Why is Gundam Seed Destiny so controversial?

[4Tran]

Originally Posted by wingdarkness

And your worthless, unfair debating skills (tactics) continue...Neither brightman or tripleR agreeing with my sentiment here interests you...We're just pulling this $hit from the rafters...

People agree means jack to me. All I care about are well-argued points and you've failed to offer any of them so far. Heck, I'm even giving you a chance to contribute some substance to your claims, but you've rejected it. Why shouldn't I treat your arguments as they deserve?

[wingdarkness]

Originally Posted by 4Tran

People agree means jack to me. All I care about are well-argued points and you've failed to offer any of them so far. Why shouldn't I treat your arguments as they deserve?

You've made it quite clear that there's no point that will change your mind because you have what is called a disconnect...I'm still, after like 5 years of debating you, STILL trying to figure it out...People write walls of texts to debate you, and you combeack with some ancillary 1 liner asking for more proof..This is what you do all the time...

What more evidence is there? Obviously you disagree with the fact that Gundam SEED Destiny, quite easily defined and progressed Dully's relationship with the public as that of a person they supported by seemingly the millions/billions...

GSD is an extremely flawed show...Perhaps the most flawed piece of work I have ever witnessed, but even within the $hit that is Morosawa's script, you'd have to be living in a pure oblivion to miss the driving subplot that was Dullindal siphoning off world-support, where by the end of the series, millions, if not billions of people were supporting him as the world leader...This $hit is implied...

After that i have no clue what else we are arguing about as your main contention at some point appeared to be me citing "Support for the DP by these same people"...

******Awaits 1 liner question*******

[Terrestrial Dream]

Originally Posted by 4Tran

From where do you get the feeling that anyone wanted to give it a shot? It hardly seems to be supported by the show save for a few odd characters like Shinn.

Hmm... didn't that kid from the desert and his comrades supported Durandal? I thought those brief appearance were made to show that majority of the world supported Durandal.

[Neku]

Originally Posted by yezhanquan

The Desinty Plan held promise, IMO. After a long series of battles (with a 1-year-or-so break in between), many people are now willing to try anything in an attempt for lasting peace. While most did not openly support the Plan, they hold an at-worst neutral attitude (and at best, "why not?"). Also, Durandal has made his point: the Requiem IS a big stick, and he has no qualms about using it.

If Durandal intends to promote peace through his big stick, he's igniting war and tyranny. If there is still war, it means that not everyone is willing to try his plan, despite the current war.

His act of pointing a stick to annihilate people who oppose his ideals does not at all promote peace. It induces fear that makes people comply. You will never get lasting peace that way.

Originally Posted by wingdarkness

People write walls of texts to debate you, and you combeack with some ancillary 1 liner asking for more proof..This is what you do all the time...

If a line is sufficient to constitute an answer, why post tons of rubbish?

GSD is an extremely flawed show...Perhaps the most flawed piece of work I have ever witnessed, but even within the $hit that is Morosawa's script, you'd have to be living in a pure oblivion to miss the driving subplot that was Dullindal siphoning off world-support, where by the end of the series, millions, if not billions of people were supporting him as the world leader...This $hit is implied...

This is the shit. When you debate about a matter IN the anime, don't blame it on how poorly it was written, because it's already written and presented like that.

While it may be true that Durandal had obvious support from people around the world, I seem to remember that that support had perished as soon as he announced Destiny Plan.

Also, you agreed with brightman's idea that people were supporting Durandal personally. What supports both your claim?

The fact that Orb and Scandivania were the only ones who opposed Durandal publicly doesn't mean that the others who didn't voice out would be supporting his plan personally.

[yezhanquan]

As The Prince put it so aptly, if a ruler has to choose between being loved and being feared, then he should choose being feared. Being loved is better, but if it cannot be achieved, then the ruler must at least be willing to go to the "being feared" stage. The ruler does no one favours if he has power but refuses to wield it.

[wingdarkness]

Ugh, let the multi-quote hell begin...

Originally Posted by Neku

If Durandal intends to promote peace through his big stick, he's igniting war and tyranny. If there is still war, it means that not everyone is willing to try his plan, despite the current war.

His act of pointing a stick to annihilate people who oppose his ideals does not at all promote peace. It induces fear that makes people comply. You will never get lasting peace that way.

