Lacus Clyne... the Plot Hole Character

[Eidolon Sniper]

Spoiler for moar!:

I do not see why putting children into weapons of mass destruction or Gundams could equate into them being credible for being like this or like that or whatever...in the real world sense, doing things like that are such and would probably put the group or whatever who put those children in there in a very bad light. Children do not deserve to be put under siege in wars, with something very huge and just too complicated like racism and the like to be understood by the most of these children...

Lacus is no credible than Britney Spears doing the Buddha right now, equated in real world terms. But even in the CE sense, she has no credibility whatsoever except for the fact that she is the daughter of Siegel Clyne and an idol singer loved by the people. She would be further loved by the people for her peace loving tendencies, yes, but not so much as to entrust their whole lives to her just because she is Lacus Clyne. Also, there is the fact that the war in SEED isn't just about mere fighting, it was a war between 2 very different ideologies and that each side hate the other for some reason, and it is not just be handing Freedom and letting Kira fight for what he believes in that everything is already alright. We saw what happened in Destiny. But what made Lacus' character even more unbelievable is that she was in hiatus for like 2 years, not really knowing what was going on in the PLANT front except during the time she was almost "assassinated", and suddenly becomes the savior of everything right and truthful again just by handing her koi a brand new spanking Gundam for his troubles and that whatever Dully had been doing all along is outright bad just by merely perusing through a notebook... And also, it is because of the way she handled things as if these wars are simple crap puzzles for a dime a dozen that you always get to encounter every single day...

The ZAFT Coordinators were mature? Remember that Athrun et al weren't even thinling about that war until the Bloody Valentine tragedy, and they suddenly went up in arms after enlisting in ZAFT to become a soldier to fight the Naturals. What makes them mature at this point? All they knew was that Naturals killed off their fellow Coordinators, and that they had to fight them off or kill them by defending themselves, as simple as that, first by Gundam jacking and then fight off the EA...Lacus couldn't actually try to synch in with what Athrun and the others were simply going through, she just told Athrun right off that he wasn't the same anymore, and for the fact that the real Athrun isn't a war freak. We could all simply say the same things to people undergoing traumatic experiences, but the fact remains that we do not know what the hell they're going through simply because we haven't experienced anything like it at all that would give us a more "real" grasp of the things going on that they are going through.

Lacus loses her father? Well, to some degree, she now understands the pain and grief associated with war. But she brushes off her feelings of pain and other emotions and see to it that the war she entered into was won. I was at how she easily got over things so easily. In my opinion, losing a loved one leaves emotional scars so deep you don't even know it's there (if the grief is too deep and the person is too dear). Fllay reacted normally the way teenagers should (normally), the same way Shinn reacted normally as well. Kira, Lacus...no, just because they had enlightenment, every other grief that should come their way is already too trivial to be considered over the common good of the entire universe, which isn't normal. Losing to one's emotions is what makes a person human after all, along with their common misconceptions before stumbling into a better path that would make them better persons, and Lacus and Kira just simply didn't equate to this equation, they just became what they are without any major obstacles that they successfully scaled in order to become "developed" as characters...

Fact remains that even she is a Clyne, Lacus didn't really do anything at all in order to explain how she became very powerful at the end of Destiny, she hasn't really proved herself too much in SEED in order to be able to take the spot as the best leader the CE has ever known...she din't do anything major that made her deserve to be called in some way or the other like that. She just is, and that's it. So, ignore her suspicious funds in making super Gundams for her own army as well as state of the art new MS, and why she has zillions of people believing in every word she says and knows what she says is the absolute truth and that no other silly dictator could prove otherwise, plus the way she put Kira Yamato in ZAFT as a white coat eventhough in the past 2 seasons he was fighting against the evil and tyranny of ZAFT and it makes no absolute sense whatever.

[4Tran]

Originally Posted by Eidolon Sniper

Lacus is no credible than Britney Spears doing the Buddha right now, equated in real world terms. But even in the CE sense, she has no credibility whatsoever except for the fact that she is the daughter of Siegel Clyne and an idol singer loved by the people.

Exactly. After all, no democratic nation would ever have an actor as their president or provincial governor, nor would they ever accept a person as their leader just because she was the offspring of a previous leader...


Edit - added more stuff:

Originally Posted by Eidolon Sniper

Lacus loses her father? Well, to some degree, she now understands the pain and grief associated with war. But she brushes off her feelings of pain and other emotions and see to it that the war she entered into was won. I was at how she easily got over things so easily.

You've never come across anyone who hid their feelings?

Originally Posted by Eidolon Sniper

Losing to one's emotions is what makes a person human after all, along with their common misconceptions before stumbling into a better path that would make them better persons, and Lacus and Kira just simply didn't equate to this equation, they just became what they are without any major obstacles that they successfully scaled in order to become "developed" as characters...

I'd say that Lacus' most telling expression of emotion was when she read Meer's diary.

Originally Posted by Eidolon Sniper

Fact remains that even she is a Clyne, Lacus didn't really do anything at all in order to explain how she became very powerful at the end of Destiny, she hasn't really proved herself too much in SEED in order to be able to take the spot as the best leader the CE has ever known...

