[Eidolon Sniper]

OK time to get serious again...

Originally Posted by 4Tran

And so is "Hero defeats Villain". This kind of minimalism is pretty meaningless.

So if GSD = "Hero defeats Villain", then it is meaningless?

Pshaw, interjection. -- used to express irritation, disapproval, contempt, or disbelief

Deny it all you want, but it is true...

Perhaps my comment was a bit harsh. However, it is essentially correct. Lest you think that it was a personal attack on kodachrome, it was actually my overall impression of how flippant remarks are used on this forum. There's only three reasons for using flippant remarks: 1. You are replying to a post that merits no further discussion; 2. You are being a jerk to get a rise out of someone else; 3. You have nothing more to contribute. All of these cases should be used sparingly, if at all. Therefore, anyone using flippant remarks a great deal of the time is either purposefully not following proper etiquette, or not thinking matters through.

So you decide who makes flippant remarks and those who don't?

Granted that every poster on this thread has been consitently showing what they think of GSD as a failure or whatever, there's nobody on this thread who decides that it is flippant or not, flame bait or not, trolling or not, except for Mr. Paper.

While I don't think that Lacus is naive now, that's the way she was initially presented. In order to properly use a character foil, you sort of have to be pretty obvious about the traits shown. Since naivete was the primary trait shown, then it stands to reason that either that was the feature they wanted to make a foil for, or there's no character foil here to begin with.

Fllay was actually naive?

Hmm.

Spoiled brat, maybe. Bitch with a severe attitude problem, maybe (in the beginning of the series anyway). But naive?

Narrow minded about Coordinators and war, that's it. Never naive. That only goes for GODDESS Lacus.

Well, I calls them as I sees them. There was an awful lot of stuff going on inside Fllay's head, which leads to an awful lot of reasons for doing what she did. To simply reduce all of that to either "meaness" or "cruelty" is a bit on the absurd side. Anyone espousing this idea is thus either being malicious or unobservant. By the way this would be the same kind of cavalier use of minimalism that I accused you of earlier.

Even if they are rabid Fllay haters, it gives you no reason to call them as such. You are then guilty of the same absurd thing you are accusing them of.

Well that's the thing. Fllay herself was moving in the very same direction. Once she got her shock to her system, she actually tried to become more open and so forth. This really argues against the idea of a character foil.

character foil - is a character whose traits are in direct contrast to those of the principal character. The foil therefore highlights the traits of the protagonist. The foil is usually a minor character, although if there are two protagonists, they may be foils of each other. (taken from this site)

Let's see.

Lacus = Fllay foil in start of SEED. Lacus remained the same throughout SEED whereas Fllay actually changed. But you can't say that Lacus isn't a foil of Fllay anymore. Is being a foil only a one shot deal? That in order to become a character foil the protagonist in question should also remain static so as the foil could continue being a foil? Then that defeats the characterization of the protagonist in question then...it nerfs his/her development.

Actually there's a bit more to being a character foil than just being different. After all, we would hardly call Fllay and Dulindal character foils, would we? To be truly effective, this literary device pretty much has to use characters who have similar roles, and use contrasts to emphasize their respective traits. Thus, it can be argued that Shinn and Kira are foils or that Kira and Athrun are. It's a much bigger stretch to attribute it to Lacus and Fllay.

But they have similar roles. Both are daughters of high officials of teh supreme rulers of their respective universes. Fllay was used by the EAF to make their cause gain more support; Lacus used her father's name to gain more support (using her name to get more support). Fllay used Kira, Lacus "used" Kira. Fllay made Kira awesome in SEED mode, Lacus made Kira "awesome" in Freedom. Fllay was a "healer", Lacus was a healer.

But Fllay was Kira's love.