Valvrave the Liberator 2 - Episode 9 Discussion / Poll

[DevilHighDxD]

Even Shoko, I think now is starting to feeling sorry and regret for what she has done, hopefully...

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[~BC~]

Originally Posted by Thess

In none of those episodes she performed anything significant without someone else hauling her from trouble or do things to buy her credibility: she didn't have any strategical insight or tried to direct people. Please correct me if I'm wrong and point out scenes I missed. Her best episode was 4 and that still needed Haruto to shoulder her ideas and would have gotten slaughtered short time after without L-Elf's assistance. Her complete lack of organization to time poorly the summit without giving the recon mission time to organize themselves was a bad idea. It wouldn't have changed if they were kamitsuki or not. The issue wasn't that but the fact they are still very naive and relied on the wrong people.

There's no one on the New JIOR side that can claim to do things entirely under their own power. And heaven forbid we allow the possibility for any of these characters to grow beyond what they were at the start of the show. Shoko is not the best when it comes to long term planning but the idea that she wouldn't have done things differently had she known what she was dealing with is unfounded.

Explain your reasoning in how Shoko, a girl who hasn't show to be really a planner in the entire show, would do something about it. Would she strip to show her "sincerity" to the summit?

By getting consultation from her military strategist so she can actually attempt to come up with contingencies in his absence. To reiterate, my point has always been that the others should have been working together with Shoko on ideas to keep the module safe.

Except this wasn't show at all. They knew it was a decoy after they found out about the recon mission and how the Valvrave were sighted on Earth Atmosphere because of the difficulties it experienced. They relied the message to Shoko about the landing on Dorssian territory. Please re-watch and see the actual scenes rather than making them up.

The aid mentioned their suspicions of a fake being used thus the "as expected" comment. The idea behind the decoy was to fool Dorrsia/ARUS into thinking they had more Valvraves than the original five.

It wasn't the only contingency either, the kageros are canon. Those were more than enough to deal with the external threats that presented themselves in the absence of the Valvrave. He wasn't around to Shoko's little summit stunt, so the vigilance was up to her and her team considering Haruto and the rest just arrived from a long and stressing journey while they sat on their asses in the Moon.

You are confusing "official" with "canon". There is nothing to suggest Undertaker is canon to the show when they had to rely on a BS decoy to "fool" their enemies.

[Cloudedmind]

Originally Posted by Thess

They didn't destroy the Phantom. They captured it and moved it in the module, re-watch the episode. L-Elf's plan, in Saki's letter, was to destroy it. The Magius weren't angry that the Phantom 1 was destroyed but that this Phantom was seized by them. Maybe because it could reveal their existence to the world? They didn't know what they were planning or what Lieselotte told them. So they revealed theirs beforehand. If they had destroy the Phantom, they wouldn't have done this I think.

Sorry, that's what I meant. What I typed and what I was thinking didn't quite match up. We still don't know what happened to the crew of the Phantom though. Someone had to have been on that ship, and if no one was that would seem really suspicious to me.

[GoldenLand]

Originally Posted by Thess

Stop making excuses for her obvious mistake. She was also only saving her own neck and those with her (rioting scum who deserved to die anyway), because the other ships have already left. She would have let them vulnerable because of her poor choices.

Those kids didn't deserve to die. They'd just seen their fellows massacred around them and found out that the pilots were apparently inhuman beings running a ship that kidnapped and murdered people (in Iori's case, her own father), and were on the verge of dying themselves. They shouldn't have tried to trick and hand over Haruto, but that doesn't mean they deserve death. They didn't have the luxury of a chance to think things through.

Shoko was responsible for those people, and tried to protect them, and also to protect the ones who had already left, who were going to be in mortal peril wherever they went even if the Valvraves continued to protect them. We already know that Shoko is someone who would sacrifice her own father for what she believes is the greater good, and sacrificing the Valvrave pilots is in line with that. That said, I'm not sure she would have done it in this case if she hadn't just been shown that the pilots were inhuman+lying to her+(apparently) running a murder ship. Before that she was firmly against the idea. That's the reason why Haruto and the others didn't say anything: it's all for plot related reasons. If they had explained, the situation would have turned out differently.

You say to stop making excuses for Shoko, but that does not change the fact that a leader cannot make an ideal and informed decision and make the necessary plans for a crisis situation when they aren't given the vital information they need for that. It is not an optional extra.

[Thess]

Originally Posted by ~BC~

There's no one on the New JIOR side that can claim to do things entirely under their own power. And heaven forbid we allow the possibility for any of these characters to grow beyond what they were at the start of the show. Shoko is not the best when it comes to long term planning but the idea that she wouldn't have done things differently had she known what she was dealing with is unfounded.

The problem is that Shoko hasn't show she's good at anything in her Prime Minister position. If you have evidence, please tell me an example. She has achieved things when she's not playing politician: the position cripples her. She has to let go of it.

Originally Posted by ~BC~

By getting consultation from her military strategist so she can actually attempt to come up with contingencies in his absence. To reiterate, my point has always been that the others should have been working together with Shoko on ideas to keep the module safe.

Every time we saw Shoko as Prime Minister was either as a failure, being mocked down by others or with L-Elf's shadow support which was what kept her together last time she had a crisis. L-Elf's now indisposed and they can't afford his services (because he didn't work for free). She has to make do with what she has. If she didn't have his aid, then postpone the summit until she finds a replacement or organizes it well. She jumped like an idiot to a clear timely bait without giving the tired team who returned from Earth with achievements (they rescued the scientists who had set up to do) to rest.

If your staff is tired and your strategist is indisposed, why do a risky gamble? No politician would have done that.

Originally Posted by ~BC~

The aid mentioned their suspicions of a fake being used thus the "as expected" comment. The idea behind the decoy was to fool Dorrsia/ARUS into thinking they had more Valvraves than the original five.

It's a poor translation, they expected it to be a fake because they had spotted the five Valvraves in the atmosphere. Because the mission had met unexpected hurdles.

