Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS - Favorite Character(s) Poll

[MeisterBabylon]

And good thing too. The 3 Aces of Outercadia would've never been born otherwise!

[DezoPenguin]

Originally Posted by Keroko

I personally think Fate's popularity has more to do with her being a shy-moe. Shy-moes tend to be very popular, and unlike most shy-moes, Fate is one that is also actually useful (unlike shy-moes like Miyazaki Nodoka, who only serves an occasional purpose, or Hyuuga Hinata, who hardly ever serves a purpose at all).

Shy-moe + kickass = Deadly Combination.

... Which, conversely, explains why unlike many I don't really like Fate that much. I'm not a fan of shy-moes. Never have been.

*drops head to desk*

Oh, God, I've become a moe fan without realizing it. Oh, sure, there are other reasons why the red-eyed, black-wearing, scythe-wielding mage is cool...

...but considering that my second-favorite MGLN character is Vivio, of all people...

*is clearly doomed*

Actually, one thing I really like about Fate is that all of her positive traits are direct responses to her background--that she absolutely doesn't want anyone to go through what she has, which is why she does what she does. Her relationship with her mother, even through her abuse, is actually pretty well spot-on for a nine-year-old in an abusive family; the fact that her reactions hit too close to home is one reason why my wife is really uncomfortable watching Season 1, so that's an impression of Fate's personality from someone who's been there.

This is in contrast to Nanoha, who is surrounded by a loving family and close friends. Yes, she definitely had neglect issues for a few years while her father was recovering, but she was never forced to do without or suffered genuine hardship, yet out of that she develops a level of self-sufficiency and maturity at age 9 that most adults would kill to have, and a sense of responsibility that basically amounts to "do everything I possibly can for others regardless of the cost to myself." Her "with great power comes great responsibility" moment (MGLN Ep. 3, which is as directly cribbed off the Spider-Man origin story as anything I've ever seen), basically consists of saying a nine-year-old-child can't take a couple of minutes to have tea and cake with her friends because it might lead to Something Bad Happening. And while she apparently wises up to some extent because she tries very hard to hammer home to Teana that such an attitude is improper and self-destructive, it just as clearly doesn't apply to herself.

Hopefully the individual responsibilities of motherhood will help teach Nanoha that there's something more important than the generalized responsibilities of saving the human race, but until then I can't really find her particularly likeable...which is why she can't even crack my top ten favorite characters in her own show.

[Demi.]

Hm, well, I like Fate the most for a variety of reasons. My immediate impression of her was "damn, this girl looks cool," which slowly lead to sympathy and then an overwhelming urge to kill Precia myself in order to protect her. The continuation of her development did not disappoint either as she slowly learned how to make friends and enjoy life just as every child should have the right to do. Her reactions to daily life events where spot on and just outright adorable. And her strong will to uphold justice is also a selling point, as she can go from cute to downright awesome the moment she puts on that barrier jacket. StrikerS gave a whole new view of Fate and her "motherly" side, which really, only aided in my liking her even more... Lastly, I absolutely love the way she looks.

tl;dr - Fate was tailored to meet my every expectation of what a mahou shoujo should be like.

[Sassy_Bread]

Originally Posted by DezoPenguin

Actually, one thing I really like about Fate is that all of her positive traits are direct responses to her background--that she absolutely doesn't want anyone to go through what she has, which is why she does what she does. Her relationship with her mother, even through her abuse, is actually pretty well spot-on for a nine-year-old in an abusive family; the fact that her reactions hit too close to home is one reason why my wife is really uncomfortable watching Season 1, so that's an impression of Fate's personality from someone who's been there.

This is in contrast to Nanoha, who is surrounded by a loving family and close friends. Yes, she definitely had neglect issues for a few years while her father was recovering, but she was never forced to do without or suffered genuine hardship, yet out of that she develops a level of self-sufficiency and maturity at age 9 that most adults would kill to have, and a sense of responsibility that basically amounts to "do everything I possibly can for others regardless of the cost to myself." Her "with great power comes great responsibility" moment (MGLN Ep. 3, which is as directly cribbed off the Spider-Man origin story as anything I've ever seen), basically consists of saying a nine-year-old-child can't take a couple of minutes to have tea and cake with her friends because it might lead to Something Bad Happening. And while she apparently wises up to some extent because she tries very hard to hammer home to Teana that such an attitude is improper and self-destructive, it just as clearly doesn't apply to herself.