Requiem was his LAST resort, not his FIRST resort….Requiem is what he used once he went bat$hit over the fact that like literally 3 mofos stood in the way of his “ending all wars”…If he was gonna be a heavy-handed tyrant, he would have been one from the beginning or atleast from a point where he clearly had the advantage (Before Team Clyne started to clearly oppose him)…He could have vaporized all the cities he wanted and been a dumba$$ tyrant leader with a laser pointed at every city until FREEDOM or whatever raped his a$$...All his moves were calculated to incorporate his leadership in a very acceptable way towards the public, not an overtly evil way…So you want to call him evil after the fact, fine….Before the fact your pushing it….Although it seems you’re as Pollyanna on this as most Dully haters….

If a line is sufficient to constitute an answer, why post tons of rubbish?

That’s a good question. Why don’t you vigorously debate him and see for yourself …Then you can PM me and say you love his debating style…I’ll then delete the 5 years worth of PM’s of people telling me how much they hate his debating style…You wanna stand up for 4tran, go right ahead man…Hope that koolaid’s still cold though…

This is the shit. When you debate about a matter IN the anime, don't blame it on how poorly it was written, because it's already written and presented like that.

You obviously don’t know $hit about me if you think this is what I like to do…I only brought that point up after it became clear that (Like it always becomes clear when debating this guy) he STILL didn’t understand my rather simple point about Dully having a vehicle in place to legitimately present his plan… And like I said, in a show this bad in-terms of overall execution, this is one aspect that was actually quite prevalent IMO…Hard to miss, honestly…

The fact that Orb and Scandivania were the only ones who opposed Durandal publicly doesn't mean that the others who didn't voice out would be supporting his plan personally.

Good, I got it, thanx…I NEVER said otherwise…Good Grief…

While it may be true that Durandal had obvious support from people around the world, I seem to remember that that support had perished as soon as he announced Destiny Plan.

Have you been reading? I guess you are from your friends’ School of skimming and scamming…As I’ve said over and over, once he tried to blast Orb and his own men, all credibility was lost…Now in the actual episode people on Earth (such as the country where Athrun and Shinn helped the little girl in the desert-car) they were still shown to be upset or disappointed that Dullindal (ZAFT) had lost, but it is fair to presume that during his initial announcement of the DP, there was more bewilderment than there were people screaming against it…While not many understood it (including the audience who watched this bull$hit), no one appeared to be vehemently against it other than Team Clyne (Which I know is good enuff for you ) It was more WTF? than GTFO…So no his support hadn’t perished completely, but in my mind once you try and vaporize a country and follow that up with trying to kill your own people just to kill Kiracus, then all hopes for a nominal or credible presentation is shot to hell….Now you are a tyrant, you are outside of acceptability…

Also, you agreed with brightman's idea that people were supporting Durandal personally. What supports both your claim?

The TV show called Gundam SEED DESTINY supports my claim…Ever heard of it.? To me, and I mean this with all the sincerity in the world covered with magic pink Lacus dust…If you didn’t see Dullindal’s rise in-terms of global support and how the subplot fleshed this out via his actions (schemes) following “Break The World”, after his speech following the Berlin Massacre, and following the events of the Djbril destroying the Plants…If people didn’t notice the paradigm shift which was trying to be conveyed here in-terms of his overall support then I believe these people may have a learning disability or something…Now there’s good ones like rainman where you can pwn BlackJack tables and there’s obviously the not so good ones…

Additionally I respect brightman’s opinion since I’ve read his posts for years and am convinced he’s probably forgotten more about Gundam than you and 4tran will ever know, but not just that he gave an explanation that easily coincided with the point I was making…I'm still scratching my head with a question-mark trying to figure how some can't...

[Triple_R]

wingdarkness - I just want to say that I'm enjoying your posts. It's good to know that I'm not the only GSD watcher who saw Dullindal in at least a somewhat positive light.

[wingdarkness]

^If it wasn’t for the beyond disgraceful handling of his character in the 2nd half of the series (especially in ep 39 where he becomes Dr. Evil) he’d probably be in my alltime top ten Gundam Characters…Somewhere behind Treize Khushranada (Wing) and before Guin Lineford (Turn A)…He was elegant, charismatic, and brilliant…He had a romanticized view of the world, yet a practical understanding of it…He had an aura of confidence yet understated hubris…He was a really distinguished character with an underlining complexity, but since Kiracus needed a foil he was reduced to a static megalomaniac near the climax…I guess it could have been worse though, they could have turned him into Yuna, where he started off as a capable foil and somehow morphed into a cartoon feline in like 2 eps…

Dullindal was the $hit for the most part, and I would have gladly suited up for him and got my a$$ handed to me by Team Lacus^^…

[Triple_R]

Originally Posted by wingdarkness

^If it wasn’t for the beyond disgraceful handling of his character in the 2nd half of the series (especially in ep 39 where he becomes Dr. Evil) he’d probably be in my alltime top ten Gundam Characters…Somewhere behind Treize Khushranada (Wing) and before Guin Lineford (Turn A)…He was elegant, charismatic, and brilliant…He had a romanticized view of the world, yet a practical understanding of it…He had an aura of confidence yet understated hubris…He was a really distinguished character with an underlining complexity, but since Kiracus needed a foil he was reduced to a static megalomaniac near the climax…I guess it could have been worse though, they could have turned him into Yuna, where he started off as a capable foil and somehow morphed into a cartoon feline in like 2 eps…

Dullindal was the $hit for the most part, and I would have gladly suited up for him and got my a$$ handed to me by Team Lacus^^…

That pretty much how I felt about him too. I totally could understand why Shinn liked him a lot.

