@soaring-turtle-jet replied to your post “i’ll physically fight anyone who says soo-won is evil”
Evil is a matter of perspective. He's done enough to be labeled as such by most people.
are u ready for some PHILOSOPHY??? (side note: we’re talking mostly ethics, so when i use the word “just”, most of the time it has to do with justice)
Keep in mind that I’ve only seen the anime, so that’s what I’ll be drawing from for this.
It annoys me when people say Soo-Won is evil, and Yona is not. Yona and Soo-Won are actually shown to be ethically similar (most clearly in the last episode). Soo-Won is shamed the entire anime for killing king Il. But, when we look at his reasoning behind it, it is quite understandable. I’m not talking about the revenge for his father (and I’m not even sure it was revenge, really). I’m talking about his vision for the country. Soo-Won saw that king Il was a disaster for the people, and that Il also had a degree of evil within him - shown to him by two facts:
The killing of Soo-Won’s father
The king’s egoism: he valued his own (pacifist) principles and didn’t care for the harm it caused others; he let corruption run wild because it didn’t harm himself
So what happens is that Soo-Won kills an evil man, and then takes over the country to make it better for the people. In his eyes, his actions are just.
This is interesting, because let’s remember what Yona did. She killed Yan Kumji. She too, thought of it as just. Just killing. To make life better for the people.
This draws a parallel between Soo-Won and Yona: they both killed a person because they thought it best for the world and its people. And for both goes that their choice is very much defensible.
Especially when you look at what happens afterwards. Yona continues to do what she believes is right, and so does Soo-Won. Whatever you say, Soo-Won is a great king for the country and its people.
There are too many parallels to be drawn between Yona and Soo-Won to be able to say that Soo-Won is evil, and Yona is an angel. I also think that saying that is a little disrespectful to Mizuho Kusanagi, because I see the amount of work and thinking she put into the ethical aspect of Akatsuki no Yona, and half of the fandom just overlooks it.
so anyway. i’ll physically fight anyone who says soo-won is evil.