Hopefully the individual responsibilities of motherhood will help teach Nanoha that there's something more important than the generalized responsibilities of saving the human race, but until then I can't really find her particularly likeable...which is why she can't even crack my top ten favorite characters in her own show.

Agreed. At least with Fate, there's a reasonable reason why Fate acts the way she acts. When taking care of tons of kids, it comes from the fact that she suffered under child abuse for a pretty long time (I think). Her behaviors and personality at least come from somewhere and are somewhat shaped by her past.
As for her being shy, it's most likely in her nature, or that she perhaps never really learned to properly interact with people until later on in life (for lack of a better way of wording this). To tell you the truth, if the only person you interact with is your familiar and a "mother" who abuses you constantly, that's a pretty unhealthy environment in which to interact with people. And it's most likely she kept to herself even if she was on Earth to look for the Jewel Seeds and had to survive.

As for Nanoha...to me she doesn't seem like a normal nine year old girl. Sure, she was neglected for a bit when she was small, but if she was left alone in the house for an amount of time, she at least know how to do household activities by herself. But for her to have a wisdom of a 70 year old built in is quite unreasonable. She has not learned any life lessons for the nine years she's lived safely with her family, she has not been under any severe suffering (unlike Fate, Hayate, and the four fowards), and so on and so forth? In my opinion, her insight comes from nowhere. This, and that somehow whatever she does is taken as divine and that she somehow cannot do wrong are the reasons why I really dislike Nanoha. This probably won't even change even when she learns life lessons from being a mother.

[Keroko]

Originally Posted by DezoPenguin

*drops head to desk*

Oh, God, I've become a moe fan without realizing it. Oh, sure, there are other reasons why the red-eyed, black-wearing, scythe-wielding mage is cool...

...but considering that my second-favorite MGLN character is Vivio, of all people...

*is clearly doomed*

Hey, you think you have it bad? My favorite characters constantly battling for first place are Nanoha and Vivio. And while Vivio is excused because I like her background and more mature post-StrikerS version more then the moe-blob, I have not even the slightest clue why I like Nanoha so much.

Anyway, I agree that there is no small amount of surrealism in Nanoha's motivations. I've had a small discussion about it before with Tk, and he said something that really hit home:

"Well I’ve always said I do kind of like my heroes quite heroic, I like Nanoha too even though everyone seems to think she’s too “perfect”.

But you know what as I've said that doesn’t really bother me. Nanoha is basically the Superman of her universe, besides without some paragon to compare too how do you judge “flawed” anyway? Flawed compared to what? Face it the very concept of a “flawed” hero requires a pure hero to exist."

On the subject of her wisdom... it's true that no 9-year-old should have that much wisdom and intelligence, but then that is the case for any 9-year-old. Fate and Hayate are not excluded from this either. Sure, Fate was abused by her mother for a little while, and Hayate lived alone for as long as she can remember, but that doesn't change that they are still 9-year-olds. This is really something that's just part of the mahou shoujo genre though, and cracking down specifically on Nanoha for it is unfair, as the same thing goes for Hayate, Fate, Erio, Caro, Lutecia... the only one with an excuse would be Vivio, as she has the memories of a long lost rules helping her.

[9taileddemon]

What wisdom is it that people are talking about? Can you give examples, because I did not see a lot of it coming from most of the kids.

I saw a lot of them being stubborn, lonely, and beam-spam happy but not much else past that. Do I need to rewatch the first two series or something to see this Wisdom you speak of or can someone just explain.

[arkhangelsk]

Originally Posted by Keroko

On the subject of her wisdom... it's true that no 9-year-old should have that much wisdom and intelligence, but then that is the case for any 9-year-old. Fate and Hayate are not excluded from this either. Sure, Fate was abused by her mother for a little while, and Hayate lived alone for as long as she can remember, but that doesn't change that they are still 9-year-olds. This is really something that's just part of the mahou shoujo genre though, and cracking down specifically on Nanoha for it is unfair, as the same thing goes for Hayate, Fate, Erio, Caro, Lutecia... the only one with an excuse would be Vivio, as she has the memories of a long lost rules helping her.

True, the sums don't really add up. But on a visceral level of plausibility, it is hard to deny that Nanoha has the least to stand on. Humans tend to be very generous when watching films, so if you give them SOMETHING to stand on they'll magnify it in their minds to adequacy. But Nanoha doesn't have that.