[yezhanquan]

Count me in on the pro-Durandal wagon. In another setting, I really would want to see him succeed. He has brains, knows how to cover himself (most of the time anyway), and is the refined non-hero character which I don't see enough nowadays. Lest we forget, Le Creuset was impressed by him as well, although the men obviously disagreed with each other.

As for Shinn, let's face it: he is impressionable. He's not the sort to think deeply about issues.

[Dark Shikra]

Originally Posted by yezhanquan

As The Prince put it so aptly, if a ruler has to choose between being loved and being feared, then he should choose being feared. Being loved is better, but if it cannot be achieved, then the ruler must at least be willing to go to the "being feared" stage. The ruler does no one favours if he has power but refuses to wield it.

Who is The Prince???????

[Terrestrial Dream]

Originally Posted by Dark Shikra

Who is The Prince???????

It is a book by Machiavelli during the Middle Ages and it shows what the ruler must do in order to maintain his power (or something along that line as I never read the book but learned about it in history class).

[Neku]

Originally Posted by wingdarkness

Ugh, let the multi-quote hell begin...

Uh huh. But you could always ignore me.

Requiem was his LAST resort, not his FIRST resort….Requiem is what he used once he went bat$hit over the fact that like literally 3 mofos stood in the way of his “ending all wars”…If he was gonna be a heavy-handed tyrant, he would have been one from the beginning or atleast from a point where he clearly had the advantage (Before Team Clyne started to clearly oppose him)…He could have vaporized all the cities he wanted and been a dumba$$ tyrant leader with a laser pointed at every city until FREEDOM or whatever raped his a$$...All his moves were calculated to incorporate his leadership in a very acceptable way towards the public, not an overtly evil way…So you want to call him evil after the fact, fine….

Requiem wasn't a resort. It was a threat, and he did fulfill that threat as soon as Atlantic Federation voiced their opposition, if I'm not wrong. Next, I said he is igniting tyranny, I never said he is a tyrant; though, he is turning out to be one towards the end of Destiny because of his beliefs; that anyone who opposes his plan is enemy of mankind, and should be eradicated.

Before the fact your pushing it….Although it seems you’re as Pollyanna on this as most Dully haters….

Not really. I admire Durandal as a villain - he was a clever one. I just don't agree that Destiny Plan is a promising way to attain and maintain peace. It is instead, a method to restrict people's future. To me, Destiny Plan is like the start of artificial happiness.

But if you'd label me a Shinn hater, then yes. I am a fucking Shinn hater. He was a pointless piece of shit for main character material.

That’s a good question. Why don’t you vigorously debate him and see for yourself …Then you can PM me and say you love his debating style…I’ll then delete the 5 years worth of PM’s of people telling me how much they hate his debating style…You wanna stand up for 4tran, go right ahead man…Hope that koolaid’s still cold though…

That's funny. Now I wonder if Obi-Wan is still keeping his wingdarkness Greatest Hits collection. It's also funny how you once mentioned that 4Tran debates with an interesting viewpoint, and now you're hinting to me that you cannot stand his debating style.

Anyway, don't be a baby. I don't stand for anyone here. That was a question. One you have not answered.

You obviously don’t know $hit about me if you think this is what I like to do…I only brought that point up after it became clear that (Like it always becomes clear when debating this guy) he STILL didn’t understand my rather simple point about Dully having a vehicle in place to legitimately present his plan… And like I said, in a show this bad in-terms of overall execution, this is one aspect that was actually quite prevalent IMO…Hard to miss, honestly…

Why do I need to know crap about you? The fact is, you brought up that point anyway. You give people that impression, kiddo.

Good, I got it, thanx…I NEVER said otherwise…Good Grief…

I see now why you prefer walls of text; I don't see a point in your 1-liner. At all.

Have you been reading?

Honestly speaking - no.

I guess you are from your friends’ School of skimming and scamming…

You got it wrong. Wanna try again?

