Subpages cleanup: Complete Monster

Any help with the remaining issues for VG Monsters? When I ORIGINALLY went through it, I didn't realize how much there was still to be done...

OK, in no particular order:

• Flying Fox: IIRC there isn't more detail than that - it's already a really short game, and he doesn't get all that much screen time in it, but he does demonstrate approximately zero redeeming qualities from what I remember. Also - does it count as Offscreen Villainy if the villain is the one gloating about it?
• Rewriting. Also, it's questionable whether Practical actually qualifies, since First is acknowledged as having done something so horrible that it would take an immortal life to atone for it... but he then realized that and tried to make himself immortal in order to atone. So there's a question of relative heinousness here.
  • Planescape: Torment: The Practical Incarnation has a personal agenda, doesn't care what he has to do to fulfill it, and shows no remorse whatsoever. Bully people? He'll do that, no problem. Deceive someone in order to make them an indentured servant? You bet. Pretend to love someone for years with the express intention of betraying them immediately before they die, all so that their ghost will continue to be of use to him? Easy. The Practical Incarnation displays absolutely no trace of any moral considerations aside from his own benefit.

A poster in the One Piece thread, Wanderlustwarrior, has made an argument for the removal of Admiral Akainu and requested I bring it here. I don't agree with all of his points, but I think the "it's all in how you spin it" argument is sound; from a non-pirate centered morality lens, is he really objectively all that much worse than guys like Kuro or Krieg, apart from having greater resources?

EDIT: WLW has also now requested some of us come to the OP thread to discuss him.

edited 31st Mar '14 10:00:46 AM by HamburgerTime

A troper named J Dogindy put up an entry on the YMMV tab for Gundam Build Fighters:

• Complete Monster: Nine Barthes is a unique example of what constitutes a monster in Gundam canon and also of circumstance. He's not a Blood Knight who views war as nothing but a legal excuse to murder people, nor is a maniacal egotist who seeks ultimate power just to throw his weight around. However, the fact that he is responsible for creating the Embody System which, in his own words, turns the afflicted into "a demon that exists purely for victory" makes him revolting as it is. Bear in mind that Gunpla battles are usually reserved for those who want to have fun or achieve glory and the series has a general lighthearted theme, yet whenever he appears, the moment genuinely gets darker and more ominous. The fact that he didn't give a damn about the well being about whoever is afflicted, even threatening to kick Aila, an orphan, mind you, to the curb if she didn't comply with him, earned him a well-deserved spot as the show's Scrappy. And what was Nine's motivation for willingly mind raping people? Money, plain and simple.

I've watched the series and it might be worth further investigating Nine Barthes. Any initial thoughts before I cook up an effortpost on the full extent of his crimes?

edited 31st Mar '14 10:00:05 AM by sanfranman91

It sounds like he may possibly count.

with the Practical...he has no heinousness issues. We don't even know what the original Nameless One did...or why it was unforgivable. It could have been something terrible in line with the metaphysics, but the Practical has hurt tons of people and arranged a lot of terrible things. The original Nameless One was a borderline deity, while the Practical is way weaker.

I'll check out the Akainu argument, but it's their job to bring it here...and it's getting really tiring to go over the same points constantly with this guy.

it was requested someone from here go there so more OP fans who don't frequent this thread have a say.

The way you get a say is you come to this thread. They can easily do that if they want a say.

But this is seriously starting to verge on rehashing points again and again. And yes, Akainu is way worse than Kuro and Krieg by virtue of having a far, far, far higher bodycount from Ohara alone.

I think WLW makes a good point that nine times out of ten, the pirates are the bad guys. Luffy's crew are the exception, not the rule, but since we experience the story through them, the WG antagonists seem worse than the pirate antagonists.

We've been over this point before. Tell me when the pirates decide to murder tons of pregnant woman due to loose suspected association with a criminal.

Akainu has never once been shown to act out of altruism or a drive to protect someone. Never. And bad pirates have been seen constantly. It doesn't make him nicer.

So you think he doesn't believe in keeping peace by any means necessary and is just a sadist? I find that contrary to a lot of what we've seen of him, including his speech to himself (no reason to lie) at Ohara.

23464: Offscreen Villainy is villainy that's offscreen. Gloating about something doesn't make it onscreen. Now, if we SEE the action AND the villain gloats, that might help qualify him.