Originally Posted by ~BC~

You are confusing "official" with "canon". There is nothing to suggest Undertaker is canon to the show when they had to rely on a BS decoy to "fool" their enemies.

It's an official and canonical tie-in : it fills the blanks of what happened while the rest were gone. So, um, it's canon. Deal with it. And they weren't attacked in the recon mission absence as far as we know in the show, therefore why are you complaining?

Originally Posted by GoldenLand

Those kids didn't deserve to die. They'd just seen their fellows massacred around them and found out that the pilots were apparently inhuman beings running a ship that kidnapped and murdered people (in Iori's case, her own father), and were on the verge of dying themselves. They shouldn't have tried to trick and hand over Haruto, but that doesn't mean they deserve death. They didn't have the luxury of a chance to think things through.

They do deserve to die, it was a minority endangering the majority who already escaped and didn't have any of their pretension. Useless load is meant to be disposed of when it becomes a liability during extreme situations. Did you forget that Iori shoot to kill and the rest was with her? What if they were wrong? They would have killed Haruto.

Originally Posted by GoldenLand

Shoko was responsible for those people, and tried to protect them, and also to protect the ones who had already left, who were going to be in mortal peril wherever they went even if the Valvraves continued to protect them. We already know that Shoko is someone who would sacrifice her own father for what she believes is the greater good, and sacrificing the Valvrave pilots is in line with that. That said, I'm not sure she would have done it in this case if she hadn't just been shown that the pilots were inhuman+lying to her+(apparently) running a murder ship. Before that she was firmly against the idea. That's the reason why Haruto and the others didn't say anything: it's all for plot related reasons. If they had explained, the situation would have turned out differently.

Satomi said the ship wasn't theirs. But none would listen, in any case. Shoko took a stupid selfish choice based on her feelings getting betrayed by Haruto, because that's all she based her decision on: her emotions. If she had been logical, she would think and realize the only reason why she still breathes is because one of the pilots who she was selling out, Akira, arrived to help them. If she had been logical, she would know that humans don't make deals with inhumans which is how they were all labeled and the proof was the slaughter they performed on them.

She wasn't logical, because she's unfit to lead a country.

Originally Posted by GoldenLand

You say to stop making excuses for Shoko, but that does not change the fact that a leader cannot make an ideal and informed decision and make the necessary plans for a crisis situation when they aren't given the vital information they need for that. It is not an optional extra.

She's no leader. She was always a figurehead. No one took her seriously as leader, except for the kids who wanted a school festival. As soon the things became no fun allowed, they rioted and undermined her authority because she never had it. She could have become one, this episode would have given her a chance to shine as Prime Minister without L-Elf, but she messed up.

[~BC~]

Originally Posted by Thess

It's a poor translation, they expected it to be a fake because they had spotted the five Valvraves in the atmosphere. Because the mission had met unexpected hurdles.

Please don't. Let's just leave it at a different interpretation of the scene.

It's an official and canonical tie-in : it fills the blanks of what happened while the rest were gone. So, um, it's canon. Deal with it. And they weren't attacked in the recon mission absence as far as we know in the show, therefore why are you complaining?

You just completely side-stepped the issue of the decoy. That wouldn't be needed if the Kagerous could just come out and take care of whatever gets thrown at the module. But the Kagerous cannot be acknowledged because it's not canon to the tv show.

Every time we saw Shoko as Prime Minister was either as a failure, being mocked down by others or with L-Elf's shadow support which was what kept her together last time she had a crisis. L-Elf's now indisposed and they can't afford his services (because he didn't work for free). She has to make do with what she has. If she didn't have his aid, then postpone the summit until she finds a replacement or organizes it well. She jumped like an idiot to a clear timely bait without giving the tired team who returned from Earth with achievements (they rescued the scientists who had set up to do) to rest.

If your staff is tired and your strategist is indisposed, why do a risky gamble? No politician would have done that.

You've certainly got a lot to say about something the show has, unfortunately, barely even touched on. That aside, they can't postpone something that obviously took a lot of time and effort to arrange, from her POV. She doesn't know the whole thing is a setup. It's hardly a good look to call all these politicians to the moon only to say "sorry, come back later". This is something for New JIOR's benefit, they can't afford to do that. That's your problem, you can't pull yourself out of your viewer perspective long enough to see why she doesn't take certain actions. You're basically condemning her for relying on others and then condemning her when she does the opposite. And there was nothing to show that the Earth Team was too tired and, if anything, Kyuuma's suggestion of a date seems to suggest that at least the pilots have more than enough time to spare on a conversation.

Lastly, I don't deny that Shoko giving in to ARUS was wrong; it's mainly that I think her shitty circumstances are being horribly downplayed. Anyway, I've been on this ride with you before so agree to disagree.

[GoldenLand]

Originally Posted by Thess

They do deserve to die, it was a minority endangering the majority who already escaped and didn't have any of their pretension. Useless load is meant to be disposed of when it becomes a liability during extreme situations. Did you forget that Iori shoot to kill and the rest was with her? What if they were wrong? They would have killed Haruto.

Yeah, of course they could have been wrong. When they thought they were wrong and they'd really killed Haruto, they looked horrified, even Iori (who was still muttering about Haruto having killed her father). They were panicked kids in a massacre, facing death, and Iori shot because she'd lost it and believed that Haruto was responsible for her father's death, and that they could survive if they handed him over. If you believed, however wrongly, that somebody was an evil man-eating-zombie who'd murdered your father and many others and that you would live if you handed him over, you would have handed him over too.

Originally Posted by Thess

Shoko took a stupid selfish choice based on her feelings getting betrayed by Haruto, because that's all she based her decision on: her emotions. If she had been logical, she would think and realize the only reason why she still breathes is because one of the pilots who she was selling out, Akira, arrived to help them. If she had been logical, she would know that humans don't make deals with inhumans which is how they were all labeled and the proof was the slaughter they performed on them.