As I’ve said over and over, once he tried to blast Orb and his own men, all credibility was lost…Now in the actual episode people on Earth (such as the country where Athrun and Shinn helped the little girl in the desert-car) they were still shown to be upset or disappointed that Dullindal (ZAFT) had lost, but it is fair to presume that during his initial announcement of the DP, there was more bewilderment than there were people screaming against it…While not many understood it (including the audience who watched this bull$hit), no one appeared to be vehemently against it other than Team Clyne (Which I know is good enuff for you ) It was more WTF? than GTFO…

That's because ZAFT helped them as you stated, but they don't constitute billions of people nor people from around the world. Also, while they were sad about Durandal's downfall - this does not mean that they support Destiny Plan. People were confused when Destiny Plan was first announced. No one besides Orb and Scandinavia showed opposition, but no one else supported either.

So no his support hadn’t perished completely, but in my mind once you try and vaporize a country and follow that up with trying to kill your own people just to kill Kiracus, then all hopes for a nominal or credible presentation is shot to hell….Now you are a tyrant, you are outside of acceptability…

I don't remember typing completely.
But I would think that it is safe to say that whatever personal support Durandal had from anyone from outside of ZAFT perished as soon as he put the order of tyranny - to fire Requiem against the first to oppose Destiny Plan.

If I may add - he claims Destiny Plan was for peace, but he waged war.

The TV show called Gundam SEED DESTINY supports my claim…Ever heard of it.? To me, and I mean this with all the sincerity in the world covered with magic pink Lacus dust…If you didn’t see Dullindal’s rise in-terms of global support and how the subplot fleshed this out via his actions (schemes) following “Break The World”, after his speech following the Berlin Massacre, and following the events of the Djbril destroying the Plants…If people didn’t notice the paradigm shift which was trying to be conveyed here in-terms of his overall support then I believe these people may have a learning disability or something…Now there’s good ones like rainman where you can pwn BlackJack tables and there’s obviously the not so good ones…

I didn't.

Since GSD supports your claims, try giving me specific evidence. Yeah, I'm that dense. Give me specific evidence from a specific episode.

Additionally I respect brightman’s opinion since I’ve read his posts for years and am convinced he’s probably forgotten more about Gundam than you and 4tran will ever know, but not just that he gave an explanation that easily coincided with the point I was making…I'm still scratching my head with a question-mark trying to figure how some can't...

He didn't give an explanation. He was merely deciphering your explanation. I think the problem lies with you.

[Dean_the_Young]

So, to summarize:

Weakness 4312: Durandal went on a complete about face from brilliant idealist leader to kicks-kittens world-conquering tyrant-to-be after 4/5ths of the season with little supported lead up or effective foreshadowing.


That better?

[4Tran]

Originally Posted by wingdarkness

You've made it quite clear that there's no point that will change your mind because you have what is called a disconnect...I'm still, after like 5 years of debating you, STILL trying to figure it out...People write walls of texts to debate you, and you combeack with some ancillary 1 liner asking for more proof..This is what you do all the time...

The amount that I post as a response is generally reflective of the amount of material I have to say about a point. As your posts are generally devoid of points, a single line seems to be a rather generous response. Let's see if the rest of your post has any actual content:

Originally Posted by wingdarkness

What more evidence is there? Obviously you disagree with the fact that Gundam SEED Destiny, quite easily defined and progressed Dully's relationship with the public as that of a person they supported by seemingly the millions/billions...

Nope, no content here - this is just a reiteration of your previous points, and it's done with zero supporting material. As such, it's effectively worthless, and does not merit any discussion.

Originally Posted by wingdarkness

GSD is an extremely flawed show...Perhaps the most flawed piece of work I have ever witnessed, but even within the $hit that is Morosawa's script, you'd have to be living in a pure oblivion to miss the driving subplot that was Dullindal siphoning off world-support, where by the end of the series, millions, if not billions of people were supporting him as the world leader...This $hit is implied...

Again, there are lots of claims here, but no actual content.

Originally Posted by wingdarkness

After that i have no clue what else we are arguing about as your main contention at some point appeared to be me citing "Support for the DP by these same people"...

And ditto.


Seriously, wingdarkness, you're an extremely poor debater because you're unwilling to substantiate any of your claims. Hence your posts are largely content-free spam. If you want more substantive comments to your posts, then you're going to put more effort into your posts. Just take a look at the post below yours: Terrestrial Dream's comment is very short, but it contains much more meaningful content than your last few posts.

Originally Posted by Terrestrial Dream

Hmm... didn't that kid from the desert and his comrades supported Durandal? I thought those brief appearance were made to show that majority of the world supported Durandal.