Why would it be necessary to do that? Generally, the greatest hallmark of a leader is the ability to overcome their foes. We don't usually dwell on Churchill's failings because he won, nor do we really care about Custer's leadership qualities because he proved to be a loser. In this regard, Lacus certainly looks pretty successful.

[aeriolewinters]

Exactly. After all, no democratic nation would ever have an actor as their president or provincial governor, nor would they ever accept a person as their leader just because she was the offspring of a previous leader...

You just reminded me how grave the political situation in our country is.

[Neku]

Ahh. I love this. Especially when I'm bored.

Lacus loses her father? Well, to some degree, she now understands the pain and grief associated with war. But she brushes off her feelings of pain and other emotions and see to it that the war she entered into was won. I was at how she easily got over things so easily. In my opinion, losing a loved one leaves emotional scars so deep you don't even know it's there (if the grief is too deep and the person is too dear). Fllay reacted normally the way teenagers should (normally), the same way Shinn reacted normally as well. Kira, Lacus...no, just because they had enlightenment, every other grief that should come their way is already too trivial to be considered over the common good of the entire universe, which isn't normal. Losing to one's emotions is what makes a person human after all, along with their common misconceptions before stumbling into a better path that would make them better persons, and Lacus and Kira just simply didn't equate to this equation, they just became what they are without any major obstacles that they successfully scaled in order to become "developed" as characters...

1. As 4Tran has asked.. have you ever come across anyone who umm.. hide their feelings?
2. You must have forgotten that scene when Lacus was alone with Kira. She cried about her father. You must have forgotten the scene when Meer died. No, no. Pardon me.. that wasn't Lacus's tears. They were the rain which came and went so damn quickly to drip down on Lacus's face.
3. I guess.. Shinn and Fllay are just so human, because they show their feelings out whenever they want.. whereas Kira and Lacus who both seldom cry or show any emotions and always seem to dominate everything.. they're not that human. Or maybe. They're just more matured.. since you said that it was normal for teenagers to react like that. Hmmm. That cannot be. Their age gap isn't THAT far.

..and ya know what? You're making me feel so inhuman, as I rarely show my feelings and emotions out. I'm almost like Lacus, except for the beautiful+good voice+dominater part.

[Anh_Minh]

Sniper: no offense, but have you lost your father? I have, and granted that I was all of eighteen when it happened, which is older than Lacus was, but still - I didn't let it slow me down. We don't all have to let emotions completely dominate our lives without an ounce of self-control. I find nothing particularly normal about either Shinn or Flay's reactions, though I wouldn't call them abnormal either - like Lacus', their reactions are within the wide, wide range of possible human reactions.

If anything, Lacus is more prone to grief than I am, and I don't think I'm a robot.

[Nightengale]

Anh Minh, silverdirt and 4Tran had just said everything I wanted to say.

I guess I must be Terminator since I didn't react like Fllay/Shinn when my uncle died of a freak accident, a person who's like a brother to me died stabbed in the heart twice by killers still on the loose and many relatives close to me died of multiple reasons. XPPP

I don't see people going around saying that Yang Wen Li isn't human just because he never lost himself to emotions most of the time. Being emotionless is different from controlling how your emotion dominates one's self.

[Eidolon Sniper]

Spoiler for eek:

Originally Posted by 4Tran

Edit - added more stuff:

You've never come across anyone who hid their feelings?

I did, and it's a natural thing, hiding our feelings. But the way Lacus hid her feelings just like that is very...fast for me. I haven't lost anybody dear to me that I really really felt close to, so I could safely say that I could only grasp/hint at what this person is feeling, because I haven't experienced it at all myself. Also, grief attacks people in many different ways. So, there are people who get over their grief easily, and people who don't. Lacus lost a father. The only other important person left in her life. It would be normal for her to grieve about her father's passing. But it was only shown in one ep only. What in the world was that? It's like, hey, a relative just got stabbed and got killed, and let's say that he was very dear and that he's more than what our relationship could allow to me. But in the midst of the grief that my entire family is experiencing, I just diss him off as another fact of life just like that and go on with my life...he was my entire world, he was my everything, and I simply dump him like that? Of course I will grieve, and maybe try to suppress my feelings of grief, I had to be strong, but not like that, as if nothing even terrible happened that changed my entire life forever, after 0.0000000034 seconds. What am I, a robot with no feelings?

I'd say that Lacus' most telling expression of emotion was when she read Meer's diary.

I don't really see anything that would actually make Lacus cry like that or whatever. I mean, she must've known that somehow, even after all the good she did for the entire universe, there are still certain people who believed in somebody who otherwise led them down wrong paths. She didn't cry for the people who believed in Patrick Zala for one thing, she just asked them to lay down their weapons and stop fighting; those soldiers are in any way closest to what Meer was (following somebody she believed in).

