#didnothingwrong

[snowxtargaryen-blog]

Sam being so quick to judge Daenerys without any idea who she is or what shes done. 

[mysticdragon3md3]

I don’t know Edelgard, but I’ve seen this argument before

So I just heard from Thorgi's top character countdown that people love Edelgard because she wanted to break down a whole system that was unjust, in order to protect people. And that's fine. I didn't watch playthroughs of her story route, but sounds like the same type of thing I loved about Code Geass.  Cool.  But if people are defending her by titling their arguments "Edelgard did nothing wrong", I'm going to have to take offense at that.  No one can be alive without hurting or killing something else to survive.  That's what eating is.  The only way to justify killing something else to survive, is to make your survival/existence worth it.  The only way to justify killing someone else in a war is to accept that the thing (people, ideals) you want to protect, are worth taking those lives.  (At least by samurai anime logic.)  But you accept that what you have done is a sin, evil, not "right" in and of itself, that in a perfect world, would not have been something that needed to be done.  You can't maintain the dignity of "committing evils to prevent greater evils" as Lelouch said, without fully accepting that you have conceded to doing evil.  Because the alternative is to try to say you "did nothing wrong", and that is a slippery slope that only marks certain things as evil/good whenever convenient for only your own individual purposes, and slowly erodes one's sense of empathy.  Now that's a true evil.  That type of subjective, self-centered thinking is what leads to those "greater evil" systems that must be broken down by the means of "lesser evils" (which are presumably a lesser level of subjective self-centeredness). People get hurt in war.  That's an absolute.  And trying to nullify that fact by saying those pains suffered by civilians/soldiers/enemies/people were negligible or "didn't count", leads to evils that invalidate the sacrifices from deciding to go to war, in order to stop greater evils. If something is so worth protecting that you have to hurt something/someone else to protect it, then take pride in that thing you’re protecting being WORTH it, but also don’t diminish your pride in deciding something was worth protecting, even at the expense of others, by deluding yourself into thinking that sacrifice wasn’t even a sacrifice.  If she's so sure that what she's doing is "right", and will dispel a greater evil, then I'm sure Edelgard is taking pride in what she is doing, by recognizing her methods are not kind, by not turning blind to the faults in her own methods, and by preserving her empathy by not deluding herself into thinking she "did nothing wrong".  

I know that "[this character] did nothing wrong" is a meme and people just wanted to use it as a shorthand to title their arguments...  But that notion that someone committing evil to stop greater evils, without maintaining the empathy/Compassion to recognize they are still committing evils, even for a good cause, is just really offensive to me.  I dunno...Maybe I watched too many samurai and martial arts anime.  ~.~;  

[mysticdragon3md3]

Utilitarianism in Anime by  Anime Philosopher

The only reason I love Lelouch—while I just don’t really feel anything about Kyubey (though I do disagree with his actions; I mean, the fact that girls’ emotions produce the energy to save the universe is quantifiable proof that their suffering has meaning and shouldn’t be discounted as valueless…Or was it that Kyubey recognized it had value, but was outweighed by their need to save the universe from entropy?), and I haven’t seen Berserk—is because I really believe Lelouch’s personality is rooted in Compassion.  And Compassion is my favorite ideal.  Though I didn’t mean to, I’ve found that I adhere to CLAMP’s X’s idea that if there’s a reason that anything is wrong, it’s “because someone will cry”.  

There’s really a sense by the end of Code Geass that if there were better alternatives or if Lelouch wasn’t pushed into impossible corners, he wouldn’t have disregarded people so discompassionately.  Though admittedly, he had to progress through the series to reach a wide level of concern for others’ suffering.  Certainly, at the beginning, the range of people he was concerned with was small, and he disregarded people’s lives too easily.  But I think he always had that core value of Compassion, in order to evolve towards the conclusion that disregarding people is wrong and that what he did was wrong. He just needed to grow and expand his sphere of awareness to eventually properly express what he truly felt and who he really was inside: Compassion.  …Unfortunately all the mistakes he made along the way towards that lesson were irreversible mistakes and utterly horrifying.  And by that time his range of compassion was worldwide, he was already forced into an impossible corner where he could not stop being malicious.  

