[Revolutionist]

Originally Posted by houkoholic

The problem is I don't think you are supposed to sympathise with Zeheart, it is true that like many of the antagonists in past Gundam franchises he is used to gave a human face to the enemy but that doesn't mean you must sympathise with him, rather he is to present the point of view that "people with a good heart can do evil things" which is a VERY common theme through out the entire Gundam franchise - again the traditional Shakespearean tragic character. His ideal of "giving Vagan a bright future" was definitely NOT his own - recall the flash back when Zeheart as a child Ezelcant already used his X Rounder ability to show Zeheart pretty pictures of Ezelcant's vision of paradise, telling him the sufferings of the Vagans etc, he did not come up with this conclusion/ideal himself like the other lead evil characters in the list, so Zeheart was most definitely brainwashed since young. And if you think about it the fact that he now knows that Ezelcant is going to die soon would certainly make Zeheart feel quite desperate because again Ezelcant had always been the person to give him the orders and the goal, him wanting to achieve Ezelcant's dying wish no matter the cost, hopefully a decisive victory before Ezelcant death would certainly make sense.

If we are not supposed to sympathize with him, why did they make him into a sympathetic character? He's not used to show good people can do bad things, in fact the only thing he's done is the Olivernotes incident, and that was retconned to be more in line with his character in the novels. Zeheart is most definitely not brainwashed, you must not understand what that word means or something. If he were, he wouldn't have noticed the anything wrong with Project Eden and he would never have confronted Ezelcant about it and said the things he said.

Also I don't buy the excuse that you should use only evil characters to show that only evil characters do evil deeds, indeed showing good people doing evil things (whether knowingly or not) SHOULD be what Gundam is really about. While AGE does have crappy characterisation it is not true that AGE only had simplistic single motive characters, especially since Gen 3. What about Shanalua for example? Or even Reina (sic)? I think most people are just upset about Zeheart's dismiss because he had fallen from his grace and shows the Vagans for what they are - a body of (rightfully) disgruntle people whom is using the wrong method to achieve their goal and hurting innocent people in the process, Zeheart included.

You can't get any more simplistic than betraying your country for a sack of gold coins, or defecting to the enemy for revenge lol.