Why would it be necessary to do that? Generally, the greatest hallmark of a leader is the ability to overcome their foes. We don't usually dwell on Churchill's failings because he won, nor do we really care about Custer's leadership qualities because he proved to be a loser. In this regard, Lacus certainly looks pretty successful.

Successful because of Morosawa.

Originally Posted by silverdirt

1. As 4Tran has asked.. have you ever come across anyone who umm.. hide their feelings?

See my post above.

2. You must have forgotten that scene when Lacus was alone with Kira. She cried about her father. You must have forgotten the scene when Meer died. No, no. Pardon me.. that wasn't Lacus's tears. They were the rain which came and went so damn quickly to drip down Lacus's face.

And in the entire span of 2 series, she was only shown to have those emotions conveniently when it was time for Lacus to be emotional. As I've already told 4Tran, the soldiers who were blindly believing in Zala were most like Meer and yet she didn't feel anything for them, because this is war.

You might argue that Meer was a civilian, and the ZAFT soldiers were just soldiers. Um, and since when did soldiers stop becoming human? Do you even think that they don't feel anything at all when they shoot down an enemy? And prior to joining ZAFT, they were civilians, too. It was only recently that ZAFT was reorganized into the military unit that we see today.

3. I guess.. Shinn and Fllay are just so human, because they show their feelings out whenever they want.. whereas Kira and Lacus seldom cry or show any emotion and always seem to dominate everything.. therefore they're not that human. Or maybe. They're just more matured.. since you said that it was normal for teenagers to react like that. Hmmm. That cannot be. Their age gap isn't THAT far.

What could Lacus possibly know about war? Based on her father's ideals, she would probably see that war is evil, and so war must be stopped. Of course war is evil, and it must be stopped. We were only given glimpses into what she thinks like, attested to the fact that she asked Rau to heel. She goes asking Athrun that wouldn't be better if wars didn't exist, etc., etc. The next time we see her she takes care of Kira and have talks; she didn't want him to go back to earth because of the war and war is evil. But she "saw through" Kira and so she gave him Freedom. Then, with the help of her new personnel, she was able to secure a ship for her fight against Zala and succeeds into telling Athrun what he must do, and she meets up with Kira, and together with Cagalli and Athrun, they helped bring about the end of Zala tyranny...

Going by her belief that war is evil, of course, these things had to happen, and she was right in toppling those 2 crazy dictators down because they were evil. But what did she do about the grander aspect of her ideals which were brought out so "successfully" by the end of Destiny? War is evil, wars must be stopped, and so it didn't change from her perspective in SEED. She believed in equality for all, and freedom, and yet, she didn't approve of the Destiny Plan which theoretically obliterated all feelings of discontent because all of everything will be decided by their genes. I don't like Destiny Plan either, but it could actually work, if they had some sort of experiment about it or something, or was introduced rather earlier into Destiny, not some hasty afterthought near the end in order to make Dully evil and believable to be destroyed by Lacus.

What Lacus did was just simple really. Destroy anybody who would use war as an excuse to bring about suffering on the entire human race. It's not that hard to understand, or that you need deeper insight in order to find out how incredibly "deep" Lacus is. But what Lacus is doing also follows the same formula that made her think that evil people should be brought down; she uses war as an excuse in order to bring about her own ideals, see them set forth, and that if anybody was crazy enough to go against her rightful path, then they deserve to be destroyed. Zala used war in order to bring about his ideal that all Naturals must be destroyed. Dullindal used war in order to bring about his ideal that all people should coexist peacefully and that our own genes are the answer. Lacus used war in order to bring about her ideal that what the "evil" people doing are wrong, and that because they are wrong, she is entitled to completely stop them in their tracks. Lacus isn't shown to actually dealing out this "evil", it's actually in the hands of her Knights. But just because Lacus is the good guy in the show, then what she is doing is absolutely, irrevocably right, and since that Dully's a bad guy, all he does is evil compared to Lacus. Talk about stereotyping.

..and ya know what? You're making me feel so inhuman, as I rarely show my feelings and emotion out. I'm almost like Lacus, except for the beautiful+good voice+dominater part.

And I am not saying that not showing emotions are completely abnormal at all. There are actually people out there who aren't afraid to show what they feel, what they think about you. Fllay and Shinn just happen to be a part of that, and that other people who aren't completely comfortable in showing their feelings form a part of another. What made Lacus inhuman as you put it is because of the fact that in the entire duration of the series, she was only shown to have real emotion a couple of times, and most of the time, she's just plain boring, because it's just so simple to figure her out.

Originally Posted by AnhMinh

Sniper: no offense, but have you lost your father? I have, and granted that I was all of eighteen when it happened, which is older than Lacus was, but still - I didn't let it slow me down. We don't all have to let emotions completely dominate our lives without an ounce of self-control. I find nothing particularly normal about either Shinn or Flay's reactions, though I wouldn't call them abnormal either - like Lacus', their reactions are within the wide, wide range of possible human reactions.