She wasn't logical, because she's unfit to lead a country.

No, Shoko didn't want to sell Haruto out, even after the revelations about him. What she was doing was stamping on her feelings and trying to save the other students, because she felt responsible for their lives, and Haruto (and presumably the other pilots, their entire military force) were untrustworthy.

She didn't make the right decision because she'd been lied to and didn't have the information she needed in a crisis (that being: the true information about Dorssia, the Magius, the pilots not being man eating monsters, etcetera), and because the situation was a trauma conga line and people she was personally responsible for were about to die based on the way she decided.

That's not a situation in which great decisions are made. It says very little about her ability to lead a country or lack thereof. She would have decided differently, had she been given the info she needed. You could argue "well, she was always totally incompetent, and that's why nobody gave her the information that she could have used to deal with this situation and make the right decision" but not that her decision in this situation proves that she was unfit. She didn't really have a chance.

Originally Posted by Thess

She's no leader. She was always a figurehead. No one took her seriously as leader, except for the kids who wanted a school festival. As soon the things became no fun allowed, they rioted and undermined her authority because she never had it. She could have become one, this episode would have given her a chance to shine as Prime Minister without L-Elf, but she messed up.

If she's no leader and never was, why hold her so strictly to the standards of not only a leader but an informed leader?

Somebody who's a figurehead, who doesn't know they're a figurehead, and who has all the most important information hidden from them is not going to be able to wave a magic wand and have the relevant information pop into their head in a total crisis situation which requires that knowledge. This goes doubly if people are getting murdered left and right, their trusted childhood friend/love interest gets murdered before their eyes, or so they thought until it turns out their trusted friend (and the Minister of Defence, oops) turns out to be a zombie and may effectively not even be the same person, who confirms that the military has been lying to the Prime Minister and implies by decree of the plot that yes, the zombie pilot squad is eating people's brains. That is not the ideal set up for a decision to be made in. As the audience, we're much better informed than Shoko and we're not in a crisis situation.

There was no chance for Shoko to shine there whatsoever. The best she could possibly have done would be to refuse to hand over the pilots. The massacred students would still be dead, Kyuuma would still have had to defend the last ship, and might have died in the process, and the ships would at best be on the run in a situation with nowhere to go and the entire world and massive military power set on killing them all.

[Cosmic Eagle]

Originally Posted by Thess

GoldenLand: Nothing you have said has a lick of sense. She didn't sell out Haruto, she was selling all her pilots, the ARUS condition of surrender was giving them all the pilots. That's why she ordered a ceasefire, she betrayed her military force and was handing all of them to the enemy after they butchered everyone in front of her while Akira had helped them out that situation earlier. Wow, brilliant work, Shoko. Are you shocked you were double crossed after they did that in episode 4 of the first season? They all wanted Haruto and the Valvrave and were going to leave the kids die behind back then. She must have gotten some of her runes eaten to forget that.

Stop making excuses for her obvious mistake: information or not, it was a bad call. Kibukawa knew they wouldn't let anyone live because they declared them all monsters, Shoko is in her idealistic clouds and didn't snap back to reality to be a fitting leader to be entrusted with military secrets. She was also only saving her own neck and those with her (rioting scum who deserved to die anyway), because the other ships have already left. She would have let them vulnerable because of her poor choices.

She didn't manage to make anything as Prime Minister (she did when she wasn't trying to be a prime minister! here comes the aesop!): her dad decision was pressured by L-Elf. In fact, all the staff was run by L-Elf who had organized that conference and had suggested things as well in those moments before Cain's interference. Neo Jior had no credibility or anything, that's why the recon mission was dispatched which was Haruto's idea with L-Elf's planning, not Shoko's. Shoko stayed behind uselessly and tried to plea for this appeal which was only granted to her not by her own merit but because of the Council of 101 plans to destroy them. The ones making the module some money were Kyuuma and Saki. Not Shoko. She has a lot of contributions, but they are not from the political field.

They made Shouko dumber than what she should be capable of for sure, but treating a group of sheltered civillian kids as rioting scum who "deserved" to die is pretty damn fucked up as well...not going to mince words here

People die in war, but there's dying and deserving to die

You might as well go and preemptively purge your own population of wherever you live and impose military rule to create a bunch of properly reacting people

The aid mentioned their suspicions of a fake being used thus the "as expected" comment. The idea behind the decoy was to fool Dorrsia/ARUS into thinking they had more Valvraves than the original five.

There was? Looking at it again, all he says is the possibility of it being fake is high. But either way, they had already guessed the decoy was a decoy and it is rather stupid to leave no contingency for that scenario.

[dragon1412]

only 1 night and then this go up 5 pages

Originally Posted by Triple_R

Well, thanks for that much at least.

Well, we don't know with Kyuma either then. I mean, we don't know 100% for sure if he'd have survived even if Shouko had made a different decision. He may have died anyway.

But even if we go with the position that he probably would have survived if Shouko had made a different decision, we can argue with similar validity that Marie probably would have survived if Haruto and/or Satomi had made different decisions.

Now, I get that a "betrayal" looks worse than a simple screw-up, of course, so I get Shouko taking a bit more heat than Haruto or Satomi did for their screw-ups. But the difference shouldn't be this huge.

Rather ironic argument considering that this is a verbatim quote from Star Trek's Spock, Mr. Logic himself.

You're playing hair-splitting semantic games here. "For the sake of many outweigh the sake of the few" is what is meant by "the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few".

In Shouko's mind, she was putting the many (Iori and some other survivors) over the relative few (Haruto and L-Elf).

Who says she even had a choice in the matter? Like I argued before, ARUS was already handling accounting work for NeoJIOR. Given that L-Elf and all the Valvraves were off in Dorssia for a long time, it wouldn't be that surprising if ARUS was also handling security for NeoJIOR during this period.

NeoJIOR was basically a puppet state of ARUS.

