[Xion Valkyrie]

Originally Posted by Mentar

If you mean the ruling class around the Prime Minister as "the Empire", then you're right. However, "the Empire" isn't fighting here - it's NR against Jaegers.

If you mean the Jaegers, you're obviously wrong.

The _Empire_, yes. The Jaegers, no. That's the point. The Jaegers are introduced as pretty much the same kind of people as Night Raid. They're cut from the same cloth, just had the war toss them to different sides. Showing this equivalency (think Tatsumi-Wave for example) is the whole point of the story. There is no "right" and "wrong" or "good" and "bad" sides. We only get various shades of grey, and people are pointlessly dying.

Again, you equate the Prime Minister with the Jaegers. In my opinion, that is patently wrong.

The Prime Minister is unquestionably displayed as consistently evil, without exception. The Jaegers are not. which is why I expect the story to end by the Jaegers turning on the PM. It will NOT end happily due to NR being victorious.

The Jaegars are pawns, just like how NR are pawns for the rebellion. Aside from Esdese they are basically expendable soldiers that have pretty much no say in the policies of the empire. Also, aside from Esdese, their battle power is not really higher than Night Raid, so the Jaegars turning on the Prime Minster would be no more effective than NR trying to kill the prime minister themselves. Only Esdese is in a position to try to topple the regime, and if she does, the other Jaegars might follow suite (although I'm pretty sure by that point there's probably only 1 or 2 of them alive).

Then there's the question of why Esdese would turn on the prime minister. Unlike some of the other Jaegars she has no moral conflicts with any of the policies of the Prime Minister. In fact, the PM and the current empire is an enabler of her desires to fight, conquer, and dominate. There's only two reasons why she might overthrow the Prime Minister. The first would be to overthrow him as part of a challenge. Maybe she feels all her opponents are too weak and the next most satisfying prey is the empire itself. This might actually be a possible route in the story, but in that case that'd just leave her as the final boss, as Tatsumi and Akame are still the main characters so their story needs a resolution, otherwise it should have just been written from Esdese's point of view.

The second possible reason would be for Tatsumi to convince her to turn to his side. However, he already tried once and failed because despite her infatuation with him, her belief in her ideals is stronger. There is no way she'd submit herself to the ideals to a man weaker than herself. So Tatsumi would need to become stronger both physically and mentally. Physically, I can see it happening as it's a pretty standard shonen trope to have your main characters become ridiculously overpowered. Mentally though, I don't really see anything Tatsumi can use to challenge Esdese's philosophy of the strong devouring the weak. His own beliefs are fairly naive and unrealistic and most of his actions are spurred on by his own emotions. He's no match against someone like Esdese who is fully in control of her own emotions and has the life experience to back up her view on life.

Bors was a nice guy who was a typical neutral soldier. Wave is arguably more "Lawful Good" than Tatsumi - he's formally working for the government in power, while Tatsumi is a murderer.

I actually liked Bors a lot. He's probably the best written character in the series. He understands how his actions do not fit with his ideals, but he realizes that his ideals cannot protect his wife and child. Wave is pretty much just Tatsumi on the Empire side, but I don't think Lawful Good is actually any better than Chaotic Good, which is what I'd categorize Tatsumi as.

Seryuu is a classic victim of the war, who would have been a nice, kind civilian in a normal life, but who was warped and emotionally destroyed by loss and the drive of revenge. The sad truth is that Seryuu became who she was to a good part due to _Night Raid_.

Kurome's story is a bit more complex and not yet finished, so I'd like to withhold comments here.

I don't particularly like how they enjoy making others suffer, but like I said they're not really fully in control of their actions so I can't really apply the same criteria on them.

And Esdese, who you left out, is also shown in a partially positive and partially negative light. The negative aspects - her extreme cruelty - have been explained with her past and how she grew up. Why give her her positive aspects if she's only supposed to be an antagonist?

There's nothing particularly positive about Esdese. In her background, even her father says despite the fact that she's a natural born hunter, there's something 'missing' from her, and in that same panel it shows her with a very sadistic glare. Up until the point where she randomly falls in love with Tatsumi she's been pretty much portrayed as a sociopath, which to me makes the sudden introduction of her 'positive' qualities extremely jarring. It just makes her character badly written rather than making her a complicated character.

I also don't pity her like I do for Kurome and Seiryuu because so far, with the way she has been written, she is someone who is fully in control of her mental state. She has her own philosophy that she has forged through her life and there's no way Tatsumi's own naive idealism would be able to stand up to that, which is why I don't think she will side with Tatsumi.

The way Esdese is portrayed up to her love at first sight at Tatsumi reminds me of Irma Grese

Oh really? Well, I see their deeds as a bit less glorious, honestly. As example: Am I supposed to admire Chelsea for killing Bors in a cowardly backstab assassination? Am I supposed to feel pity with her when her second attempt failed and she was killed?

They don't believe their deeds are glorious. They do them in order to fund the rebellion and also to try to minimize some of the damage the corrupt Empire aristocrats are doing to the citizens who can't protect themselves.

NR and Jaegars are both active participants in a war so there's nothing cowardly about using subterfuge and trickery to gain the upper hand. What separates NR from Jaegars is that NR really believes in the greater good the rebellion can bring about, whereas if you look at the Jaegars, their motivations is far more removed from what you'd consider 'just'. Bors completely abhors his actions and the policies of the Empire. Wave has a hard time reconciling his orders with his ideals too, but he still believes there might be some good somewhere, although his new motivation seems to be protecting Kurome. Esdese and Dr. Stylish pretty much are in alignment with the Empire's policies. Seiryuu is crazy and wants revenge and Kurome is there to kill her sister, as well as not get killed herself for being useless.

So on one side you have people who's motivations are as close as you can get to morally justified in a series like this, who's actions minimize collateral damage and don't try to inflict unnecessary suffering. Then on the other side you have people who don't believe in what they're doing, or are completely fine with how immoral their actions are, or are just crazy.

In those comparable cases in which a war was actually ended by compromise (e.g. the situation in Northern Ireland), there were no "war crime tribunals" at all, even though there was ample cause for something like this on both sides.

Like I said earlier, there's no reason for the Empire or even Esdese to compromise with Night Raid or the Rebellion. Maybe if the actual Rebellion finally shows itself and it turns out to be a capable force. However, the compromise in Ireland was only reached after decades of fighting and pressure from the international community as well as dissension from their own internal communities. They haven't even started the 'war' yet in the Akame storyline.