I haven't, but I've seen people who actually did, me having lost all my grandparents already. Well, my mom cried, my dad, I have no idea...most men really see crying as some sort of weakness on their part (well, in our culture anyway). My mom got sad. And you know what? She wasn't really even close to her parents that much (maybe it's because my mom had 11 other siblings to think about), but the fact that she cried, it was enough for me to understand that she really cared about them too deeply; it was just fate and life screws one thing or another that in the end, she wasn't able to say anything that meant so much to her to them. Well, they got close in the end, but that's another thing entirely, because it was already too late.

The closest I had to a grief attack was when I lost my grandfather (my mom's dad). I wasn't really close to him, but he had a library full of books, and it was unfortunate that I was a bookworm. well anyway, he lent me his books to read, seeing how much I liked books; we didn't talk (mostly it was my grandmother who was the more affectionate type) but he had a more firm grasp of what I really was, rather than my own parents. Then suddenly, he died. I didn't know how to react, I kept thinking, I must cry, I must cry, a close relative died. But while I did that, I just felt really hollow, and that the forced tears weren't of any help, because I thought at first I wasn't really close to him, why the heck am I crying for? So I stopped crying. But it was only then after a few years had passed and I decided to write a short essay about my life for a school project that I found that it hurt so much.

Shinn and Fllay reacted normally for me because in the sense, after all their petty revenges or whatever, they learned how to deal with it at the end, and it helped them grow into better developed characters. Well, except for Shinn maybe, his development was cut off abruptly Freedomed ep. They went through the series that what they knew about the world back then was just too much different in the bigger picture, and they acknowledged it. Kira and Lacus just went through the CE just staying that way, showing no change at all, except maybe in the choice of GOD SUITS; the war in Destiny is still the same as in SEED; a war of dominance of the other.

So who's more normal then?

Originally Posted by Nightengale

I don't see people going around saying that Yang Wen Li isn't human just because he never lost himself to emotions most of the time. Being emotionless is different from controlling how your emotion dominates one's self.

Fllay didn't let her emotion take over her the entire series. Shinn in some instances didn't let his emotion take over him the entire series.

Controlling emotion? Hmm, possible, but it is very hard to control your emotions too, when you feel very bad or very good or are hurt or are angry. We could let off some steam due to our own ways of dealing with these emotions, whether by quieting down or hitting the next man coming up the escalator. So you couldn't really say that you could control emotions; you just let them out in other ways, because controlling emotions are also bad for your health.

[Anh_Minh]

Originally Posted by Eidolon Sniper

[SPOILER=eek]
So who's more normal then?

Lacus. Seriously. When you're hit with grief, it's ok to cry a bit, but you get over it and get on with your life. Doubly so if you've got something to do. I think it helped her, kept her too busy to really feel the pain.

And hey, there are some people in front of which it's ok to break down. For Lacus, it's Kira. For us macho men, it's nobody. For drama queens like Flay, it's everybody. So you see, Lacus is actually between the extremes - "normal". It's not so much a matter of controlling your emotions as it's one of not showing them.

Also, there is nothing inconsistent with saying "war is bad, but genocide is worse, so it's ok to use war to prevent a genocide". Or, even "violence is wrong, but when you've got to, you've got to". Seriously, I don't like violence either, I don't even approve of bloodsports, but if you try to kill me, don't expect me to go like a lamb to the slaughter.

What Lacus is fighting for is a certain idea of peace and civilisation. It isn't pacifism. So stop pretending it is.

[wingdarkness]

What Lacus did was just simple really. Destroy anybody who would use war as an excuse to bring about suffering on the entire human race. It's not that hard to understand, or that you need deeper insight in order to find out how incredibly "deep" Lacus is. But what Lacus is doing also follows the same formula that made her think that evil people should be brought down; she uses war as an excuse in order to bring about her own ideals, see them set forth, and that if anybody was crazy enough to go against her rightful path, then they deserve to be destroyed. Zala used war in order to bring about his ideal that all Naturals must be destroyed. Dullindal used war in order to bring about his ideal that all people should coexist peacefully and that our own genes are the answer. Lacus used war in order to bring about her ideal that what the "evil" people doing are wrong, and that because they are wrong, she is entitled to completely stop them in their tracks. Lacus isn't shown to actually dealing out this "evil", it's actually in the hands of her Knights. But just because Lacus is the good guy in the show, then what she is doing is absolutely, irrevocably right, and since that Dully's a bad guy, all he does is evil compared to Lacus. Talk about stereotyping.

Amen sista-child....

And what makes this sad is it's actually presented this sweepingly bad...Only an apologist can ignore this status...Again the people of Earth and Space had no chance to actually vote on whether or not The DESTINY PLAN (which was wishy-washy at best IMPO) was what they indeed wanted to accept...Whether I agree with it is beyond the point, the point is people had a choice to make and Lacus made it for them...With God Jr., Athrun, and Sooopa-Mwu(!!!) approaching in their custom Zuesbots Dullindal had no choice but to send "Shinigami" and Rey to engage ORB before their rag-tag of heaven's elite unilaterally ended his game. He did what they were going to do...What you think Orb sent the real Deathnote's "Kira" and company to be galactic referees in a Gundam All-star game??

