[Sol Falling]

Originally Posted by Lowell1025

1. I imagnined bashings Suzaku dislikers would dish out if it is proven he planned it all along

Heh, it's true, bashers are annoying. Still, though, I think the idea of Suzaku planning his patricide adds a great deal of depth to his character, since children, even if they are often impulsive and self-centered, are also sometimes smarter than people give them credit for. Furthermore, Suzaku's value systems before meeting Lelouch, after meeting Lelouch, and then after his patricide have a lot of coherency and a sense of progression if you approach them with the assumption that he planned it.

If you want my personal opinion on the matter, I'm at a stage where I try to refrain myself from judging others. It's another person's life, and if you reflect back on yourself, you'd notice times when you lost control and made mistake also. As the saying goes, "A true gentlemen can forgive all mistakes but the ones made by himself." Although I don't give a dang about gentlemen, I do believe in the rest. Unless I can't think of another way, I'd like to keep opinions on these matters open / undiscussed, and just look after my own.

While I can understand a bit as to why Suzaku killed his father, I'm no Suzaku. Although I lost them now, I had a very close and caring family. My relation with my dad is completely different and inevitably, I am biased towards Suzaku's action. The point here is, my feelings towards Suzaku's case will inevitably be based somewhat on my experiences and my feelings (to what extent can vary), no matter how well or reasonable the case is presented or how hard I try to be objective. This feeling is not something you can easily win over/turn aside with arguments and facts. The same thing goes for other people too. If you are truely empathetic and can understand that, then perphaps you can communicate with others without ending up having one feeling going up against another ( I see a lot of argument on this board ended up like this), but come to understand each other's position better instead, and perhaps learn more about the aspects of the issue you are discussing - ultimately, end up with a better judgment on the issue.

Heh. Come on now, objectivity isn't that hard to achieve. Why would you be biased towards or against Suzaku on the basis of your own family experiences, when its his own as portrayed by the authors that is to be assessed? If one can achieve the empathy to converse with other posters as to the right or wrongness of Suzaku, then surely one must also possess the empathy to see things from his point of view and refrain from judging him. It's almost a given that someone who hates Suzaku because they cannot empathise with him will also be unable to empathise with you enough to enrich your perceptions of him.

Although I guess it wasn't moral outrage on your part, so there isn't much left to discuss here.

Originally Posted by tenken627

Actually morally, Suzaku is better than Lelouch when it comes to accepted ethical standards. Lelouch is the one putting innocent lives in harm's way.

Suzaku is just, really really weird in his thought patterns for lack of a better description. He says things that contradict each other. He acts in a certain way that contradicts with his words. He tries to justify his actions, but you're left going like "huh?" after you hear his rationalization. And he doesn't even notice it.

It's not that Suzaku is an evil person. It is very easily arguable that Lelouch is much more evil compared to Suzaku.

But, Suzaku is just a really poorly made character. It's just kinda like Suzaku has split personalities, where different sides of him are just not aware of the others.

Is he a character that is willing to do whatever it takes to get what he wants or is he a character that hates that line of thought? He shows both ends of the spectrum that are in direct conflict with each other.

Is he a character that feels violence is so wrong that he will use violence to support those who first commit and continue violence? wth?

I don't necessarily hate Suzaku himself, I just don't like how they made him. And I like antagonists. It feels like they just thought an antagonist child-hood friend on the Empire's side would make a really cool character, but they built his character up so randomly and illogically.

:P Hm, not so fast. Plenty of people have already declared Suzaku evil and hateful for enabling a despotic empire to oppress his own people. Despite his 'antihero' status, the show's portrayal of Lelouch's character actually engages in a lot of pandering to 'accepted ethical standards'.

And really, I very much challenge the idea of Suzaku being a poorly written character. Beyond his contrasts and parallels with Lelouch, there are also quite a few nuances to Suzaku which are all his own. I've already noted the nuances in his personality as a child, where Suzaku was not Lelouch's equal as Suzaku admired his drive for independance and perseverance through tremendous tragedy. Suzaku also seems to see himself as somebody who has already walked Lelouch's path and knows what lays at the ends of it, which shows that he can understand Lelouch's way of thinking with some degree of certainty. His relationship with Euphemia also highlighted his previous hatred for himself and his belief that he was just not good enough, hammered into him from his childhood and reinforced by his failure to protect the Japanese people during the war.

As for his ideals, the two you highlighted are a bit of a misrepresentation. Suzaku's whole 'using the wrong means is worthless' spiel is really just a somewhat vague expression of his belief that 'Rules must be followed'. This is just a reflection of his belief that no human is so perfect that they are never wrong, so it is best to follow conventions because it is safe (maybe a cowardly principle, but you can see where he's coming from when the one time he acted above the rules set up for him as a child was when he killed his father and caused the deaths of thousands of innocent civilians, can't you?). It's not about whether the lives lost are worth it or anything, it's actually just about the chances of making a mistake.

Suzaku's other ideal, which you seem to be interpreting as 'violence is wrong', is actually limited to 'hurting innocents is wrong', same thing as Lelouch. For Suzaku though, rather than defining the 'innocent' as those who are weak, he considers them to be those who follow the rules. As such, although he's a nice enough guy to not want to kill in general, the only ones he feels it is his moral imperative to spare are those who aren't fighting against him.

Thinking about it that way, there aren't really too many contradictions at all, now are there?