Let me repeat that, so it sinks in, as it's a key point: NeoJIOR was basically a puppet state of ARUS.

A relationship that close encourages at least a little bit of trust. ARUS brutally betrayed it, in a totally unpredictable fashion.
No, right now, it's quite the opposite. People give Shouko too much hate and give Haruto far too much of an easy slide by comparison.

I am well-aware that there are real-life massacres. For one sad, tragic, and prominent example, there is the Rawndan Genocide.

I'm not saying that you don't get anything like a Purge in real life. I'm saying that it typically doesn't come absolutely out of nowhere like this one did. With most real-life massacres, there's typically a lot of bad blood leading up to it. Tensions flare until they reach a boiling point.

The thing with the events of this episode is that, for Shouko, they are completely and utterly unpredictable. They are based heavily on things she didn't know a thing about, because of how she was kept in the dark when she shouldn't have been. They involve a close ally instantly going from one extreme to the other, all in the course of a bloody hour! One moment NeoJIOR are the heroes that ARUS adores, and the friends they support. The next moment, they're non-humans who need to be wiped out to the very last one.

There's probably nothing in human history that could have prepared Shouko for this.

This is not something horrific and tragic, but also foreseeable. This is something completely out of nowhere (at least from Shouko's perspective), so that makes it that much harder to cope with, and deal with, imo.

What exactly do you mean by "an excuse it is not"? Do you think this is just cause to have her removed from power? Do you think she should face legal consequences for what happened? Do you think she shouldn't be forgiven if she asks for forgiveness?

Agreed.

Originally Posted by mangakid95

Wrong. If she'd known, many things could've had a substantial difference.

• If the memory loss was made known, she wouldn't have traded Haruto or called off the VVVs.
• When the VVVs stopped holding their ground, that's when the enemy started closing in on them.
• The purge could've been dealt with better. [ie. I didn't say avoided, I said dealt with better, in that the number of survivors will have been greater than the actual amount that survived]
• If the Phantom's existence was revealed earlier [Also, Haruto didn't help when he's acting so damn guilty], that father obsessed girl, Iori wouldn't have caused such a ruckus among her peers. It all boiled down to her spurring Shoko's decision.

Ever heard that saying, "knowing is half the battle"?



All facts.

Still, knowing everything beforehand, could've had a much different outcome. You fail to realize that everything was just dropped into her lap. How do you expect her to deal with something of this scale effectively?

I'm not saying she's blameless. She has a lot of blame on her, being the one that made the call, but its wrong to pin all the blame on her. A lot of anti-Shoko posts going on in this thread.



In this situation, Shoko only had Iori (of all people) to spur her on. She didn't get any logical words to view this situation from, she, being in an emotional/pressured state was spurred on by an emotional Iori. Of course that isn't gonna end well.



You've failed to mention that each time Haruto's became pressured/emotional, he either has L-Elf, Kyuuma or Shoko/Saki to snap him out of it. Also, all the times Haruto got pressured, he still had time to stop & think before he came to a conclusion. [ie. the scale of the event at the time was nothing compared to the destruction of your country]

Its unfair to compare this(reveal/purge/destruction of N Jior) to Haruto's (love life issues/doubting his resolve). The gap in the scale of the pressure both were/are facing is too wide to draw a comparison.



At least Haruto let his stress build up one at a time. He had lots of time to deal with each individual matter. How can you compare that to Shoko, who got slapped with everything at once & then some (dad's death/politics)?

Comparing stand points are we? Well then, trying to gauge the matter by justifying Haruto's suffering vs Shoko's. That's something that cannot be gauged. Suffering is different in everyone's PoV. therefore your point is invalid. [For example, you have a matter that you don't consider to affect you much, but you have a friend that suffers because of that very matter that barely affects you.]

Let me demonstrate why you can't compare stress below:

Haruto has this "monster" stigma that he attached to himself. [It doesn't affect Saki & the others in the least, as a matter of fact, they actually welcomed it] He also has this overly complicated love life because of his monster stigma. His resolve is always being tested because he has to attack people.

Shoko is an enigma. Haruto killed her dad, she has o deal with politics & recently she had to decide on the fate of the survivors of her nation. She also has a complicated love life because Haruto keeps fencing her.

Now lets compare their stress. Haruto has placed himself into intentional stress. All this stems from the stigma that he placed on himself. Shoko's is a combination of intentional & some she is powerless against. Who's stress do you want to gauge as more complicated?The guy who intentionally stresses himself or the girl who also intentionally stress herself but also have some stress that she can't renounce?
----------------------------------------------
I am not certain that knowing the information would've have a significant impact, but the fact remains that knowing in advance will have had an impact, no matter how small. That's the difference, that small impact could've been saving 10 lives or even 20. That's the point.

All in all, this matter may have had a much, much, much more favorable outcome had she been properly informed. [I'm a wiz at drawing hypothesis, so I'm not going down so easily] I'm not using only "what ifs" to draw this hypothesis, I'm also using logic.

ps. I've noticed everyone blaming Shoko for trading L-Elf too. That doesn't seem to be her call, it seems that the students who detained him were the ones responsible for that.