(It is the "character version" of Barrier Jackets for you. Realistically (and even close observationally) they just don't stack up, and you know everything I've thought about them. But for you, they are the leg when people slam into walls. Imagine if they slammed into the walls without the BJs - really takes a cut to your visceral perception of plausibility... and saying that people survive being slammed into walls in anime doesn't hack it.)

[MeisterBabylon]

I believe people surviving slamming into walls (even leaving a dent!) will never stop haunting us. Touma smacking mage into wall leaving dent anyone?

[RadiantBeam]

Originally Posted by 9taileddemon

What wisdom is it that people are talking about? Can you give examples, because I did not see a lot of it coming from most of the kids.

I saw a lot of them being stubborn, lonely, and beam-spam happy but not much else past that. Do I need to rewatch the first two series or something to see this Wisdom you speak of or can someone just explain.

From my limited knowledge of the magical girl genre (only other ones I bothered with were Sailor Moon and Tokyo Mew Mew), wisdom mainly pertains to the heroine's ability to try and save other people regardless of the sacrifices she will have to make for herself or others, so long as the people she tries to save are okay in the end. In general, this is done through sheer stubborness and a maturity that exceeds their 9-14 years of age.

(So far as I know. Please correct me if I'm wrong.)

An example of this that is used often is Sailor Moon's almost suicidal focus on saving Tomoe Hotaru during the S season. She willingly goes against Sailor Uranus and Sailor Neptune to accomplish this, and uses her own pure heart to defeat Pharaoh 90 and the Death Busters so Hotaru won't die.

Again, I could be wrong. Just my interpretation.

[Keroko]

Originally Posted by 9taileddemon

What wisdom is it that people are talking about? Can you give examples, because I did not see a lot of it coming from most of the kids.

I saw a lot of them being stubborn, lonely, and beam-spam happy but not much else past that. Do I need to rewatch the first two series or something to see this Wisdom you speak of or can someone just explain.

Yuuno's taking of the responsibility concerning the Jewel Seeds, Nanoha's realization that Fate is similar to her, Fate's solitary hunt for the Jewel Seeds, Hayate's living alone for much of her life...

[arkhangelsk]

My personal favorites, however, are what Nanoha muttered about "Eternity" - there is no such as Eternity or Hayate's saying about dreams are dreams.

Between natural tendency and indoctrination, a 9-year-old might be brought up well enough to have a sense of responsibility (or at least to act like it) or to take care of themselves (as long as no major contingencies happen, which is made much easier by Hayate's limited ability to get out of the house!)

But what they said about Eternity and Dreams? They suggest understanding and reflection of some fairly abstract concepts. At 9, they are still a few years away from beginning to understand abstract concepts, let alone flip it around like they did - many adults would probably have trouble with what they did, even if they took time out to reflect on it, let alone in a fight.

As for the maturity, self-sacrifice or whatever it is that Magical Girls have, it is true that other anime also have it (if anything, Shinji of Evagelion probably is more like how MOST people, kids or otherwise, will react to their first deadly fight if suddenly plunged into it), but few have it come out as fast, as completely, or as regularly as Nanoha and Co. And remember that at 9 years old, Nanoha and Co are near the BOTTOM of the age ladder for magical girls.

Finally, try this exercise: When you re-watch the first two seasons of the anime,
1) close your eyes so the visuals don't affect you,
2) try to convince yourself that they are not 9, but 20 year old characters.

Feel anything strange? See a lot of actions that scream "They don't act their age! They act as if they are 9 (or even 13) years old?" If you can forget the part where Nanoha mutter she's in Primary school Grade 3 you are running out of signs.

With a lot of anime, even those specifically depicting young adults (say university students), you'll find enough clearly immature acts that won't be out of place if they were depicting middle-schoolers. With Nanoha, it is just the inverse. You can take specific examples or you can take things as a whole, but ridiculously mature ain't far out of place for Nanoha, even by anime (or perhaps even more so because by anime) standards.

[Lilly_raven]

Nanoha and Fate are both my favourites

[Noe]

Originally Posted by Noe

Fate..by like millions & billions of light years.

I never really took the chance to expand on this when I initially posted but I will do so now.

