(L+CR) Youjo Senki (Saga of Tanya the Evil)

[Anh_Minh]

Yeah, but like I said, someone had to man those pillboxes, and it might as well be people who not only had it coming, but wanted dangerous jobs. Their chances were no worse than those of the guys who were there only because they drew some kind of short straw when their orders were drafted.

Besides, she had to do something - insubordination, especially under fire, can't be just ignored or you have no army anymore.

And, next-to-last thought - she's probably not even the one who ultimately signed off on that transfer. She suggested it, but I doubt she has the authority as a simple platoon commander to decide who goes to pillboxes or not.

Last thought: some people were straight up executed for less than that, in WW1. So maybe she landed in a world full of enlightened humanists who happened to be at war and she's comparatively evil... but in our own WW1? Her brand of discipline would have been unremarkable.

Originally Posted by Ghostfriendly

Absolutely right. Again; if officers genuinely concerned to save lives were told that they put more lives at risk than they protected, they're going to realise their mistake.

Yes, but rather than the problems of their own specific actions, they needed to learn the problems of insubordination in general. A soldier who needs to understand and approve of his orders before following them can't be called "disciplined". And if that wasn't accomplished before, in whatever training they had before being sent to the front, it's possible remedial actions wouldn't have done better.

I'm not really for the "one mistake and you're out" policy, but I don't want to underestimate the depth of their faults and the problems they cause.

[bakato]

Originally Posted by orion

She purposely condemned 2 soldiers to death by sending them to a pillbox after she "supposedly" decided not to kill them for insubordination.

For those 2 soldiers who wanted to fight, they prob wouldn't have been sent home anyways as there was a shortage of personnel. They could have been sent to another unit where they would have died for the Fatherland in glory.

At the cost of the lives of said unit. Insubordination cannot be tolerated on the battlefield.

[Tenzen12]

Assuming their decision was wrong, also assuming she sent them do die for such proper reason. She got pissed so she sent them die and very rejoiced when learned enemies did job for her. It reeks of personal feelings and bit of God complex.

Enjoying killing own people, regardless whether it should be done, is very good reason to condemn someone as evil. Just killing them with sabre and forget would be more in line with being "only" ruthless.

[bakato]

Originally Posted by Tenzen12

Assuming their decision was wrong, also assuming she sent them do die for such proper reason. She got pissed so she sent them die and very rejoiced when learned enemies did job for her. It reeks of personal feelings and bit of God complex.

Enjoying killing own people, regardless whether it should be done, is very good reason to condemn someone as evil. Just killing them with sabre and forget would be more in line with being "only" ruthless.

What part of her looked pissed off? She looked upset as anyone in her position would be if they had to deal with insubordination.

What makes you think she enjoyed "killing them"? Maybe she was overjoyed at the fact she'd no longer have to deal with them.

"Just killing them"? Without a formal execution? That would've have affected troop moral.

[Tenzen12]

What part of her didn't look pissed of? She was in rage almost cutting them down on spot.

[bakato]

Originally Posted by Tenzen12

What part of her didn't look pissed of? She was in rage almost cutting them down on spot.

I find rage to involve more facial expression and a loss of control. She didn't look like she lost control of herself when she was about to draw her saber.

[Gan_HOPE326]

Originally Posted by Tenzen12

What part of her didn't look pissed of? She was in rage almost cutting them down on spot.

She looked pissed, but that's kind of a standard image for leaders dealing with insubordination. If the point of the show was to drive home that she was being sadistic it didn't do the job very well. She would have probably gotten off with killing them on the spot, so had she been a sheer sadist she would have taken the chance, not restrained herself - twice.

[Tenzen12]

It was more than standard and that grin on the end, was pretty much "If I want someone dead, they will. One way or other. Did you really thought you could change anything about it you little stupid girl"

Huge God complex imho, but I am willing wait few episodes before deciding if it's really that case or not.

[kari-no-sugata II]

Finally got around to watching this.

I can sort of see what they were aiming at but I don't think it works, so far. In terms of explaining the war situation they did both too much and too little - they tried to paint too broad a picture without giving a good enough idea of the situation the main characters were in. The biggest problem though is the characterisation - again, it feels like they were trying to do too many things at once and it ends up a bit muddled.

So, in short, the uneasy feeling I had about the adaptation from the PVs etc seems to have been realised in practice. A shame.

[Zefyris]

Originally Posted by Anh_Minh

So far the evil is an informed attribute at best. What did she do that was so evil? Send insubordinate soldiers away? Kill enemy soldiers?

I don't know if the two idiots could have been retrained. On the one hand, taking a bunch of kids, a lot of whom rebellious and all of them idiots (because everyone is, at that age), and turning them into useful soldiers is what armies do. Even and especially in war time. And they were good enough to survive their own stupidity, so there's that. On the other hand, some people just won't learn.

Yes, I agree with that.
Especially since anyway, the "devil" title is from the opponent side, not from her own side.
There is no intended evil in her actions. It can sometimes be seen as evil from an external point of view like this time we have quite a few peoples believing what she did was evil, but that was simply logical behaviour and decisions under such circumstances.

[Darthtabby]

Now I'm really wishing Izetta hadn't turned into such a disappointment. This has an interesting setting and good production values, but the protagonist kind of kills it for me. Its possible to make a character ruthless without making them completely unlikeable!