The things is, people do not take responsibility for their emotion, but take responsibilities according to their action. As i expected(just as planed ), you pull out the impossible to compare emotion card, you see, that's is the reason why i only list fact in my post, i already said it before, her emotion is only the cause, it's not the result, and what she need to take responsibility is the result, not the cause.
For the "knowing is half the battle", i already said it before, people keep on dwelling into positive possibilities and ignored the negative one, if she knew, when the incident happened, she could save 10, 20 more but what about the time between when she knew till the incident?? If she stop Haruto from going into war, how many more have die??? I will said it again if they have positive possibilities from knowing, the negative possibilities will also arise, this is simply cause and effect. If you want to keep using the if game, why do you keep assuming that the situation will be better? more possibilities mean both good and bad, think about again if you said you are also using logic, since logic did state that the chance is equal( go find and read possibilities theory)( unfortunately for you, i check emotion related-thesis before, so as long as it based on emotion, it will be secondary after fact, as emotion cannot be gauge, but fact can).
Assuming you already read the theory, let us see from military view point :
Theorized Haruto and co. let Shoko know about the Kamitsuki, the incident on the moon haven't occur yet:
- positive : - better preparation, pulled another people with authority to support - however, it will not help the module much in it financial distress, safety but in exchange received support. Better exploration of Kamitsuki power, better coverage.
- negative: possible for a riot to arise before reaching the moon, without unity, module can't survive, possible for Shoko to overreact with Haruto and his Valvrave, which is vital for survival.
The 2 possibilities didn't necessarily outweigh each other, but as long as the bad possibilities exist with survival on the line, from a pure military viewpoint, it a better idea to cross away the good one along with the bad one, survival is not something one should gamble on.
If you are a hypothesis wiz, please include both the worst and best scenario with each other and argue that the good outweigh the bad, otherwise, that would be what people called the if game, not hypothesis.

[Thess]

Originally Posted by ~BC~

You just completely side-stepped the issue of the decoy. That wouldn't be needed if the Kagerous could just come out and take care of whatever gets thrown at the module. But the Kagerous cannot be acknowledged because it's not canon to the tv show.

No, I'm just using your "logic". The Kageros are canon but if you're concerned about the threats they faced onscreen in their absence, there's none. Thus, L-Elf's plan worked. When Shoko added an unplanned summit to the schedule, that's up to her and her incompetent staff.

Originally Posted by ~BC~

You've certainly got a lot to say about something the show has, unfortunately, barely even touched on. That aside, they can't postpone something that obviously took a lot of time and effort to arrange, from her POV. She doesn't know the whole thing is a setup. It's hardly a good look to call all these politicians to the moon only to say "sorry, come back later". This is something for New JIOR's benefit, they can't afford to do that. That's your problem, you can't pull yourself out of your viewer perspective long enough to see why she doesn't take certain actions. You're basically condemning her for relying on others and then condemning her when she does the opposite. And there was nothing to show that the Earth Team was too tired and, if anything, Kyuuma's suggestion of a date seems to suggest that at least the pilots have more than enough time to spare on a conversation.

So you don't have evidence to back them? Because we've seen Kyuuma do his job as Minister of Finance, for instance. Why not show a scene Shoko is actually successful as Prime Minister instead of getting laughed and condescended or displayed as L-elf's pawn? Her best scenes is when she's not trying to act as a "Prime Minister" (the scene with Akira, her spontaneous outbursts in episode 4). Because she's not really fit to get shoved to a stressful, articulated role specially when the situation was so grim.

She should have scheduled the date for the summit, if she's the hostess. She should have everything ready for it and in proper conditions, because guess what? She's responsible for this event and what happens. Shoko informed Haruto all abruptly one night and then at the end day it happened when Haruto was clearly distraught.

Of course no one is saying Haruto didn't behave deplorable either his "...well I am sorry" made me want to strangle him, but you expect that from Haruto. Shoko seemed like a sensible girl in season one. But on closer inspection, it seemed that strength all relied on their cave promise...

Originally Posted by GoldenLand

Yeah, of course they could have been wrong. When they thought they were wrong and they'd really killed Haruto, they looked horrified, even Iori (who was still muttering about Haruto having killed her father). They were panicked kids in a massacre, facing death, and Iori shot because she'd lost it and believed that Haruto was responsible for her father's death, and that they could survive if they handed him over. If you believed, however wrongly, that somebody was an evil man-eating-zombie who'd murdered your father and many others and that you would live if you handed him over, you would have handed him over too.

They don't have time to coddle them. They shot one of their military, they should be executed or left to Arus mercy for their discipline. Wasting time on people who are clearly worthless in middle of a crisis is a bad call. Quality vs quantity. Kyuuma and Haruto are assets. Iori is a disposable tool. This is a warzone, not charity.

Originally Posted by GoldenLand

No, Shoko didn't want to sell Haruto out, even after the revelations about him. What she was doing was stamping on her feelings and trying to save the other students, because she felt responsible for their lives, and Haruto (and presumably the other pilots, their entire military force) were untrustworthy.

Wrong. She was selling him out because he wasn't the person she knew. Otherwise, she would have done it before he blurted out he forgot that. She was irrational and didn't asses the situation at all.

Originally Posted by GoldenLand

She didn't make the right decision because she'd been lied to and didn't have the information she needed in a crisis (that being: the true information about Dorssia, the Magius, the pilots not being man eating monsters, etcetera), and because the situation was a trauma conga line and people she was personally responsible for were about to die based on the way she decided.

And? They were still digesting of what they should do with that information (the Magius one). They just found out that when she surprised them with her "peace summit" set up. Haruto couldn't tell her anything about the Magius because they didn't even have a plan without L-Elf.

She shouldn't have done this summit until L-Elf or someone competent secured the Module. Is she hopelessly stupid despite being a politician? For no reason she should have lowered her guard, space vampires or not.

Originally Posted by GoldenLand

If she's no leader and never was, why hold her so strictly to the standards of not only a leader but an informed leader?

She's officially holding a role, even if it's a sham. Her performance was disappointing, this episode was to display if she could be a leader or not, she couldn't be. Although there were hints here and there before she would crack and she's not exactly respected (like episode 5).

Originally Posted by GoldenLand

There was no chance for Shoko to shine there whatsoever. The best she could possibly have done would be to refuse to hand over the pilots. The massacred students would still be dead, Kyuuma would still have had to defend the last ship, and might have died in the process, and the ships would at best be on the run in a situation with nowhere to go and the entire world and massive military power set on killing them all.

Kyuuma died because he went to retrieve the capsule where L-Elf and Haruto were thanks to her actions. If it had been only defending her ship, there wouldn't have been a problem.