So I love Leouch. But he didn’t “do nothing wrong”.  He did everything wrong.  And I think that was the point.  Because he also _realized_ he did so many things wrong.  He could _feel_ that what he did was wrong. And that was the check/balance that gave the sense that he didn’t want to do those wrongs and that going forward, we could have faith in him to try to avert from doing more wrong.  Even though it was often unavoidable for him or sometimes he’d give into his more vicious emotions, his characterization had established belief in him to try to do “right”, what was Compassionate, keep malice to a minimal, etc.  And really, isn’t that what we all try to do?  Anything that lives, can relate, because being alive inherently hurts or kills another form of life.  Similarly and in addition, Lelouch made mistakes, going against his own morality/values.  But he couldn’t take anything back and could only move forward.  He did the best with what he could, while being repeatedly forced more into corners.  It’s very easy to identify with Lelouch’s journey from “selfish power fantasy indifferent to others’ deaths” to “trying to do the best to align with and no longer deny his personal core morals of Compassion, while reconciling with his past mistakes and future unavoidable sins”.  Lelouch is admirable, because as he uncovered more of his true core value(s), eventually stopped denying them (his Compassion), he increased his efforts to align with it, regardless of the cost, even to his mortality.  

I once had a conversation when my brother finished Code Geass, because he was upset that the series didn’t end with Lelouch ruling the world.  He wanted the “power fantasy”.  He wanted Geass to bring Lelouch everything.  But I contended that the point of the series was that Geass is wrong.  It made Lelouch lose everything, major things important to him.  Power fantasies are fun to temporarily blow off steam, but realistically, they should be recognized as something horrifying to take fully to completion.  And it’s nice that at least one series subverted the “power fantasy” subgenre after portraying itself as another “power fantasy” for its majority.  Lelouch had to make all the mistakes of Power, in order to learn how cruel it could be, and that it needed to be tempered.  And to show us in the audience why it was wrong.  He had to interact with his own personal morals in order to find them.  Maybe if Lelouch hadn’t made all those mistakes, killing people with Geass, he wouldn’t have realized his final goal (to create a world where everyone could make their own decisions for their own happiness themselves and where freedom to pursue individual happiness would be protected)?  Who knows?  But I think it was very important that Lelouch demonstrated the flaws of the “power fantasy” and did not end the series with absolute rule over the world for all time, as if the methods of “power fantasy” were not to be questioned.  Code Geass seemed very interested in questioning “power fantasy”.  

[mysticdragon3md3]

TL;DR: It's okay to like the morally gray character for the Power Fantasy, Revenge Fantasy, self-indulgence, "guilty pleasure" story, or angsty tragic melodrama. I promise, it's okay that they didn't "do nothing wrong". (In fact, a lot of their endearment can be that they did so much wrong.) We don't need to bleach the gray out of morally gray characters.

I'm pretty sure starting a war is a factual thing she did. "Condemning them for shit they didn't do" sounds like the opinion of the same people who "think they [El] never did anything wrong and get angry if you suggest otherwise". That's just a strawman of the people with actual, legitimate disagreements with her.

Thinking the war was necessary is a lack of imagination or a lack of Strength to do the hard work of negotiation, empathy, compromise, and persuasion, even towards antagonistic parties.

"All war represents a failure of diplomacy." ---Tony Benn

Though I will admit, I believe "imagination" also includes fighting with violence, in ways that don't cost hundreds of soldiers' lives, risking civilian bystanders, nor destroying the land resources civilians need to live, through war. Such as assassination. Or as FE3H reminds us through Claude, poisonings, deception, subterfuge, etc. Diplomacy is preferable, but if a situation comes down to dire constraints, there are other methods besides war.

"The greatest victory is that which requires no battle.” ---Sun Tzu

Also, it's okay to like a character for being morally gray or even bad. I love Lelouch vi Britannia from Code Geass, because that series is a self-indulgent, guilty pleasure, revenge fantasy. It's okay to like El for tragically going to unnecessary extremes in her fictional fantasy world. But don't act like that's not what's happening.

Again, acting like a character "did nothing wrong" feels like a negation of their Compassion, because it negates the character's ability to recognize their regrets, mistakes, and their wish that they weren't (tragically misperceiving as being so) forced into cruel actions with seemingly no other options. I feel insulted when people say Lelouch "did nothing wrong". And El stans should be insulted if someone says she "did nothing wrong". Sympathizable morally gray characters KNOW they did wrong---That's the proof of them still having a HEART and good intentions! That's what makes their angst so tragic! And if we're not into a melodrama for the tragic angst, then we're missing out. (I was going to say "then I don't know what we're here for", but I do: Power Fantasy. And that's okay.)

[sora-technically-died]

Reading Through Berzerk Again Cause Less Soul Is Best Soul

[automatic24]

It's all G

Still got people who love me

[deniserenee24]

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Thank you #VictorDixon for telling Pence what he needs to know. Proud!!👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼🙌🏼🙌🏼 #HAMILTON #VICTORDIXON #DIDNOTHINGWRONG #HETOLDTHETRUTH

[campuslately]

😍😍 we just all trying to make!! #didnothingwrong #collegelife #hbculife