Spoiler for a lil' bit of tl;dr:

It's really difficult to convey how Fate became my absolute number one favorite character in not only the MSLN universe, but rather in general as well. I reflect upon the earlier days of when I was first introduced to the series through an avatar (can't remember which) that one of my good e-friends had on in a forum during the time. I felt a rush of adrenaline filled with euphoric emotions coursing through me - I was in love with that scrumptious goldenness at first sight. Therefore, I embarked into the journey of seeking out the anime and then venturing into its vast universe. Fate was introduced outstandingly and remarkably. Her distinctively unique lightning powers obliterated me with unlimited moe works. The manner of how her inflexible relationship towards her mother impacted my overall enjoyment of the franchise positively and tremendously. Fate's character attributes appealed and captivated me; she is possibly the most dynamic character I have ever witnessed, displaying a variety of emotions throughout the course of the series. (antagonist/faithfulness, unlimited moe and sex appeal, a loving friend, an embracing mother, a comforting ally, and much more) Every scene with Fate, every bit of tiny glimpses of Fate caused the atmosphere to sparkle and dazzle, it was filled with riveting scenes where ever and when ever Fate was depicted in. The overall appeal of the series would have been nonexistent were Fate not being in it for me. I revere every step she takes and cherish every move she makes. The portrayal of her interaction through her peers, allies, and the environment stood out the most to me. Her physical features are also incredibly sensually appealing. I love admiring her stunning beauty. Fate is the greatest thing that's ever happened to me, causing me to elicit such sentimental feelings. These phrases, words, sentences can't even dare to fathom her legacy and have yet to only present a fragment of my addiction towards her.

[Vivio.Takamachi]

Fate is a Godmother!!!
I love Fate mama

[itanshi1]

Almost read that as godmoder

Anyways, I couldn't vote on this. I like the pallet of characters and I'm a sucker for Fate like characters (save shugo chara for obvious reasons, but yay more music)

Its not moe, its not shyness, its not even being blond. Frankly, I like her name, I like her strengths and her weaknesses. I went from watching a show, to watching an epic. Granted its still fisher price combat, but I'm hooked. Still in saying this, I'm not favoring her over the rest.

[synaesthetic]

My favorites are...

Nanoha is, well, the reason the entire series exists. Nanoha is the protagonist, though somewhat less so in StrikerS, but she still has significant screen time, and fights the final battle. Nanoha is the source of all hot-bloodedness and awesome in the Nanoha franchise. Nanoha pioneered the tried-and-tested technique of making friends via beating the living shit out of them.

Simply put, Nanoha is awesome and epic win. Not to mention hot-blooded. SHE IS A GUNDAM. Setsuna F. Seiei would fall in love with her instantly.

Hayate, well... I have to admit, I mostly like her for her character design. StrikerS got to show this off on many occasions, giving her more screen time in her Barrier Jacket than A's and getting to show off some of her powerful spells, including some we remember Reinforce v1.0 using in A's.

Outside of ass-kicking, Hayate is written well as a commander and has some shades of The Chessmaster. She's just as cool commanding from Long Arch as she is fighting on the front lines.

Reinforce v2.0 is probably one of the most creative and amusing ways I've ever seen a story handle infodumps to explain unfamiliar concepts to the audience. Not only does it make sense since she's technically a computer, but it's completely in-character for her to start rattling off on some technical subject concerning magic or the TSAB.

Certainly Rein's explanations felt more natural than did Fate's impromptu history lesson regarding kinetic weaponry to Caro and Erio.

Plus she's adorable. It's a shame Agito wasn't brought into the fold until the very end; her interactions with Rein are hilarious.

Signum is definitely my favorite of the Volkenritter in StrikerS. She doesn't get as much screen time as Vita, but Vita was my favorite in A's. Signum wins the crown here for kicking more ass and looking good while doing it. Plus the Falcon Punch! she delivered to Teana was epic.

Signum only gets more epic when she teams up with Agito and the two Unison. Entirely too much win there.

Teana is actually my favorite of the new characters from a plot perspective. Being the de facto leader of the new Section Six members, despite Subaru's presence as the obvious protagonist, Teana had a much greater degree of character development.

She started out as a Jerkass Type-A Tsundere (for Subaru, obviously) with a serious inferiority complex related to her past. Through a lot of failures, screwups, getting the shit blasted out of her by a highly annoyed Nanoha and a Falcon Punch from Signum...

But ultimately we get to watch Teana slowly progress from an arrogant little girl driven to become stronger at any cost, no matter what the risk... into a tough and capable leader who thinks clearly and works well with her team.

Of all the characters in StrikerS, veterans and newbies alike, Teana is my favorite because she received the most amount of character development and had the most compelling personal story.