She tried to negotiate with someone who considered them all monsters without rights in a witchhunt, thinking they'll spare them if they give up the only thing that's protecting them. That's painfully stupid. You can expect a kid to fall for that trap, but a supposedly smart girl who is meant to be a Prime Minister? I laughed at her reaction "You tricked us?" How stupid one can be?

Originally Posted by Cosmic Eagle

They made Shouko dumber than what she should be capable of for sure, but treating a group of sheltered civillian kids as rioting scum who "deserved" to die is pretty damn fucked up as well...not going to mince words here

People die in war, but there's dying and deserving to die

You might as well go and preemptively purge your own population of wherever you live and impose military rule to create a bunch of properly reacting people

They aren't real people, they are background characters. Shows would benefit more purging the cannon fodder for the sake of the cast rather than sacrificing the cast for the sake of cannon fodder we don't care about (probably why I enjoy Hellsing manga ending so much: the death of millions without a single care as long the main character returns home). Shoko's loyalty should have been with her common sense, she's been told last time she faced a tough situation to not surrender the Valvrave (episode 11!), so doing that because a couple of useless kids and she can get their necks out the fire is stupid. She could have had Haruto take her and L-Elf to Hito and abandon them if need be. She's not thinking clearly, even believing that they'll honor this request when last time, Cain just gassed the Module. If the Valvrave weren't there, they would have died. Did she forget that? Did she forget episode 4 too? It's not like it didn't happen twice already for her to get an idea.

[GoldenLand]

Originally Posted by Thess

They don't have time to coddle them. They shot one of their military, they should be executed or left to Arus mercy for their discipline. Wasting time on people who are clearly worthless in middle of a crisis is a bad call. Quality vs quantity. Kyuuma and Haruto are assets. Iori is a disposable tool. This is a warzone, not charity.

...I don't really know how to argue with you any more here if you even think the students that Shoko and Kyuuma and Haruto and all the others were working for the sake of all this time in the series were nothing but disposable, obviously worthless tools who deserved to exist only on the basis of charity and whether they were assets. Let alone that these ones deserve execution and nothing else.

Those were panicked, terrified kids who believed the pilots were murdering, man-eating monsters and there was a way for them to survive by handing them over. As I said, I fully expect that in their shoes you would have done the same.

Whether we hold Shoko unfairly to the standard of an informed, non-figurehead leader or not, Shoko was not going to look at the piled up corpses of the students killed in the massacre or the ones in the ship with her that could soon have been just as dead and think "Sweet! These people I was responsible for are all worthless; it's okay as long as our pilot assets are safe!". Quantity vs quality, the only person who really knows how to protect a module there is L-elf, and he was...in a room scribbling on the walls when all this was going on, after building the module up and leaving it in a situation where it couldn't function in a crisis without him. Guess he doesn't deserve to live either.

[~BC~]

No, I'm just using your "logic". The Kageros are canon but if you're concerned about the threats they faced onscreen in their absence, there's none. Thus, L-Elf's plan worked. When Shoko added an unplanned summit to the schedule, that's up to her and her incompetent staff.

You can't even seem to follow my logic. Why would they need to put together a decoy to buy time if they have a couple of perfectly functioning machines that can serve the same purpose?

So you don't have evidence to back them?

Neither do you, genius. ARUS cock blocking the Ministers only proves they're manipulative bastards who need to be intimidated into cooperating. Since simply blowing out the President's brain is not an option we get the recon mission. You're misreading the show's lack of interest in covering politics as a proof that she's completely incompetent as a Prime Minister.

Because we've seen Kyuuma do his job as Minister of Finance, for instance. Why not show a scene Shoko is actually successful as Prime Minister instead of getting laughed and condescended or displayed as L-elf's pawn?

What? Checking his Pay Pal account? Now I know you've been pulling my leg...

[Faerie]

Originally Posted by GoldenLand

...I don't really know how to argue with you any more here if you even think the students that Shoko and Kyuuma and Haruto and all the others were working for the sake of all this time in the series were nothing but disposable, obviously worthless tools who deserved to exist only on the basis of charity and whether they were assets. Let alone that these ones deserve execution and nothing else.

Those were panicked, terrified kids who believed the pilots were murdering, man-eating monsters and there was a way for them to survive by handing them over. As I said, I fully expect that in their shoes you would have done the same.

Whether we hold Shoko unfairly to the standard of an informed, non-figurehead leader or not, Shoko was not going to look at the piled up corpses of the students killed in the massacre or the ones in the ship with her that could soon have been just as dead and think "Sweet! These people I was responsible for are all worthless; it's okay as long as our pilot assets are safe!". Quantity vs quality, the only person who really knows how to protect a module there is L-elf, and he was...in a room scribbling on the walls when all this was going on, after building the module up and leaving it in a situation where it couldn't function in a crisis without him. Guess he doesn't deserve to live either.

I believe Thess was specifically referring to the small group Shoko was with, not the entire student body.
The majority of the students was already on a different shuttle, protected by the pilots Shoko wanted to hand over to save the neck of the few that were with her. She was willing to get everyone else killed to save their few necks, not just the pilots.
Even if you somehow think she could honestly have believed they would have let her group go, they would've let the ones who already fled and did not partake in their little bargain go too.

Even if we assume for a second that Arus was honestly going to let the ones who helped apprehend the pilots go, surely it's obvious that didn't apply to those who relied on and fled under the protection of, thus presumably sided with or belonged to, the supposed "monsters" they were purging.

So yes, sacrificing these few (who were already traitors and criminals in the first place. Striking deals with the enemy when they are not elected to do so and shooting the head of the military, crippling their chances of survival.) to give the rest of them a fighting change would indeed have been a much better call than sacrificing your military force and every survivor along with them.

[Triple_R]

In this lengthy debate over Shouko, I think there's one line that very succinctly encapsulates the core, major flaw of the Shouko-hating side of the debate.

Originally Posted by ~BC~

Lastly, I don't deny that Shoko giving in to ARUS was wrong; it's mainly that I think her shitty circumstances are being horribly downplayed.