I've said this before as well: I think he's a crazy authoritarian. We don't think much about putting evil anarchists on the list, authoritarians are just the other side of the coin.

As a reminder, Offscreen Villainy does not occur if we see the effects of the actions on-screen, even if we don't see the actions themselves. We don't need to witness the villain slaughtering everyone in a town if we see him gloating over their corpses, or are treated to a Gory Discretion Shot. Offscreen Villainy is a subset of Informed Attribute where we are told, "Yeah, that thing happened," but we never see anything to corroborate it one way or the other.

edited 31st Mar '14 11:47:54 AM by Fighteer

And about the massacring pregnant women thing, Akainu seemed to be far from the only character okay with that. Sengoku was implied to have given the order, and Garp, Smoker, Hina, and other more sympathetic Marines didn't even budge when the story was told and continued fighting for the Navy in the battle, so they seemingly deemed it the lesser evil, as well. Kuzan, perhaps the nicest sailor seen thus far, was totally on board with massacring the scholars, though not the civilians. Then there's all the civilians who seem okay with whatever the government does. Akainu may be the attack dog, but he seems far from the only person complicit in crimes like this.

Any troper that wants to be a part of this thread, for any reason, should come here themselves.

But he's easily the worst yet and the most extreme. Almost every other has shown some degree of sanity and restraint. Sengoku was horrified when he discovered the government was concealing the Impel Down escape and putting people in danger. Akainu took the job opening. that means quite a bit.

I PM'd WLW about his presence being requested so he should come in here in a bit. The last thing I'll say is that I don't think any of the people I listed off deserve to be on the list. They've all drunk the WG's kool-aid. The Five Elders, as the ones distributing said kool-aid, I think would be much better candidates once we learn about them.

edited 31st Mar '14 11:47:05 AM by HamburgerTime

An issue for me is Akainu isn't so much drinking it as serving it up with a healthy dose of "rule by fear" attached. I've been over how I see him before: a violent authoritarian devoted to order for its own sake, but to the point where 'order' is hardly a good thing.

I'm reminded of Roose Bolton's maxim: a quiet land, a quiet people. Now, you were surely right about Obito and how that turned out, but with Akainu, the consensus has been "yes for now, wait and see for later," like with Aizen and Orochimaru. Maybe Yhwach as well.

On Yhwach, I think it's worth pointing out any supposed care for subordintes is only so he can devour their souls later. Just ask Royd Lloyd

edited 31st Mar '14 11:48:39 AM by Lightysnake

Are the people really scared of Akainu, or any WG employee? There were some scenes of civilians reacting to the war starting, and it was Whitebeard who seemed to be The Dreaded, I'd imagine due to the aforementioned ingestion of kool-aid.

I don't think propaganda induced reactions are to be listened to overmuch. People who actually know Akainu and Whitebeard, well...

Flying Fox doesn't seem heinous enough...driving someone insane and gloating about a murder?

I have been summoned to appear before the grand jury, correct?

For starters, I will respond to the text of Akainu's inclusion on the One Piece page for Complete Monster.

• The whole reason he and others were at Ohara was to remove the evidence of something that could destabilize centuries of world politics. He was actually right, but missed the actual target.
• "Brutally murders" can also be read as "executed military deserters in a time of war when they knew their mission entailed the fate of the future"
• Coby - not only a possible deserter, but an outright seditious one going against direct orders
• The government wanted Akainu to have the position, but Aokiji challenged him because of their personally conflicting views. After their rough but fairly even fight, Akainu won and let Aokiji leave, because their history and conflict didn't merit killing

It's all a matter of spin. We happen to be viewing this series from a lens of Protagonist-Centered Morality. However, this series has also taken care to show that the protagonists do not identify as heroes, and that the general populace has great reason to be afraid of the average pirate, and supports the World Government and the Marines.

Applying the same standards above, wouldn't every government employee who isn't a deserter be a Complete Monster? What of all the citizens who for centuries have enabled, supported, and benefitted this system?

On the latter, this series has plenty of people killing for fun. I'd say his actions against Coby and the deserters are definitely eclipsed. That just leaves coming to blows with a friend who challenged him, which hardly qualifies for Complete Monster.