Not to mention she has Grade-S zettai ryouiki! Tsundere, check! Twintails, check! Grade-A zettai ryouiki, check!

[Keroko]

Ported from the image thread:

Originally Posted by Triple_R

Jail did go out of his way to cause mayhem - he simply wanted to keep needless deaths down to a minimum at the same time.

Yes, and that is what makes him neutral evil.

Originally Posted by Triple_R

How so? Why would neutral evil care either way about a lawful organization? Evil is opposite to good, not opposite to lawful.

And? That doesn't mean a neutral evil character won't try to undermine such an organization. The point is that neutral evil is the alignment for the 'play along and then backstep' types. The alignment of those they backstep doesn't enter into it.

Originally Posted by Triple_R

Unless they're doing it to serve a chaotic end goal.

No, that'd make them neutral evil. Chaotic evil characters only follow orders out of fear of punishment or something similar.

Originally Posted by Triple_R

Aahhh... but Precia did care about Alicia. Everything she did was tied to Alicia - quite systematic, and hardly chaotic at all.

Precia had supreme regard for the life of Alicia. It's just that her pure evilness caused her to engage in evil means to try to accomplish her goals.

It is, actually. Alicia was Precia's desire. Remember, characters of this alignment tend to have no respect for rules, other peoples' lives, or anything but their own desires. Precia did not for a moment stop to think whether Alicia would have wanted Precia to do what she did. All she cared about was getting her back, and she'd do anything from whipping a clone of Alicia to tearing apart dimensions. Quite selfish, quote chaotic.

Originally Posted by Triple_R

Flashiness obviously runs counter to orderliness (organized parades notwithstanding - and Jail wasn't putting on a parade) - flashiness often has a train wreck effect, upsetting the natural order of things.

A serial murderer doesn't lit of the fireworks when he brutally and/or painfully kills someone. Doesn't mean he's not chaotic evil though.

[Triple_R]

Edit: Actually, upon further review, I think that I was getting the labels mixed up here. Keroko is right - going by the D&D understanding of neutral evil and chaotic evil, Jail is neutral evil and Precia is chaotic evil.

[Riika]

Originally Posted by DezoPenguin

This is in contrast to Nanoha, who is surrounded by a loving family and close friends. Yes, she definitely had neglect issues for a few years while her father was recovering, but she was never forced to do without or suffered genuine hardship, yet out of that she develops a level of self-sufficiency and maturity at age 9 that most adults would kill to have, and a sense of responsibility that basically amounts to "do everything I possibly can for others regardless of the cost to myself." Her "with great power comes great responsibility" moment (MGLN Ep. 3, which is as directly cribbed off the Spider-Man origin story as anything I've ever seen), basically consists of saying a nine-year-old-child can't take a couple of minutes to have tea and cake with her friends because it might lead to Something Bad Happening. And while she apparently wises up to some extent because she tries very hard to hammer home to Teana that such an attitude is improper and self-destructive, it just as clearly doesn't apply to herself.

Okay, first of all, being neglected, if only for a few years and with perfectly valid reasons, can lead to severe issues concerning a child's development and can force them to mature early to compensate and try to understand what's going on around them. Let's also remember that Nanoha's siblings seem to be quite older than her, which makes matters worse. In season 1 she was basically forced into a situation where either she got smart and learned as fast as she could on-the-go or she was killed either by rampaging Jewel Seed-turned-monster or by an unrelenting Fate, who at the time, would've done anything to make her mother happy. Also, what Nanoha hammered into Teana was that pushing herself was bad, especially if you have no reason whatsoever to do so. Teana was being plain dumb at the time, she had yet to grow up and realize that when you push yourself to your limits and beyond it should be when no other options are left to you. It most certainly wasn't the case in that mock battle.

If Nanoha has forced herself over what her limits usually would be, she did it for the sake of someone, always with a reason and when no other options were left. So please explain to me how exactly does 'don't push yourself for useless reasons' not apply to herself?

BTW: I love your writing

Originally Posted by Keroko

Anyway, I agree that there is no small amount of surrealism in Nanoha's motivations. I've had a small discussion about it before with Tk, and he said something that really hit home:

"Well I’ve always said I do kind of like my heroes quite heroic, I like Nanoha too even though everyone seems to think she’s too “perfect”.

But you know what as I've said that doesn’t really bother me. Nanoha is basically the Superman of her universe, besides without some paragon to compare to how do you judge “flawed” anyway? Flawed compared to what? Face it the very concept of a “flawed” hero requires a pure hero to exist."