There goal was to blow him the hell up and his goal was to counter that...Which is fair in war, but what Dulllindal had in his defense was the support of the people while Lacus and company operated in a manner widely speculated to that of Freemasons rather than Freedom-fighters...If this was all real Lacus at age 18 would be head of the Illuminati right now...That's not to downplay LOGOS and Dullindal's own New World Order, but with no real proof of that from Lacus' side (unless again her omnipotence is what you hang your hat on), if I had to I would say Lacus did what she did because she has a good heart and wants the universe to stop suffering, but that kinda runs in contrast to the thoughts of Lacus supporters who see everyone of her moves as some strategic gem worthy of a Discovery Channel re-enactment (perhaps with Meer being hired to be the actress in this dramatization^^)...I'll stick with basic-cable...

Originally Posted by Anh Minh

What Lacus is fighting for is a certain idea of peace and civilisation.

I wouldn't disagree with this, but if you changed that name to Dullindal (having the majority of the galaxy on his initial side) you hit the first paradox because he wants exactly the same thing as your statement clearly suggests...The difference again is he has manipulated or coaxed the political masses into his plan (who may well agree with his plan) while Lacus, the plot-hole character (who coaxes her knights), has almost nothing in the way of visual or mental progression to suggest she even has the know-how to combat any of this (other than simply doing it when need be)...Man as smart as Dully is to think that perhaps(since we still don't have the bonefide evidence) sending that Coordy sniper team to kill her was his most glaring mistake, because GSD seems to suggest it's that alone that jump-started Lacus' genius, because without that Lacus and her magical powers don't figure out jack then huh? Right? ...But that can't be right based on what Lacus admirers think of her ...

[4Tran]

Originally Posted by Eidolon Sniper

Also, grief attacks people in many different ways. So, there are people who get over their grief easily, and people who don't. Lacus lost a father. The only other important person left in her life. It would be normal for her to grieve about her father's passing.

And she did. The difference is that she doesn't grieve in public. In fact, she can only grieve in front of Kira.

Originally Posted by Eidolon Sniper

I don't really see anything that would actually make Lacus cry like that or whatever.

It's called empathy.

Originally Posted by Eidolon Sniper

Successful because of Morosawa.

And? I haven't heard of too many characters who were successful in-story against their writer's will.

Originally Posted by Eidolon Sniper

What could Lacus possibly know about war?

It's quite possible for people to find out things about war, even if they didn't have first hand experience. Books and the like were invented an awfully long time ago.

[Anh_Minh]

Originally Posted by wingdarkness

Amen sista-child....
I wouldn't disagree with this, but if you changed that name to Dullindal (having the majority of the galaxy on his initial side) you hit the first paradox because he wants exactly the same thing as your statement clearly suggests...

OK, first, I want you to do me a favor and look up "paradox" in a dictionary.

Second, I don't see what this has to do with anything. Or how it can somehow sweep under the rug the fact that Dully pointed a WMD at a civilian population center.

[wingdarkness]

@Anh Minh - Sheeesh, I said "paradox" because your statement (if I were to change it with Dully's name as I suggested) contradicts what most people think of Dullindal (and furthermore some of his final development as a character in GSD), but not what I think...In a sense he's trying to achieve the same thing as what your precious Lacus is trying thru different means..Geeez, No need to sell your soul to one-up me kind sir ...

Re-read:"If you change the name you hit the first paradox"...Maybe I should lend you a journalism degree, I got one in my office you know....

Second, I don't see what this has to do with anything. Or how it can somehow sweep under the rug the fact that Dully pointed a WMD at a civilian population center.

Not surprising, but what I was saying was peace by extreme means...This isn't checkers, Dullindal felt the future of mankind was worth stopping Orb (which is basically Six Flags Lacus-land)...Not excusing him for it just saying his intentions toward the existence of human nature without war was what was at stake and his fundmental contrast with Lacus aka Orb who were trying to kill that potential future was his motivation...No rug-sweeping unless S-F and I-J in meteor would somehow pass UN inspections for not being WMD's capable of crippling ZAFT's entire army and kill their national leader...But ofcourse when you're on team Lacus these points seem to litter the way-side...It's not right to be clear, but it's weighing the living right now vs. even having a society to live in in the future...I wouldn't have slain Orb, but given his fundamental difference from Lacus it was to be expected...

[Anh_Minh]

Originally Posted by wingdarkness

@Anh Minh - Sheeesh, I said "paradox" because your statement (if I were to change it with Dully's name as I suggested) contradicts what most people think of Dullindal (and furthermore some of his final development as a character in GSD), but not what I think...

Yeah, I got that, and, while I disagree on your assessment of what "most people think", I don't see how it constitutes a paradox.

In a sense he's trying to achieve the same thing as what your precious Lacus is trying thru different means..

They're both trying to achieve a kind of peace, yes. That's not enough for a meaningful comparison. After all, the same could be said of Azrael and Zala. And, in a twisted, nihilistic kind of way, Rau.

Geeez, No need to sell your soul to one-up me kind sir ...

