Mahou Senki Lyrical Nanoha Force Manga Discussion

[Keroko]

Originally Posted by Kaijo

Ah, but you *do* have sufficient cause to have some doubt as to Cypha's words. The case of Veyron vs. Thoma for starters. I'd also say "innocent until proven guilty" but you may not be in the US where such a standard applies (and yes, you may laugh as to how well that's held up sometimes).

It's interesting, though, that if you presume Cypha to be a unsavory character (and you have to, if you're working with the assumption that she kills people and enjoys it)... why are you then presuming her to be 100% truthful, too? Bad people don't tend to be totally honest.

I have just as much evidence that counters the incidents where they don't kill. Take the talk between Fortis and Thoma. Here he admitted to killing civilians (on a massive scale, even) right to a person he was trying to recruit. Logic 101 dictates that it's not exactly likely he would tell a lie to a person he was trying to recruit if said lie was more likely to drive him away.

Given the fact that they already admit to mass-murder in a situation where a lie would have only adverse effects, I see no reason why Cypha's words are a lie.

[00-Raiser]

Actually if you want to split hairs Fortis didn't admit to killing civilians. He just said that if they were to exterminate a village, they'd make sure to leave no one alive.

[Keroko]

The point remains. He admitted they have no problems killing civilians, which makes Cypha's confession to killing an entire colony very believable.

[Justin_Brett]

That's a pretty pointless statement to make considering that no matter what, they have killed people off-screen before. It's what they do.

[00-Raiser]

I don't particularly think she's lying either, but I also think she probably had a reason to kill them beyond "Oh hey, here's some people. I'll kill them just because."

[Keroko]

I didn't claim she did it for the lulz (heck, Cypha even blatantly says "they didn't plan to kill them initially, but the need arose"), so I'm confused why you bring that up. My point was that so far their kill count > their mercy count.

[Justin_Brett]

She quite plainly enjoyed 'killing' Signum, at least.

[00-Raiser]

They've been shown to enjoy fighting strong opponents. Not much different from Signum and Fate enjoying their fights together.

[Justin_Brett]

I didn't mean while fighting. I meant while stabbing her brutally.

And not everyone - just Veyron and her, really.

[00-Raiser]

Eh, Cypha's facial expressions ranged from smirks to 'I'm not amused'. So her expressions of 'enjoyment' aren't very overt. Definitely lacks the crazed laughing of a true complete monster.

[Justin_Brett]

Since when do you need AHAHAHAHAHA I'M PURE EVIL facial expressions to be a Complete Monster? There is such a thing as subtle villainy. And I dunno, that last look was pretty deranged to me.

[00-Raiser]

Right, cuz what everyone's been complaining about is that the Huck's 'evil' is far too subtle

This was the worst it got:



Which, yeah, is fairly bad but I've seen much much worse, especially when it's followed up by this:



That isn't a face of enjoyment.

[Koveras Alvane]

Originally Posted by 00-Raiser

That isn't a face of enjoyment.

Now that you point it out, she does look kinda sad, in a "what a pointless waste of human life" kind of way.

[Keroko]

Originally Posted by Koveras Alvane

Now that you point it out, she does look kinda sad, in a "what a pointless waste of human life" kind of way.

Considering she was grinning while saying "then die" in the former image, I doubt she's concerned about the waste of life. Especially since she was smiling again the next page while talking about Signum's death.

Incidentally, can we scrap Signum off the "but the Hucks spared them" list? Cypha quite clearly tried to kill her, and frankly had she been a normal human... Signum would have been dead. While it's still not a confirmed on-screen death, it's definitely an attempt at doing so.

[Justin_Brett]

They can't seem to decide whether she's stoic or not, really. The change between them is very abrupt. I guess you could claim she's putting on a facade, but why do that for someone you were intentionally trying to kill? What would be the point?

[Endscape]

What it looks like to me is that Cypha was enjoying herself at first, in the first panel, then by the second panel, at which point, she had already won, she had gotten her fix, and was already bored of the whole thing.

[Keroko]

The switches aren't nearly that abrupt either, and of a level quite common in manga where the enemy has some level of enjoyment of the battle and/or is actually set on killing the opponent.

[Justin_Brett]

Maybe it was the artwork. I dunno.

[00-Raiser]

Originally Posted by Justin_Brett

They can't seem to decide whether she's stoic or not, really. The change between them is very abrupt. I guess you could claim she's putting on a facade, but why do that for someone you were intentionally trying to kill? What would be the point?

Speaking from experience, when some one has a set image of you in their head, it's very tempting to throw your hands up and go "Fine, if that's how everyone sees me then that's how I'll be!"

In this case, if the Hucks are being persecuted as monsters they might decide to act out the role they've been given.

[Justin_Brett]

Somehow she doesn't really seem like the type to care about what people think.