Exactly. There is an almost complete failure on the part of the Shouko-haters to appreciate the unpredictable nightmarish severity of what Shouko was faced with in this episode. Shouko's mind was brutally assaulted by three different things, either of which alone would shock and disorient the best of us:

1. The horror of your people getting massacred on the basis of wild assertions. And those assertions are coming from one of the two or three most powerful men in the entire world (as far as you know, at least).

2. Preternatural revelations that would shake just about anybody's world. The existence of life-regenerating space vampires isn't exactly a small thing. Shouko's world is high-tech, but still seemingly very naturalistic in general, so this is a hugely shocking discovery for anybody to make.

3. The awareness of your friends keeping massive secrets from you, including secrets about themselves. The fact that you're the Prime Minister, and some of them are your own Cabinet ministers, obviously makes this even worse.


Shouko's whole world was coming crashing down in a hellish disorienting flash. Of course it negatively impacted her thinking, and left her grasping wildly at straws to try to regain some semblance of control over a maddening situation. In the midst of all this, there was just one thing that she could turn to as a source of stability - And that was her faith in Haruto. Once that faith was shattered, for understandable reasons, she had nothing left.

[whitechichi]

WTF Shoko!

[Faerie]

I don't think being critical of someone equates to hate. Just pointing that out.

edit: Also, I don't think anyone is denying that she was in a difficult situation either. Does that excuse her actions? No. But it does put them into context.
People are not wrong to point out that she did something horrible and deserves the blame for it, but I've not seen anyone doing so denying that it wasn't on some level understandable.

That just means she should be judged a bit more lightly though, not that she is free from fault.

[Gundamx]

late to party,...
anyway, I guess the reason why L-11 never told Shoko anything because he never saw her as Prime Minister (more like party leader)

for his point of view Satomi better than Shoko as leader ( that why he let him lead everyone else when he is away instead of Shoko)

[Triple_R]

Originally Posted by SkullFaerie

I don't think being critical of someone equates to hate.

No, there comes a point when the sheer volume and severity of criticism heaped upon a character equates to hate, whether the critic wants to admit to it or not. Some people on this thread have reached that point, in my view.

I mean, for the people criticizing Shouko... Don't you think we all get what you're saying? All of us are admitting she made a bad decision.

So why the continual criticism? What else do you want those of us defending Shouko to say? Frankly, it looks to me like people are bashing Shouko simply for the sake of bashing Shouko. There is a term for people who continually bash on something...

Also, I don't think anyone is denying that she was in a difficult situation either.

I think that some people are underestimating just how difficult that situation was.

Does that excuse her actions? No. But it does put them into context.
People are not wrong to point out that she did something horrible and deserves the blame for it, but I've not seen anyone doing so denying that it wasn't on some level understandable.

She did something dumb. That's not exactly the same as "horrible". Intellectually, she deserves some criticism. Morally, she's been horribly over-criticized. Some people here seem to expect her to be completely loyal and faithful to her friends when they were not that to her. Completely loyal and faithful friends would not have kept her in the dark like they did. Period.

[MK-95-]

Originally Posted by dragon1412

The things is, people do not take responsibility for their emotion, but take responsibilities according to their action.

You said it yourself. So why are you bashing on Shoko alone? If people should take responsibility for their action, then Kyuuma is partly responsible for his death on account of failure to relay important information. Having relayed such information would've resulted in Haruto/L-Elf not being traded in the first place & therefore Kyuuma wouldn't have stayed back to solo the Kirschbaums because there would be no need to. [ie. Save HaruElf]

As i expected(just as planed ), you pull out the impossible to compare emotion card, you see, that's is the reason why i only list fact in my post, i already said it before, her emotion is only the cause, it's not the result, and what she need to take responsibility is the result, not the cause.

Sure you did ...I pulled out "the impossible to compare emotion card" because its a fact. You're the one who decided to compare stress & suffering, not I.

You keep failing to realize that her "emotion" that you keep using to pin the entire blame on her was due to miscommunication [ie. She didn't know anything]. Had she been properly informed, there could've been some damage control to her emotional outbreak.

Don't tell me this is another if because you & I both know that, had she known about the memory loss/curse, then Haruto would've been justified for not remembering & the ending we got in which Haruto was detained would've been avoided.

For the "knowing is half the battle", i already said it before, people keep on dwelling into positive possibilities and ignored the negative one, if she knew, when the incident happened, she could save 10, 20 more but what about the time between when she knew till the incident??

Even is she were told the day before the incident, the fact is, she'd still have one day's worth of time to think about it. Idk about you, but I could do a lot with one day. Compared to having probably an hour or two to think about & process what she heard, one day would make a huge difference.

I'm keeping the balance. You seem to be doing a pretty fine job at the negatives, so I'll handle the positives. What, you want make this a double negative in your favor?

If she stop Haruto from going into war, how many more have die??? I will said it again if they have positive possibilities from knowing, the negative possibilities will also arise, this is simply cause and effect.

You do know that the reason why Haruto was stopped was because they were going to betray him, right? He wouldn't have had to be stopped had they known his situation. As another result of miscommunication, Haruto getting detained resulted in the other VVV pilots getting ceasefire commands. This is what lead to the eventual death of Kyuuma for saving our MCs.

If you want to keep using the if game, why do you keep assuming that the situation will be better? more possibilities mean both good and bad, think about again if you said you are also using logic, since logic did state that the chance is equal( go find and read possibilities theory)( unfortunately for you, i check emotion related-thesis before, so as long as it based on emotion, it will be secondary after fact, as emotion cannot be gauge, but fact can).

Emotion this & emotion that. What, are you a machine? Every decision we make involves emotion. There are just varied levels of emotion. No one can make a purely logical decision, even if we think we did, we're wrong because it involved emotion at some level.