Sell my soul? Are you pulling words out of a hat or something?

Re-read:"If you change the name you hit the first paradox"...

I read the "if" on my first pass. It changes nothing.

Maybe I should lend you a journalism degree, I got one in my office you know....

Maybe I should lend you a dictionary. An important - some might say, defining - feature of paradoxes is that they are self-contradictory. Now go ahead and explain to me how Dullindal having in common with Lacus a desire for peace (not even the same peace, for that matter) is self-contradictory.

Not surprising you don't see, but what I was saying was peace by extreme means...This isn't checkers, Dullindal felt the future of mankind was worth stopping Orb (which is basically Six Flags Lacus-land)...Not excusing him for it just saying his intentions toward the existence of human nature without war was what was at stake and his fundmental contrast with Lacus aka Orb who were trying to kill that potential future was his motivation...No rug-sweeping unless S-F and I-J in meteor would somehow pass UN inspections for not being WMD's capable of crippling ZAFT's entire army and kill their national leader...But ofcourse when you're on team Lacus these points seem to litter the way-side...It's not right to be clear, but it's weighing the living right now vs. even having a society to live in in the future...

ZAFT and Dully are proper military targets. Orb's capital? Not so much. Not when you're talking about destroying it in its entirety.

[kiramuro]

While I do agree that Durandal is trying to achieve peace but I also think his political and economic philosophy behind his plan is an utmost evil. Lacus on the other hand hasn't really shown what her political or economic beliefs are. Is it classical liberalism or communism? Without knowing that I am going to give her a benefit of a doubt. From the evidence shown between Seed and Destiny I am going to say that she really just want to live in recluse with the reverend, Kira and the kids.

[wingdarkness]

@Anh Minh - LOL you think "paradox" has one, singular definition or interpretation, that it's absolute? Maybe you need to search bar that definition and read them all...It's more than one you know...Paradox just doesn't mean self-contradiction absolutley...C'mon now... A paradox can simply be a true-statement that seems to lead to contradiction (making it judgmental in instances)...

But no more AP English with me as the cool substitute teacher the kids love...Believe what you will on that account, a very simple account...I think my message was served with what I previously said (i.e. Most peeps with stuff between the ears will simply get it^^)...

They're both trying to achieve a kind of peace, yes. That's not enough for a meaningful comparison. After all, the same could be said of Azrael and Zala. And, in a twisted, nihilistic kind of way, Rau.

It's more than enough dude...Azrael and Zala wanted to wipe out an entire race of individuals to achieve peace (If that indeed IS peace)...Dullindal wanted the 2 classes to coexist...A fundamental difference...Rau wanted all mankind dead...So by virtue of Lacus and Dullindal both wanting IN THE END: No more wars, coexistence and tolerance you can make a meaningful comparison (Again if you're not a Lacus Kool-Aid sipper just interested in Team Clyne's absolutness)...We have to examine the extremes for what they are and put them in the proper context if we're talking about the fundamental beliefs and differences between these characters (especially when I have heard countless times from the Lacus camp how ruthless and super-manipulative she really is [on Dully's level even] )...In any event me commenting on your comment was just to open the door for a different perspective, not to agitate you as I was being quite general in who I was responding to, which was more of an idea than just taking a shot at Anh Minh's statement if that's what you were thinking...

[Anh_Minh]

Originally Posted by wingdarkness

@Anh Minh - LOL you think "paradox" has one, singular definition or interpretation, that it's absolute? Maybe you need to search bar that definition and read them all...It's more than one you know...Paradox just doesn't mean self-contradiction absolutley...C'mon now... A paradox can simply be a true-statement that seems to lead to contradiction (making it judgmental in instances)...

Yes, I know. But I still fail to see how it contradicts anything relevant.

It's more than enough dude...Azrael and Zala wanted to wipe out an entire race of individuals to achieve peace (If that indeed IS peace)...Dullindal wanted the 2 classes to coexist...A fundamental difference...Rau wanted all mankind dead...So by virtue of Lacus and Dullindal both wanting IN THE END: No more wars, coexistence and tolerance you can make a meaningful comparison (Again if you're not a Lacus Kool-Aid sipper just interested in Team Clyne's absolutness)...We have to examine the extremes for what they are and put them in the proper context if we're talking about the fundamental beliefs and differences between these characters (especially when I have heard countless times from the Lacus camp how ruthless and super-manipulative she really is [on Dully's level even] )...In any event me commenting on your comment was just to open the door for a different perspective, not to agitate you as I was being quite general in who I was responding to, which was more of an idea than just taking a shot at Anh Minh's statement if that's what you were thinking...

And Dullindal wanted to exterminate millions of more or less random people as an example of what he'd do to those who refused to obey him. While he doesn't explicitly discriminate on circumstances of birth when it comes to wholesale slaughter, his outlook is closer to that of the other genocidal maniacs than to that of Lacus'. It's not about coexistence and tolerance, though I suppose he might be delusional enough to think that. It's about living under his iron fist. Any resemblance he has to Lacus is very superficial.