Not really. The point of Coniel is to show that there were many people who were grateful of what PLANT had done for them. However, this doesn't automatically translate to support for Durandal since Durandal was trying to keep a low profile on purpose. Durandal fully understood the limits of his charisma, and of what he could do to sell the Destiny Plan, hence all of his machinations to use a different spokesman. Moreover, Coniel herself was never meant to be representative of the whole world - for that, we can see the various different reactions from different groups.

Originally Posted by yezhanquan

As The Prince put it so aptly, if a ruler has to choose between being loved and being feared, then he should choose being feared. Being loved is better, but if it cannot be achieved, then the ruler must at least be willing to go to the "being feared" stage. The ruler does no one favours if he has power but refuses to wield it.

You have a point here, but it should be noted that leaders who follow Machiavelli slavishly aren't necessarily good leaders, and that they're almost certainly not good as people.

Originally Posted by yezhanquan

Count me in on the pro-Durandal wagon. In another setting, I really would want to see him succeed. He has brains, knows how to cover himself (most of the time anyway), and is the refined non-hero character which I don't see enough nowadays. Lest we forget, Le Creuset was impressed by him as well, although the men obviously disagreed with each other.

To be honest, I'm in sort of the same boat - Durandal is quite interesting as a character, even if he's not very good as a person. It's a common failing of complex characters, and I think that Durandal is one of the most complex characters in Gundam.

Originally Posted by Dean_the_Young

Weakness 4312: Durandal went on a complete about face from brilliant idealist leader to kicks-kittens world-conquering tyrant-to-be after 4/5ths of the season with little supported lead up or effective foreshadowing.

That's completely untrue. What actually happened was that Durandal was a ruthless idealist who had to make a major switch of plans because his original one had been utterly foiled. It only lacks build up if you refuse to accept that he was ruthless from the very beginning; and that would be the fault of the viewer, rather than the show itself.

[Dean_the_Young]

Nothing from the very beginning or mid-series suggested he was ruthless, because the one shadowy event he may or may not have had a hand in was never pinned to him in the series by anyone. Past the Lacus assasination debate, what else was there? Attacking the AA after it had continually intervened in ZAFT's affairs on a number of occasions? Invading Orb, who was harboring the architect of the war?

[wingdarkness]

4tran, whatever...I've lost count of how many debates I've whipped you in...I don't know though, maybe all the rep-points I get from debating you goes to my head...

Originally Posted by Neku

Uh huh. But you could always ignore me.

No, it’s not about you...I just hate multi-quote responding because it kinda takes the creativity out of the discussion when you just say the opposite of someone else’ quote…But I shall go against my pet peeve yet again…

Requiem wasn't a resort. It was a threat, and he did fulfill that threat as soon as Atlantic Federation voiced their opposition, if I'm not wrong. Next, I said he is igniting tyranny, I never said he is a tyrant; though, he is turning out to be one towards the end of Destiny because of his beliefs; that anyone who opposes his plan is enemy of mankind, and should be eradicated.

Call it what you like…We can play semantics til the Requiem blast envelopes us…My bottomline here is that, based on his character construct, using Requiem for anything other than absolute protection of the Plants, didn’t appear consistent with what we had been shown up until the point he ultimately cracks from Team Kira being so unstoppable that he feels he has to use it…This is formulated upon the rigorous planning (or schemes or manipulation) he did to gain public support….If he didn’t give a damn about public support, if not total public acceptance, he would have used the Requim much earlier…Even after Djbril was killed and the cards in his favor, he still waited for Orb to take to space…If he wanted them dead, period, end of story, he had ample time to have the Messiah prepped for that cause…However he actually believed that Rey and Shinn could stalemate Team Kira (which we all know was the biggest 1-sided joke in the history of realistic mecha)…

That's funny. Now I wonder if Obi-Wan is still keeping his wingdarkness Greatest Hits collection. It's also funny how you once mentioned that 4Tran debates with an interesting viewpoint, and now you're hinting to me that you cannot stand his debating style.

Anyway, don't be a baby. I don't stand for anyone here. That was a question. One you have not answered.

I wouldn’t be surprised if Obi-wan did, he certainly tried hard enuff…I’ll admit that 4tran is one of the only people to ever frustrate me in debates with his total lack of concession in any area, not to mention he ignores almost anything having to do with symbolism and expressionism...However he knows this, but masochists can’t be choosers right?

I see now why you prefer walls of text; I don't see a point in your 1-liner. At all.