Finally, I will end by responding to previous posts on the matter:

• I didn't mean to discuss against me, but to discuss with people who are also familiar with the series, so it's not just one person on any side, and we can discuss on the merits.
• @Lightysnake: I hate to sound juvenile, but you're the one rehashing points. Also, "he's worse because he has a bigger bodycount" is in no way a legitimate rationale when it is actually in his job description to attack criminals, and he gets promoted for it, as compared to selfish pirates, in the literal sense of the term.
  • In addition, clearly we can't tell you cases of pirates doing exactly what the world government did, because by virtue of the story, the world government (and not Akainu as an individual) was motivated to do such an action. However, I can point out cases of a world of civilians and pirates wishing death on a child solely because of his association with a pirate. Practically everyone wanted Ace dead, just because he was his father's son. That is the kind of world this series is. Hamburger Time has already pointed this out.
• @Lightysnake: Yeah, well, that's like, your opinion, man. However, on the terms of this thread's first post, his qualification is debatable at best.
• @Lightysnake: In addition to Akainu's involvement not being actually shown, I'd like to discuss the "job opening". Akainu was nominated by his superiors. Aokiji was nominated by the person who turned down the job (for several reasons, not just that one). You're clearly oversimplifying.
• @Lightyflame: has there been a single occasion on which Akainu has "ruled by fear"? What has he actually done to someone who wasn't actively committing a crime (besides the non-archaeologists who were collateral to people found to be committing a crime)?
• @Lightyflame: Just because others are more reasonable doesn't make him a complete monster. Also, you can't just apply "wait and see" to assume he did something monstrous.

In summation:
Until we are shown something to the contrary, literally every act of violence or other disapproved action shown by Akainu has been in the capacity of his job as a Marine, with the aim of stopping criminals and/or threats to world security. Outside of that, he has canonically been appreciated and affirmed by others in the military, refrained from violent action in instances such as recovering the pirate Jewelry Bonney, Wwas found still able to be reasoned with by his Lawful Good counterpart Aokiji/Kuzan, and reformed the workings of the government to better respond to the global threat of piracy. No, he isn't portrayed as a hero. However, simply because someone is not "good" doesn't make them a Complete Monster. I should think there are standards to be held.

edited 31st Mar '14 1:29:14 PM by wanderlustwarrior

On the GBF example, I don't think Nine counts. He's unpleasant by the standards of the show, sure, but that seems to be very much because it's such a light, optimistic story. His rapsheet basically amounts to being an abusive surrogate parent and subjecting two teenagers to dangerous experiments for cash - by the standards of the Gundam franchise, he's incredibly small fry. The way the show treats him seems to back that up as well - he gets beaten up by Alan, a minor character, when he tries to get in the guy's way, but that's about it. Not only that, but whilst it doesn't stop him, he shows clear unease and hesitation a couple of times when asked to take off his Embody System's limiters (which can potentially cause permanent damage to the wearer), which violates our 'no remorse' criterion.

Sorry, but if you compare him to, say, Gym Ghingnham, a CM from another light, optimistic Gundam show, then he just doesn't compare.

I know I discussed about Nine's mitigating factors with you earlier in the month. After giving it some thought here are my conclusions:

1. Nine's concern is not about his subjects' well-being. Rather, the only reason why he expresses concern for his subjects at all is for their ability to keep on delivering the goods for him and the institute. He admits in Episode 21 that he places himself and his Embody System before his subjects' well-being and clearly states to Aila that he has no trouble kicking her out to the streets if she refuses to comply with his demands.

2. He's not really a "small fry" within GBF. While he certainly received less screen time than even Allan, he is still the head of the Flana Institute and a major partner for Team Nemesis (later with PPSE).

3. CMs should be judged by individual works, not by entire franchises. As such, he would definitely clear GBF's heinousness standard (though I admit that its standards are difficult to define, since Episode 23 and Word of God pretty much admits that the series is the afterlife to all things Gundam).

3. Part of the reason why I brought him up is because I was wondering if his number of onscreen crimes would be enough for him to be brought to consideration on this forum. However, the amount of damage he did to Yuuki and Aila might be enough to make up for it.

I got a feeling this is gonna be Xaviax all over again (in other words, a character that could really go either way)...

Flying Fox is a for Offscreen Villainy. I'll abstain on Akainu.