[Nightengale]

I don't see how Lacus's potrayal is wholely 'right'. It's Gundam for god's sake, it's all about choosing the lesser of 2 evils, and in this case, 6.

I think a general compliance is that Lacus is seemingly made to be greater than who she really is by comparison. I mean, c'mon. Name me one time in the series where she actually pulls a philoshopical and political speech of extreme calibres...I can't think of one. Even KIRA YAMATO who's a really simple, down-to-earth man who's doesn't like killing and unsure of what he should do talks like like he's greater than life even when he's not. And don't get me started on Dullindal's interpretation of Kira and Kiracus in FATES. That's one example of Morosawa's writing that I both hate and love. She knows how to use grandiose words that sound cool in quotes, but she often fails to connect a proper term and usage with the actual characters speaking.

If we boil down the fact that she's a girl who's emotionally strong, powerful, rich and influencial thanks to Daddy Clyne and his faction which was inherited by her plus the fact that she's an idealist, but not a broken delusional one, then it all really adds up to who she is. Lacus doesn't believe that means justify the ends, and Lacus is more than willing to use force to subdue the means before the means eat up more lives, innocent or not. Lacus is not a person to start a war, but she is more than capable of using a war scenario to shorten it by means. Yes, it can be argued that she's saving lives and reducing casualties at a whim of a moment, and she lacks ultimatems of Dullindal and even Djibril, who's looking out for the future, but that's part of Lacus's character. She doesn't believe war is the answer to peace, but in a similar vein, she will fight (( Fight, not start one )) a war if that can lead her to her ambitions.

Lacus will be willing to kill 10000 soldiers if it allows her to save 1000000 civilians. Gilbert is willing to kill off 1000000 civilians (( or at least ignore such casualty )), if it will bring forth a world where 6000000000 people will be able to live in peace, controlled, but forever peaceful. Blue Cosmos is willing to shorten the lifespans of several million Coordinators who's going to go extinct anyway by one or 2 generations if it promises that their kin will be able to revert back to a world before Coordinators existed, and Naturals outweight Coordinators by who knows how many times anyway. None of these sound like truely "right" means to me. The only difference is that Lacus is open to most of her followers about her plans, EA LUVS DOING THINGS TEH UNETHICAL AND EBIL WAY, and Gilbert keeps a lot of things under-wraps because his plans would never get green light no matter how much it'll benefit in the end, because saying "let Berlin die while I slowly deploy my army to show their power of true justice" for sake of publicity is not workable in a rational human society.

Is Lacus naive in thinking such? Yes, probably. But that doesn't mean that Gilbert and BC are right either as their worlds are not wholely promised to be devoid of war. There's no guarentee that Destiny Plan can control humans to such extreme extents and Naturals will still wage war with one another. Only Raww's plan seems to be a plan of true ultimatum...if we assume he plans to destroy Mars as well.

In the end, it's all about choosing the lesser of multiple evils, each of which doesn't represent true justice.

[Neku]

Ah. I forgot you tend to go long-winded. Er.. Snipy. What can I say is that.. showing alot of emotions =/= very 'human'. Showing less emotion =/= emotionless. It is not Lacus's fault that she doesn't show THAT much emotions. How much screentime does she has?

and.. about your reply to about the Shinn/Fllay thingy.. are you really replying to what I said..?

I shall read it again later. Busy now. See ya.

-Edit-

I'm back. Awright.

I did, and it's a natural thing, hiding our feelings. But the way Lacus hid her feelings just like that is very...fast for me. I haven't lost anybody dear to me that I really really felt close to, so I could safely say that I could only grasp/hint at what this person is feeling, because I haven't experienced it at all myself. Also, grief attacks people in many different ways. So, there are people who get over their grief easily, and people who don't. Lacus lost a father. The only other important person left in her life. It would be normal for her to grieve about her father's passing. But it was only shown in one ep only. What in the world was that? It's like, hey, a relative just got stabbed and got killed, and let's say that he was very dear and that he's more than what our relationship could allow to me. But in the midst of the grief that my entire family is experiencing, I just diss him off as another fact of life just like that and go on with my life...he was my entire world, he was my everything, and I simply dump him like that? Of course I will grieve, and maybe try to suppress my feelings of grief, I had to be strong, but not like that, as if nothing even terrible happened that changed my entire life forever, after 0.0000000034 seconds. What am I, a robot with no feelings?

And in the entire span of 2 series, she was only shown to have those emotions conveniently when it was time for Lacus to be emotional.

So it was shown in only one episode. What can I say is that I'm sorry that it was shown in only one episode. Lacus is different from Shinn or Fllay, who tend to show their feelings to.. us audience, and Snipy, might I ask? Did Lacus really not grief upon the death of his father? Not showing her emotions straightaway =/= ...I don't know what are you trying to express here.. Lacus being carefree even after her dad died? Should a girl who has to escape, who has to lead the people who's still following her show her feelings; just break down and cry there? Sorry. Lacus's characteristics is not like that.

and.. your argument here seem to only revolve around the length of the time Lacus showed her emotions. Whether she cried only once, or she cried the entire in the entire series, does not matter. The point is; she did cry. Convenient or not. She did cry.. and in the right timing too. You have a problem with that? But I do not understand what kind of timing you're talking about though.