I’m pretty good at 1-liners, but we can’t all be the $hit all of the time…All you need to understand is that I NEVER said Dullindal had support for the DESTINY PLAN like he had support from the people of his personal leadership…He just put together a scheme that would allow him the credibility and venue for being taken seriously on the issue…Unfortunately (for him and his supporters), Kiracus made him go bat$hit in the end and he lost his cred…

That's because ZAFT helped them as you stated, but they don't constitute billions of people nor people from around the world. Also, while they were sad about Durandal's downfall - this does not mean that they support Destiny Plan. People were confused when Destiny Plan was first announced. No one besides Orb and Scandinavia showed opposition, but no one else supported either.

The reason I say millions.//billions is because I’m not sure of the actual C.E. census report after “Break the World”…I’m assuming hundreds of millions if not billions of people died in that $hit, so when I reflect upon Dullindal’s rise to leadership I’m factoring in an unknown number…But the perspective of the IN-ANIME portrayal as it were seems to project something around that absolute…As I said before like a broken Micheal Jackson record being played the last 4 weeks, I never said he had overall support for the DP (As easily alluded to by brightman)…

I don't remember typing completely.
But I would think that it is safe to say that whatever personal support Durandal had from anyone from outside of ZAFT perished as soon as he put the order of tyranny - to fire Requiem against the first to oppose Destiny Plan.

If I may add - he claims Destiny Plan was for peace, but he waged war.

I don’t have much disagreement with this… By the time he “waged war” as you put it (I’m assuming you mean the battle that coincided with his reveal of the DP), he had become desperate by the fact that 1 guy, 1 girl, and a killer tomato were enuff to destroy everything he had worked toward…If the DP was his ultimate plan for peace it’s only logical he would fight for it given his position…

I didn't.

Since GSD supports your claims, try giving me specific evidence. Yeah, I'm that dense. Give me specific evidence from a specific episode.

Dullindal is shown as the central figure in-terms of an overall leader in the C.E. universe (from a tangible political authoritative perspective as opposed to a pop perspective that would serve a Lacus Clyne realistically)…The only other shown leaders in the show are Cagali, Yuna and his puppet regime, Djbril, and the US president IIRC…The US president is essentially Djbril’s lackey, Cagali is incompetent by all accounts with little global support, and Yuna was in-line with Djbril of Blue Cosmos…These are the established power-points within the show’s construct with Lacus’ off-screen underground omnipotent asteroid government (who’re making illegal Gundams BTW) and what not being the final influencing power…

Neither Scandinavia or whatever other country or their leaders who are opposing Dullindal are shown or are conveyed to have an opinion against him…This is key because the script (however $hitty and we all know it is) wants you to focus on just these players in-terms of overall world leadership for this era…Of these opponents Gilbert Dullindal is shown to have more support on Earth and in Space than any of the entities against him (Which coincides with all of his planning throughout the show to get that end)…With no other real prevalent contenders in the arena of “world leader” , the subsequent influences and visceral evidence in his favor (Such as the rallies in his favor, the chants of his name in global support, Representation of leadership against Djbril’s fear and genocidal world campaign, etc, he is seen as the singular political leader against these things—Even the all-knowing Kira and Lacus basically tell the audience he’s the only leader of merit the world is following against them)…With all these items in his favor one would have to be dense to not see that the global support that was visually shown in various points of the show to elevate his status, were shown to personify his support across the board verses Team Clyne’s fledgling support….There is no one episode, one scene…It is done throughout the entirety of the show beginning with Gilbert Dullindal as just some new leader of the Plants, ending with Gilbert Dullindal nearly becoming leader of the world, if not universe by process of elimination…

All the time it took me to type that, something which I understand without typing a letter…It’s beyond prevalent in the show…And that’s what is called an argument…It is not absolute, just a premise based on certain tangible and intangible elements found within the show that I believe should be easy to see and or figure out…Certain members need their human calculators to read 100% before they can accept any claim, but as we all know in debates you don’t win with 100%, you win with a preponderance…Some members might be too anal to understand that though…

[4Tran]

Originally Posted by Dean_the_Young

Nothing from the very beginning or mid-series suggested he was ruthless, because the one shadowy event he may or may not have had a hand in was never pinned to him in the series by anyone. Past the Lacus assasination debate, what else was there?

Are you kidding? Just about everything that Durandal did hinted at his ruthlessness. The assassination attempt was the most obvious of these examples, but even if you ignored it, there were plenty of other ones. The very fact that Meer existed suggested that Durandal wouldn't hesitate to use and deceive people if he saw any advantage in it, the episode "Fates" all but screams out how he held his ideals in relation to other things like morals, and so on. In addition, the actions of Durandal's subordinates also speak volumes about him. This is obviously more pronounced in the latter part of the show, but please don't act like it wasn't present in the earlier portions. The fact is that Durandal had always been meant to be the main villain in Destiny, and there are clues to this fact throughout the show.

