter could have impact on anything beyond itself would be if the chapter is actually not filler. Besides, Morrighan and Cichol's appearance doesn't automatically validate this as Mabi-canon.
-Morrighan doing or having done suspicious things? Check.
-Cichol doing suspicious things but being up front about the fact that he's doing them? Check.
-Cichol calling Morrighan out on the suspicious things she's doing because she's clearly hiding them? Check.
All three of those things have been covered in chapters 1 and 3, so this chapter is merely echoing them. Padding? Yes. Integral? Not necessarily. I will say that this chapter's filler is interesting, but I certainly wouldn't call it the best story thus far, especially when most of the chapter was a retelling of another story framed around the ideas that 1)The gods imprisoned Shakespeare and 2)Shakespeare's trying to complete something he'd been trying to complete for a long time. Even Generation 8 had more to its framework than two major points. On that note, even Generation 2.