You're not a robot with no feelings. You're just blinded by the fact you like characters who show that they need sympathy. I'm pretty sure you loved Kira in SEED; yeah, because he cried loads, but just plain dislike him after he became a dominater* in Destiny.

But that is only assumption. You need not reply to that.

As I've already told 4Tran, the soldiers who were blindly believing in Zala were most like Meer and yet she didn't feel anything for them, because this is war.

You might argue that Meer was a civilian, and the ZAFT soldiers were just soldiers. Um, and since when did soldiers stop becoming human? Do you even think that they don't feel anything at all when they shoot down an enemy? And prior to joining ZAFT, they were civilians, too. It was only recently that ZAFT was reorganized into the military unit that we see today.

Is that actually relevant to what I was replying to you?

*The next super duper long reply*

Snipy.. I was mocking you there, if you don't realize it. But what does that have anything to do with what Lacus knows about war? Anyways.. Lacus wanted to end war, without weapons, if you don't realize. Durandal wants to end war, with war. Yeah, their aims, if you like, are pretty much the same; peace. But which would even a normal human prefer?

And I am not saying that not showing emotions are completely abnormal at all. There are actually people out there who aren't afraid to show what they feel, what they think about you. Fllay and Shinn just happen to be a part of that, and that other people who aren't completely comfortable in showing their feelings form a part of another. What made Lacus inhuman as you put it is because of the fact that in the entire duration of the series, she was only shown to have real emotion a couple of times, and most of the time, she's just plain boring, because it's just so simple to figure her out.

No. It was you who was trying to said that Lacus was *inhuman* simply because she never showed that much emotion... like Shinn and Fllay, isn't it? and wasn't it you who brought in Shinn and Fllay?

[4Tran]

Originally Posted by Nightengale

I think a general compliance is that Lacus is seemingly made to be greater than who she really is by comparison. I mean, c'mon. Name me one time in the series where she actually pulls a philoshopical and political speech of extreme calibres...I can't think of one. Even KIRA YAMATO who's a really simple, down-to-earth man who's doesn't like killing and unsure of what he should do talks like like he's greater than life even when he's not. And don't get me started on Dullindal's interpretation of Kira and Kiracus in FATES. That's one example of Morosawa's writing that I both hate and love. She knows how to use grandiose words that sound cool in quotes, but she often fails to connect a proper term and usage with the actual characters speaking.

I agree. Whenever Morosawa tries to write anything grandiose or deeply philosophical, it tends to turn out to be gibberish. Unfortunately, this is a problem that's not restricted to Cosmic Era or even Gundam alone. It sometimes seems as if all of anime is afflicted with really badly written speeches. As a general rule, the simpler and more straight-forward speeches aren't too bad, and I think that that's partly why Lacus looks better in comparison.

Originally Posted by Nightengale

If we boil down the fact that she's a girl who's emotionally strong, powerful, rich and influencial thanks to Daddy Clyne and his faction which was inherited by her plus the fact that she's an idealist, but not a broken delusional one, then it all really adds up to who she is. Lacus doesn't believe that means justify the ends, and Lacus is more than willing to use force to subdue the means before the means eat up more lives, innocent or not. Lacus is not a person to start a war, but she is more than capable of using a war scenario to shorten it by means.

An idealist is generally taken as someone who places ideals ahead of practical concerns. I don't recall any time that Lacus really does this. She doesn't talk about general principles and the like all that much; instead her modus d'operandi tends to be direct action to confront her enemies. I think that this problem of classification arises from that the situations Lacus tried to address were the two wars themselves. For some odd reason, people who are against wars have been painted as idealists, even though that's not a fitting description in all cases.

Originally Posted by Nightengale

Is Lacus naive in thinking such? Yes, probably. But that doesn't mean that Gilbert and BC are right either as their worlds are not wholely promised to be devoid of war. There's no guarentee that Destiny Plan can control humans to such extreme extents and Naturals will still wage war with one another. Only Raww's plan seems to be a plan of true ultimatum...if we assume he plans to destroy Mars as well.

I'd say that Gilbert is the true visionary in Destiny. He places a very high value on his plan even though it's extremely unpragmatic to implement. Heck, it's entirely based off of his assumption that wars are caused by people "not knowing their proper positions" or something like that. This assumption sure as heck wasn't the reason for either of the Cosmic Era wars. In any case, of Sigel Clyne, Uzumi Athha, Azrael, Patrick Zala, Durandal, Djibril, Yuna Seiran, I think that only one political leader of note whom Lacus is not definitively better than would be her father. And I'm not even sure about him. To be fair though, I can't think of all that many good political/faction leaders in Gundam outside of Dianna/Kihel Heim either.

[Neku]

Owh.. btw, peoples, tell me if I've started to *insult* Snipy again. We wouldn't want that to happen again, would we? So then I can know when to stop and apologize if I need to XD