Originally Posted by Dean_the_Young

Attacking the AA after it had continually intervened in ZAFT's affairs on a number of occasions? Invading Orb, who was harboring the architect of the war?

These are relatively minor compared to the way Athrun was discarded as soon as he proved to be unsuited for Durandal's purposes...

Originally Posted by wingdarkness

4tran, whatever...I've lost count of how many debates I've whipped you in...I don't know though, maybe all the rep-points I get from debating you goes to my head...

Hah! I've always figured that math wasn't your strong point, so thanks for confirming that ! And you think that reputation points prove that your posts are actually good? Really? Heck, that's right up there with thinking that internet polls are worth a damn .

Onwards to dissecting your post:

Originally Posted by wingdarkness

Call it what you like…We can play semantics til the Requiem blast envelopes us…My bottomline here is that, based on his character construct, using Requiem for anything other than absolute protection of the Plants, didn’t appear consistent with what we had been shown up until the point he ultimately cracks from Team Kira being so unstoppable that he feels he has to use it…This is formulated upon the rigorous planning (or schemes or manipulation) he did to gain public support….If he didn’t give a damn about public support, if not total public acceptance, he would have used the Requim much earlier…Even after Djbril was killed and the cards in his favor, he still waited for Orb to take to space…If he wanted them dead, period, end of story, he had ample time to have the Messiah prepped for that cause…However he actually believed that Rey and Shinn could stalemate Team Kira (which we all know was the biggest 1-sided joke in the history of realistic mecha)…

This doesn't even begin to address Neku's point. That point was that Durandal used REQUIEM as a threat and your counterclaim that Durandal is written poorly is utterly irrelevant to that. While using someone's point as a jump-off for your own arguments is okay, ignoring the original point altogether is that oh-so-familiar red herring fallacy, and it's a sign of poor debating.

Originally Posted by wingdarkness

I wouldn’t be surprised if Obi-wan did, he certainly tried hard enuff…I’ll admit that 4tran is one of the only people to ever frustrate me in debates with his total lack of concession in any area, not to mention he ignores almost anything having to do with symbolism and expressionism...However he knows this, but masochists can’t be choosers right?

Why would it be necessary to concede to non-content posts? Simply claiming that a statement is about symbolism and expressionism doesn't mean that it's free from the requirements of logical reasoning.

Originally Posted by wingdarkness

I’m pretty good at 1-liners, but we can’t all be the $hit all of the time…All you need to understand is that I NEVER said Dullindal had support for the DESTINY PLAN like he had support from the people of his personal leadership…He just put together a scheme that would allow him the credibility and venue for being taken seriously on the issue…Unfortunately (for him and his supporters), Kiracus made him go bat$hit in the end and he lost his cred…

Again, these are unsubstantiated claims, and aren't worth addressing directly.

Originally Posted by wingdarkness

The reason I say millions.//billions is because I’m not sure of the actual C.E. census report after “Break the World”…I’m assuming hundreds of millions if not billions of people died in that $hit, so when I reflect upon Dullindal’s rise to leadership I’m factoring in an unknown number…But the perspective of the IN-ANIME portrayal as it were seems to project something around that absolute…As I said before like a broken Micheal Jackson record being played the last 4 weeks, I never said he had overall support for the DP (As easily alluded to by brightman)…

And ditto; with the highlighted portion being little more than a case of goalpost moving. What's especially amusing about this is that wingdarkness still hasn't provided an episode number and timestamp, even if he was referring to the people who supported Durandal in general as opposed to the Destiny Plan in general.

Originally Posted by wingdarkness

I don’t have much disagreement with this… By the time he “waged war” as you put it (I’m assuming you mean the battle that coincided with his reveal of the DP), he had become desperate by the fact that 1 guy, 1 girl, and a killer tomato were enuff to destroy everything he had worked toward…If the DP was his ultimate plan for peace it’s only logical he would fight for it given his position…

If you agree that Durandal was no longer popular in the rest of the world, then why do you keep claiming that he was popular? And that red herring I highlighted doesn't do you any favors.

Originally Posted by wingdarkness

Dullindal is shown as the central figure in-terms of an overall leader in the C.E. universe (from a tangible political authoritative perspective as opposed to a pop perspective that would serve a Lacus Clyne realistically)…The only other shown leaders in the show are Cagali, Yuna and his puppet regime, Djbril, and the US president IIRC…The US president is essentially Djbril’s lackey, Cagali is incompetent by all accounts with little global support, and Yuna was in-line with Djbril of Blue Cosmos…These are the established power-points within the show’s construct with Lacus’ off-screen underground omnipotent asteroid government (who’re making illegal Gundams BTW) and what not being the final influencing power…

Fair enough so far.

