[Azure22]

The fort that he destroyed, he destroyed for who-knows-what reason. He didn't see that they were using slaves first; as he was destroying the fort, the slaves attempted to flee, and that's when he noticed them. In yet another negative cinematic portrayal of Shinn, as he is destroying the fort, Athrun calls on him to stop because everyone there is defenseless and utter destruction is unnecessary. That's ten honor points to Athrun and a clown balloon to Shinn.

Okay, maybe they changed this later. I don't know. But in episode 16, and I just rewatched this part to make absolutely sure, Shinn does SEE the civilians/slaves being shot by the earth alliance soldiers as they're running away after crawling out from under the fence BEFORE he starts destroying the base. And there's more. Shinn continued to combat Gaia, rather then go straight to annihilation, but Gaia retreated. As Gaia retreated, Shinn got word that that other ship, the Neila Bongo or whatever, had just been destroyed. As he gets news of that, tanks start firing at the Impulse, as well as... I guess gatling cannon armaments from around the base? I don't know what you'd call those, sorta like machine gun tourrettes or whatever. But anyways, Shinn was fired upon, and then he went through and took out all their defense. At that point, he starts blowing up everything the base had been working on, which is what Athrun gets pissed at him for. That's also all Athrun was around to see, save for when Shinn goes and removes the fences that were barring the slaves from their families. Athrun had not seen the earth alliance forces shooting at the slaves as they tried to escape.

So that is, to me, hats off to Shinn. Athrun, I think, was being too lenient. If Shinn hadn't eradicated the base and troops had been allowed to stay, if the base had been still in basic working order other than it's armaments, don't you think the remaining soldiers would have used their guns to force the poor civilians to work again? Or, assuming other ZAFT forces went in and monitored the area instead of having Shinn take it out, don't you think that some of the soldiers who were enslaving those people might just take the people hostage? They were using slaves, their moral compass isn't set to a high degree. I don't think Shinn was thinking about this, though. No, he was thinking about how these people were doing something horrible, and how they should be punished for it. I'm okay with that. Athrun later tells Shinn that he needs to understand how to use his power. As far as I'm concerned, what Shinn did was right, and Athrun was being too much of a pacifist to see that his way was ineffective.

Later, Athrun tells Shinn that if he goes out and just fights for his own beliefs and his own sense of justice, he is nothing more than a destroyer. The problem here is that, if you don't think and do only what you're told in a military situation, you're a destroyed without a moral compass. At least Shinn is thinking for himself, that's a trait I like. Later, Athrun does the same thing: He chooses to desert ZAFT so he can fight for justice and what he views as right and wrong. So does his advice only apply to people he wants to follow his commands and not to himself? He should practice what he preaches...

I mentioned before that Shinn's return of Stellar to the Earth Alliance wasn't a positive thing in my mind. He disobeyed orders, that's for certain. Did he know that he was going to be punished, or was he so full of himself that he figured that he wouldn't be disciplined? Think about it - the only character to ever disagree and follow up with some form of reprimand against Shinn's foolishness in the show was Athrun. Shinn's attitude was far too haughty for me to really believe that he truly thought he'd be making a sacrifice. Shinn also loses here because Stellar was a rather messed-up character, and she was also an enemy combatant. When Kira returned Lacus, Lacus was a completely harmless civilian (aside from being the epitomy of "good"), Kira didn't have full-blown feelings for her at that point, and he seemed pretty torn over it. After all, he'd brought Lacus to the Archangel and it wasn't known that they would do something so dishonorable/dispicable as to use her as a hostage. SEED was much more connected with my personal values (and I presume those of the majority) there, although I don't even know if SEED Destiny was trying to pull off a similar stunt with the Shinn-Stellar scenario.

No, I seriously think Shinn thought he was going to be punished. He came back and stood before Captain Gladys with that glare on his face. He knew she was going to punish him, but he didn't think he did anything wrong, and I don't think he did either. Shinn's actions to return Stellar back to the Earth Alliance were done in the interest of saving her life and preserving her dignity. She was going to die and be torn open for examination and experimentation if she stayed away from the Earth Alliance. What was going to happen to Lacus if she didn't get back to ZAFT? And for the record, Shinn returning Stellar turned out to be a stupid move only because that's the way the series was scripted. Yes, I know that's how everything is, but for some reason, this just sticks out more. What if, after Kira had returned Lacus, someone held Lacus hostage against Kira? Or what if Lacus had turned out to be a spy? What Kira did was POTENTIALLY as stupid as returning Stellar - It just turned out differently. And Shinn at least asked for Neo's word- I can't go back and check anymore, but I don't think Kira made any effort to make sure Lacus wouldn't be used against him later. Yes, words are feeble and can easily be broken, but it's an attempt. I'd say that's worth something... And for the record, yes, hostage taking is low, but by taking her hostage, the lives of Kira's friends were spared. It wasn't a dumb thing, what they did - It was just dishonorable, and as far as I'm concerned, and this is a westerner viewed, I'd rather be dishonorable than die. Plenty of time to regain honor if you live for tomorrow.

You've mentioned his dialogue with Stellar during that scene a few times now; why do you see it as such a redeeming factor for Shinn?

The honest answer is that I don't view it as much of a "redeeming" factor for Shinn as I just view it as "one factor." In that last instance I brought it up, I was trying to show how both Kira and Shinn tried to stop Stellar. Oddly enough, military force proved the right move, instead of negotiation (though if Kira hadn't appeared and scared Stellar before and given Neo reasons to warn her about him, Shinn's appeal might have worked. I'm not gonna say his presence there was wrong, he was doing the right thing- I'm just gonna say the other fights took part in seemed dumb to me). It's interesting, isn't it, that when military might is the right way to go, Kira uses it, and when it's the "wrong" way, Shinn uses it? What would you say if Kira had been the one trying to make the appeal to Stellar, and Shinn had gone in and killed her? I imagine a buncha pro-Kira people would come in saying "Wait, why did Shinn kill her, Kira was trying to talk her out of it!"

Even when Shinn is made a member of FAITH (which made me mad as well), he never uses his authority. Do you realize that, for that entire time, he was purely taking orders from Rey? Even when Rey showed disapproval for Luna and such, Shinn just followed along. I suppose it shows that his feelings of passion were only really for Stellar.

I think by that point he's been manipulated quite thoroughly in the palms of Gil and Rey's hands. I also think the writers had given up on developing him by that point... At the very least, he still says he wants to go out into Orb instead of Rey, but that's not all that much. I dunno... After episode 37, the series dies for me in terms of plot... I love the scene where Shinn stabs Athrun's GOUF. The reason for that shall be explained right now:

Really, when I think of Shinn, I'm sort of reminded of Evangelion during those scenes when a unit would berserk. Everyone in the control room would get those wide eyes and have fearful looks on their face as the unit rampaged. Shinn goes into SEED mode (berserks), and everyone on the Minerva got to looking about the same.

Yeah...I loved those scenes. oo;