Quote:
Originally Posted by Last Carpet
You can go so far as to prove someone is wrong in something, such as their answer in solving a problem, their choices, or their worldview, but that someone could still choose to uphold their belief in it.
Even if Zen beats her and proves she's wrong, unless she's is willing to admit and acknowledge that she's wrong, things won't pick up for them from there.
And another thought
When Medaka beats someone, they change tend to change their ways. This follows the whole "Medaka is right, and her enemy is wrong pattern". But this is a new sequence here. In her past fights, this came through because of what her enemies were doing. But Zen's reasons for opposing Medaka have nothing to do with hurting people, like Unzen, Oudo and Kumagawa.
His reasons are more self-oriented. He's opposing Medaka because he wants to be special to her. His new belief is that people shouldn't always succeed, that failure is necessary. And Medaka's fighting on the opposite side, believing that people should always succeed to be happy. So by fighting Zen, is she going to make him happy by beating him?
It seems counterproductive for Medaka to fight Zen. She beats Zen, she doesn't make him happy because he couldn't defeat her, or maybe she beats him and Zen gets up still intent on defeating her despite his failure, not making him happy but still proving her wrong. Or Zen beats her, he proves that people shouldn't win all the time. But just defeating her might not make her realize that she's wrong. Even so, would beating her bring their relationship back to where it was, no way. Who knows if he'd want anything to do with her after he won? Imagine him beating her and thinking, this is what it took, this is what I had to do to get you to recognize me?
Personally, I think failure would be good for her. Medaka herself said "Winners aren't strong, the strong ones are the losers who get back up" Considering the "make everyone succeed make everyone happy" way that she thinks, does Medaka even realize what a hypocrite she's being?
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I'll just play devil's advocate for a bit, and ask; did her enemies really change? Unzen may get along with the protagonists now, but that doesn't mean he doesn't terrorize students. And as we've seen, Kumagawa's still the same cheating- I mean, "charming" guy. Some would argue that Medaka focused their passions in another direction.
Zenkichi's primary reason for opposing her is to become special to her again, right? I'm sure he does want to prove Medaka wrong as well. Which one is the primary motivation?
And now for my personal views. I do think Medaka should learn failure, and as you said, failure is defined by one's own acceptance of it. According to Medaka, success is defined by happiness. And happiness has been considered the greatest state of mind in the series (and I assume, for many others in real life). Is that right?