Originally Posted by wingdarkness

Neither Scandinavia or whatever other country or their leaders who are opposing Dullindal are shown or are conveyed to have an opinion against him…This is key because the script (however $hitty and we all know it is) wants you to focus on just these players in-terms of overall world leadership for this era…Of these opponents Gilbert Dullindal is shown to have more support on Earth and in Space than any of the entities against him (Which coincides with all of his planning throughout the show to get that end)…With no other real prevalent contenders in the arena of “world leader” , the subsequent influences and visceral evidence in his favor (Such as the rallies in his favor, the chants of his name in global support, Representation of leadership against Djbril’s fear and genocidal world campaign, etc, he is seen as the singular political leader against these things—Even the all-knowing Kira and Lacus basically tell the audience he’s the only leader of merit the world is following against them)…With all these items in his favor one would have to be dense to not see that the global support that was visually shown in various points of the show to elevate his status, were shown to personify his support across the board verses Team Clyne’s fledgling support….There is no one episode, one scene…It is done throughout the entirety of the show beginning with Gilbert Dullindal as just some new leader of the Plants, ending with Gilbert Dullindal nearly becoming leader of the world, if not universe by process of elimination…

This, on the other hand, is dead wrong. By his own design, Durandal was almost as little known in the world as the leader of Scandinavia until after his plan fell apart (after the failed invasion of Orb). Durandal was only known for two major announcements: the fact that PLANT was giving out aid after the "Break the World" incident, and his denunciation of LOGOS. While both moves have their populist elements, neither are the kind of event that would do much for his personal popularity. Bear in mind that Durandl's biggest struggle with popularity had always been in PLANT, and there's no evidence that he was ever held in high regards there. If you can point to actual examples of anyone outside of his little group who had much positive to say about him, then you'd have a point. Without those examples, this is a very weak claim.

Originally Posted by wingdarkness

All the time it took me to type that, something which I understand without typing a letter…It’s beyond prevalent in the show…And that’s what is called an argument…It is not absolute, just a premise based on certain tangible and intangible elements found within the show that I believe should be easy to see and or figure out…

wingdarkness, you've got squat so far. If you think otherwise, I welcome your attempts to show us what you've got.

[Neku]

Lol. It seems I need not reply wingdarkness much until he has replied 4Tran.
Nicely dissected, 4Tran.

Originally Posted by wingdarkness

No, it’s not about you...I just hate multi-quote responding because it kinda takes the creativity out of the discussion when you just say the opposite of someone else’ quote…But I shall go against my pet peeve yet again…

Say the opposite... you do!?

Well anyway, I was just saying that if you don't like it, you don't have to reply not just me, but anyone that makes you multi-quote.

I don’t have much disagreement with this… By the time he “waged war” as you put it (I’m assuming you mean the battle that coincided with his reveal of the DP), he had become desperate by the fact that 1 guy, 1 girl, and a killer tomato were enuff to destroy everything he had worked toward…If the DP was his ultimate plan for peace it’s only logical he would fight for it given his position…

Nuh uh. My point was that he waged war as soon as he realized opposition exists - it wasn't a desperate action - it was a threat.

[dramatis]

Originally Posted by 4Tran

People agree means jack to me. All I care about are well-argued points and you've failed to offer any of them so far. Heck, I'm even giving you a chance to contribute some substance to your claims, but you've rejected it. Why shouldn't I treat your arguments as they deserve?

To be honest, you don't have well-argued points either. Your 'evidence' consists of self-interpretations and those interpretations cater to your own biases of the characters. Of course, the same applies to the opposing side, but for you to pretend you stand on some high ground over wingdarkness? Laughable. In the Lacus assassination thread, you use circumstantial evidence to 'prove' Durandal as the 'obvious' mastermind, but here you oppose the circumstantial evidence provided proving Durandal as a popular political figure. Here, you use that assassination attempt, which has no decisive evidence implicating Durandal, as evidence for Durandal's ruthlessness.

Shape up your own arguments before criticizing others.

Circular debates like the ones that have persisted in this thread are good examples of why Destiny is a failure. The show itself is schizophrenic, unable to keep its characters in-character, and suffers from fan and writer favoritisms. The destruction of Cagalli's character, the destruction of Shinn's character, the sudden switch from benign politician to aggressive 'scientist' for Durandal—if you acknowledge these as legitimate progressions in the story and plot of Destiny, congratulations, you are a true and devoted fanboy. You probably watched the show to cheer Kira and Lacus on.