You say emotion = cause. [I do not deny that, it is the truth]
I say knowing beforehand = damage control. [That is a fact that you keep denying]

Again, I'm not covering the negatives here. You are. Don't you know how argument work? I'll be arguing against myself if I cover the negatives too, genius...

Assuming you already read the theory, let us see from military view point :
Theorized Haruto and co. let Shoko know about the Kamitsuki, the incident on the moon haven't occur yet:
- positive : - better preparation, pulled another people with authority to support - however, it will not help the module much in it financial distress, safety but in exchange received support. Better exploration of Kamitsuki power, better coverage.
- negative: possible for a riot to arise before reaching the moon, without unity, module can't survive, possible for Shoko to overreact with Haruto and his Valvrave, which is vital for survival.

Classic example of arguing with oneself. I'm pretty sure in school, that's one thing the teacher told me never to do in an argumentative essay.

Still, thanks for the positive. Yup, better preparation is the key to that whole point. They could've anticipated that the Kamitsuki would've been exposed & have an emergency/contingency plan for that event. They could've prepared supplies in their escape ships. They could've done many things with that knowledge.

Negative: lets see, also true. But what would they do? I'm certain that they know very well, without the VVVs, they can't hope to survive out in space with dorssia attacking every two days. [ie. Even if they are uncomfortable with the reveal, they'd have no choice but to accept it. Then by the time they reach the moon, we wouldn't have inter-student conflict when the actual exposure took place.

The 2 possibilities didn't necessarily outweigh each other, but as long as the bad possibilities exist with survival on the line, from a pure military viewpoint, it a better idea to cross away the good one along with the bad one, survival is not something one should gamble on.

K, now that's just BS. Survival is not something one should gamble on? That's priceless, because I'm sure everyone gambles on the chance of survival when put into a life or death situation.

If you are a hypothesis wiz, please include both the worst and best scenario with each other and argue that the good outweigh the bad, otherwise, that would be what people called the if game, not hypothesis.

Now, how many times do I have to tell you this. I can't argue with myself, now can I?

[Url=http://www.thefreedictionary.com/hypothesis]Hypothesis[/U] exist to be proven/disproved. Since I'm the one who drew the hypothesis, I'm in favor of it & try to prove it. Therefore I'm listing all information that supports it. [ie. I don't have to consider the negatives here] You being the one against, have to disprove it using the data that you've gathered.

If I list both the negative & positive, I'll be for & against the same point. That's very pointless. What your thinking is scientific hypothesis, in that case, then I'll have to play for both sides in order to determine whether it's true or false. [Because I'll have to test it & by testing, I'll have to explore the + & -]

This isn't scientific, so I don't need to play for both sides. I'm looking at this from an objective PoV & therefore drew the hypothesis I'm using to argue with you. Whereas you seem to using a subjective PoV considering that your posts single out Shoko specifically. Can't believe I have to school you on hypotheses...

I've said before that she is responsible for the deaths of the students & Kyuuma. After all, she did make the call. But I'm also saying that she is not solely responsible. Due to the events leading up to this, the faults of others overlapped & when it was her turn, all those overlapped faults came crashing down with her judgement call.

Now, that said, I see a select few posters in this thread that ignore the factors that are also at fault & simply pin everything on Shoko because she's "leader". I'm done after this post, arguing with you is like arguing with Usjoss. [He's not on this forum, he's from another forum I frequent. Btw, that's not a compliment] This argument is going nowhere, we're both starting to sound repetitive & you're giving me a headache.

[Faerie]

Originally Posted by Triple_R

No, there comes a point when the sheer volume and severity of criticism heaped upon a character equates to hate, whether the critic wants to admit to it or not. Some people on this thread have reached that point, in my view.

The only sense in which the word "hate" can be at all construed as strong criticism is in the informal sense.
Oxford Dictionary
Volume just denotes the opinion of the majority and does not by itself convey hatred either.

I don't remember many, if any commenting that they hate or strongly dislike Shoko. I also believe that you can be extremely critical of and like someone at the same time. Anything else would be overly simplistic.
So it's rather unfounded to assume that simply because people disagree with your opinion, they must hate the character.

I mean, for the people criticizing Shouko... Don't you think we all get what you're saying? All of us are admitting she made a bad decision.

I see a lot of effort being put into trying to excuse and downplay the (potential) consequences of her actions though. I believe that is where the continued discussion stems from.

I think that some people are underestimating just how difficult that situation was.

I think most people appreciate the difficulty just fine, but on the other hand do not underappreciate the responsibility she chose to take on and her failure to rise to the occasion.
Personally, I think it's been a long time coming, she was in way over her head, and now it properly showed. I'm glad they didn't go the route of her somehow magically managing to avoid all difficulty. A genki personality alone doesn't make a good politician, and too many times that's all characters in her role amount to and it's enough to get them by. It's great they showed her buckling under the pressure and not shining in a crisis, doing something awful, in fact. It makes her an interesting character, finally.

It's not going to win her any brownie points with the audience though.

She did something dumb. That's not exactly the same as "horrible".

Well, that is a matter of opinion. To me, not asking questions, being unprepared and leaving your friends to be tortured and killed to save your own neck by making a bargain with genocidal maniacs is horrible. Your mileage may vary.

Intellectually, she deserves some criticism. Morally, she's been horribly over-criticized. Some people here seem to expect her to be completely loyal and faithful to her friends when they were not that to her. Completely loyal and faithful friends would not have kept her in the dark like they did. Period.

A matter of degree. What is worse? Being kept in the dark for some unknown reason or sold to genocidal maniacs to do with you as they please and/or left defenseless at the mercy of the same maniacs?
She's not a heroine in a romantic comedy where her actions are practically without consequences. The criticism is hardly undeserved. Harsh, sure. But not unwarranted. Most people don't like disloyalty and stupidity very much. Therefore, I can't blame them for how they perceive this situation, it's quite natural.

For that matter, I believe Haruto in particular has received flak for virtually every breath he takes ever since the series started airing. Is he not equally over criticised too then?