Alright, let's convene a War Crimes Tribunal on Ayame.
Glitchytronics said:Also, it kinda bothered me how Mumei (Ayame as well) didn't even seem remotely phased about the fact she just helped massacre an entire city.
Noraf46 said:It was super nice of Ayame to let the group of remorseless murderers on board just because they asked nicely. But I guess since she's also a remorseless murderer there's just some type of bro code there.
Angry_Always said:And yes, choosing to save your friends over thousands of people IS selfishness.
Here are some thoughts on that from an objectivist, a follower of our most popular proponent of selfishness, Ayn Rand: https://www.theobjectivestandard.com/2013/09/spocks-illogic-the-needs-of-the-many-outweigh-the-needs-of-the-few/
Later in the film, when crewman Chekov is in trouble, Spock insists that the crew save him, even at risk of jeopardizing the crew’s vital mission to save Earth and everyone on it. Kirk asks, “Is this the logical thing to do?” Spock answers, “No, but it is the human thing to do.” Although Spock reaffirms his claim that the needs of the many logically outweigh the needs of the few, he suggests that sometimes we must do the “human” thing, not the logical thing, and put the needs of the few (or the one) first.
(...)The reason Kirk was right to help Spock is not that doing so was “human” as against “logical”; rather, he was right to help Spock because, given the immense value that Spock is to Kirk, both as a friend and as a colleague, and given that the mission to help Spock was feasible, helping him was the logical and thus human thing to do.
Another: http://www.ethicssage.com/2015/03/do-the-needs-of-the-many-outweigh-the-needs-of-the-few.html
Humans might argue in rebuttal that Spock had an inalienable right to live and while dying for one’s cause might serve the greater good, it doesn’t justify sacrificing a life.
I feel that Ayame's decision is a hard one even to make armchair judgments about, so I have more of a problem with it being ignored afterward than I have with her having made that choice. It could have been effective if she'd at least been wracked by guilt over it afterward. My apathy in this case is also related to my view of the show as pretty stupid in general. To me human lives feel cheap in the KnK world by this point, because they've repeatedly been thrown away en masse as mere means to the writer's ends.
Olem said:To be fair, there was literally no other choice. Though she wasn't really part of the group's first plans to escape, it was evident that there was no point in attempting to escape by force since more of her people would die like Ikoma's friend did. They were pretty much hostages. It's pretty messed up, yeah, but it was the most sensible thing for her to do if she wanted her and her people to survive. Not like I don't understand what you mean though :v And anyway, this is more about my preferences, tbh. I'd applaud her and her bravery, and how she kept trying to keep order while protecting her people.
The best defense I could think of would be to argue that Biba would have got in one way or another even without Ayame's help. That doesn't exactly absolve her, nor would it save her from the consequences that never came (except for very justifiably having a gun pointed at her). I find it odd that while Ikoma and Mumei got a surprisingly happy ending, Ayame was forced to do this without even being tossed a bone like, say, Biba will kill less people if he's let in than he will if he has to break in. (After the Shogun was dead and the city in his control, what was the point of destroying the rest of the city with Black Smoke Dragonfly Dog Mumei? Just to give Ikoma something to do?)
Topic over, now on to random banter
kamisama751 said:
Baka-Hiru said:
•Wait, since when can the Ayame key work on the Biba train? *It's ayame's train to begin with. Biba's train was rekt by Ikoma
Strange, as I remember the train to Kongokaku is made of the train body from Ayame and train head of Biba. So there is no reason that the Ayame key should fit in.
The train was made of the two trains stuck together, with the Koutetsujou locomotive in the caboose position at the back. It was likely also under power (pushing the train in reverse). They're easy to tell apart - Biba's locomotive is rounded and looks nothing like the Koutetsujou's.
http://koutetsujou-no-kabaneri.wikia.com/wiki/Kokujou
By the way, I'm leaning toward the opinion that the design of the Koutetsujou locomotive is the actual best thing of any kind in this entire show. Damn, I want to make a papercraft of that iron beast and stick it on a model train for lulz.
Laionidas said:ixaa said: She's a close second
Fair enough.
That episode was in fact the highlight of the show for me, and not (only) because of Yukina. It felt much more like an epic ending than the actual finale did.
Ah, Shitori Station... a flash of greatness before Biba's night of nonsense.
Angry_Always said:nDroae said:I'd just like to highlight one thing that deserves more attention: Ayame's little speech to the people of Kongokaku about eliminating "our doubting hearts and minds," which was DESTROYED by her having just betrayed those very same people, directly leading to the deaths of their own wives, children, parents, friends....
Eh, in the end I still like Ayame.
Mumei, too. I can't hold against them that they were written into situations I wish they'd been spared from. (Not that I *sympathize* with Mumei the way the writers intended, but I don't revile her the way many viewers seem to.)
Star Trek conundrum? "The needs of the many...."
Oddly enough, I find it much easier to forgive their mass genocide than to forgive male characters in romance anime who don't treat their women right (I haven't yet encountered a memorable female character who did likewise).
I love this show in the brief moments when it's just Oddball Family On A Train, without the daft villainy and attempts at commentary on human nature.
I am more sympathetic to Mumei as she didn't actually know what she was doing and never intended for anyone to get hurt, Ayame should be smart enough to know what the fuck she was doing but she let it happen anyway and still acts like some kind of moral compass.
Hate that bitch.
Yeah, I expected you'd feel that way about Mumei since you said you loved the show aside from Ayame, just figured I'd mention Mumei as well.
The romance thing... I think I would surmise that the focus of the anime is different, in this the theme is survival and in romance the theme is love and relationships. Thus the evil done in the 'survival' genre can easily be comparable to the 'evil' done in the romance genre.
It depends on what you view as evil. I personally despise pushover main characters who are completely dense to how a girl is feeling unless it is explicitly told to him and I also despise hypocrites who cause the death of thousands. Because the themes are both the major component of either anime, they can be equal in how they make you feel.
Well said. One example I had in mind was the male lead in SDF Macross, which is both a survival anime and a romance anime. And the romance dragged down my rating of the show. :D
I put my own views of evil aside to some extent for certain types of media, for instance anything with violent criminals for protagonists. (Here I cut off the rest of what I wrote and put it near the top of this textwall)
Baka-Hiru said:I like to agree with you I really do but......
with a face like that I can't. Cute is justice. Even if she kills innocent people she can just say my bad Tehe :P
That too.
._.
Shall we allow Japanese cartoons to make scumbags of us all? |