On the subject of her wisdom... it's true that no 9-year-old should have that much wisdom and intelligence, but then that is the case for any 9-year-old. Fate and Hayate are not excluded from this either. Sure, Fate was abused by her mother for a little while, and Hayate lived alone for as long as she can remember, but that doesn't change that they are still 9-year-olds. This is really something that's just part of the mahou shoujo genre though, and cracking down specifically on Nanoha for it is unfair, as the same thing goes for Hayate, Fate, Erio, Caro, Lutecia... the only one with an excuse would be Vivio, as she has the memories of a long lost rules helping her.

Right now you're my favorite person, Keroko.

Apparently, it's sort of a standard for the Nanoha-verse to have mature kids. Besides, why is it that a character has to have some tragic, terrible sort of past to be mature at an early age? I have a friend who, when she was a kid, she even scared some adults because "her eyes are too serious, she doesn't act like a kid!" and she had no tragic past, it was just the way she was.

Sometimes real life is stranger than fiction.

Originally Posted by RadiantBeam

From my limited knowledge of the magical girl genre (only other ones I bothered with were Sailor Moon and Tokyo Mew Mew), wisdom mainly pertains to the heroine's ability to try and save other people regardless of the sacrifices she will have to make for herself or others, so long as the people she tries to save are okay in the end. In general, this is done through sheer stubborness and a maturity that exceeds their 9-14 years of age.

Exactly.

What Nanoha has is not maturity, it's incredible stubbornnes, unrealistic optimism and maybe a lack of common sense. She has the bad habit of trying to get the other party to explain themselves and to settle things by talking. While this could be considered something 'mature', I view it as further proof of her childishness and of her not having grown up at all. She believes that with stubborn determination and by letting the enemy explain themselves, things can be solved. If that were the case there would be no need for the police, the army or in this case, the TSAB. Only children and naive people believe such things.

Originally Posted by arkhangelsk

(if anything, Shinji of Evagelion probably is more like how MOST people, kids or otherwise, will react to their first deadly fight if suddenly plunged into it)

Let's not mix Eva in here, I think it's fairly safe to assume that they're not comparable and that the characters are on completely different levels. If we do, we'll end up with a discussion of about 30 pages without end in sight...

Plus, I don't recall Nanoha being all happy and going "LOOK AT ME, I'M KICKING MONSTER ASS!" in her first fight. If I remember correctly, she was confused and didn't really know what happened, needed a lot of coaching and while, yes she had a lot of magical potential, she was extremely clumsy with it at first.

Originally Posted by arkhangelsk

Finally, try this exercise: When you re-watch the first two seasons of the anime,
1) close your eyes so the visuals don't affect you,
2) try to convince yourself that they are not 9, but 20 year old characters.

Feel anything strange? See a lot of actions that scream "They don't act their age! They act as if they are 9 (or even 13) years old?" If you can forget the part where Nanoha mutter she's in Primary school Grade 3 you are running out of signs.

You said so yourself, "THEY" don't act their age. If it's a standard in the Nanoha universe then it's not at all weird for Nanoha to be overly mature at such a young age. Every other kid her age is like that so why bash only her?

[synaesthetic]

The way I see it, none of the Nanoha leading ladies act wise at all. Most of them act in ways that actual soldiers would sooner eat a bullet from their own gun. They succeed in part because of their youthful naivete, their bizarre lack of fear and insane optimism.

The Wolkenritter are slightly better because they're adults (despite Vita's loli-licious body) and also not actually human, but even they act in questionable ways on multiple occasions. Many of Nanoha's characters are incredibly thickheaded and refuse to just examine for a moment why the hell they're doing what they're doing.

The Wolkenritter have more of an excuse than most--those knightly types are all about Honor Before Reason, after all--but nearly everyone in the show has the same kind of personalities as characters in a Super Robot or magical-girl anime. They're all running more on BURNING SPIRIT or ridiculous optimism than anything else.

And for the record, I don't consider Jail to be truly black-on-black evil. Whilst I despise using the AD&D alignment system, Jail flipflops between Pet the Dog, Kick the Dog and Rape the Dog moments so often and so frequently that one wonders how anyone could think he's anything but majorly chaotic--and majorly insane. But then again, most mad scientists are, in fact, mad.

As that CIA guy from that awful movie Under Siege 2 said, "Sane people don't make weapons like this."