[Zefyris]

Originally Posted by Gan_HOPE326

I think it's more about the fact that she seems to enjoy killing them. You get a rather different feeling from a soldier who kills because he wants to defend his comrades/country and one who does while getting sadistic pleasure from it. I mean, the latter may even be MORE useful to a point, but in peacetime he's going to be a dangerous psychopath. The anime prototype of that that comes to mind is FMA's Zolf Kimbley, who basically only fought because he enjoyed blowing people up and had a laugh when everyone else was barely clinging to their sanity.

And hey, that Tanya is supposed to be "Evil" is right there in the title. And who are we to argue with the title ?

Still, I do find perplexing the signals sent by the show, I don't understand if the scene where she dealt with insubordination was supposed to show her as evil - and failed spectacularly, because the sadistic thing to do there would have been to shoot the soldiers in place personally - or instead to give us a perspective of her as harsh but not completely unreasonable. It seems ill-informed to expect anything but a severe punishment as a consequence of disobedience on the battlefield, especially in a situation where it was so pointless and was reiterated afterwards. And I'm not a war lover or anything, but if one has to look at how these things went in reality, well, she was probably more forgiving than a good chunk of real life WW1 officers.

She actually doesn't especially enjoy killing them. She did what she had to do, she did "her job" in the most efficient manner she could think of, and boy that was efficient. That pillbox was manned, they avoided losing 2 more obedient and therefore useful soldiers during it, that pillbox protected the retreat of their troops as the frontline was moving back, she and her platoon and her company no longer risk dying from the disobedience of two corporals, she answered the wish of those two from "dying for their country rather than being expelled or simply executed, answered the wish from her other subordinate to not execute them, and didn't soil her reputation a bit nor her chances of being promoted. All of this while 100 % respecting the rules and orders given to her, that's an important point.

Perfect score. This is Tanya Degurechaff btw. This is 100% the type of character you're going to see. When it comes to efficiency and respecting the rules, she's a freaking emotionless machine that will not hesitate a single second at doing morally questionable acts. And that's why Lerghen is so afraid of her and calls her a monster. Not because she's a psycho that enjoy killing, because she's not.

Originally Posted by Tenzen12

Assuming their decision was wrong, also assuming she sent them do die for such proper reason. She got pissed so she sent them die and very rejoiced when learned enemies did job for her. It reeks of personal feelings and bit of God complex.

Enjoying killing own people, regardless whether it should be done, is very good reason to condemn someone as evil. Just killing them with sabre and forget would be more in line with being "only" ruthless.

it's not even about their decision being wrong or not. In anime you often see that kind of bull*** really, the protag disobeying military orders because he knows they're wrong and has a better idea, blablabla.
That's a pink coloured view of how armies work. the moment they disobeyed orders on the battlefield, their decision was wrong, no matter what they decided, as deciding to disobey IS a wrong decision.
Also in a 4 man squads having half of it going away disobeying orders and leaving their superior with only one soldier near her, what the hell were they thinking. And they're both Corporals too, not simple low class soldiers. Talk about setting an extremely bad example for your average soldier, putting their officer and their team in danger, discarding their assigned mission of flanking by having half of the squad doing something else instead, putting the whole army who was retreating in the sector in danger, and so on.
No matter if they destroyed some of that artillery and saved lives or not, that was a completely stupid move to do. You don't do that, EVER.

And on top of this when they're announced their punishment which is actually very lenient (just sending them back), they actually dared to refuse getting punished. Oh boy. This would usually leads to execution here, and a very, very, VERY well deserved execution , even if just to avoid setting a bad example and having other soldiers doing the same as the worst time. Just to say, they volunteered to be in the army, so we can't even say that they were there against their will and never agreed with the way discipline works in the army, blablabla. We know they were there on their own choice.

Also if she had a god complex she wouldn't follow orders and discipline from above to the letter. Being a lowly second lieutenant isn't really a nice place for someone with a god complex...

[Ghostfriendly]

Originally Posted by Zefyris

This is Tanya Degurechaff btw. This is 100% the type of character you're going to see. When it comes to efficiency and respecting the rules, she's a freaking emotionless machine that will not hesitate a single second at doing morally questionable acts. And that's why Lerghen is so afraid of her and calls her a monster. Not because she's a psycho that enjoy killing, because she's not.

That may very well be the light novel's characterisation, but the maniac grin at end of anime ep 1 implies that a unstable sadist lies beneath her officious exterior, at least in the anime.

To get a bit philosophical, characters that claim to act on an entirely logical basis to attain a single goal fall foul of Sartean bad faith. Werner Locksmith from Planetes, for example, uses remorselessly logical means to build a spaceship that reaches Jupiter; but is the goal of reaching Jupiter a logically necessity? Unless we accept that God has created humans for a set purpose, every human purpose or principle is a mere choice and a conceit. Except for perhaps the quest to discover humanity's ultimate purpose, and to remain alive to do so. If Tanya's thirst for promotion is simply to preserve her life, her solitary purpose of survival is, in fact, a logical necessity. That the sole purpose of life is to preserve itself may be an animal's level of existence; but at least Tanya has chosen to reject the human quest for higher purpose, and live as a ruthless, intelligent wild beast.

[Zefyris]

Originally Posted by Ghostfriendly

That may very well be the light novel's characterisation, but the maniac grin at end of anime ep 1 implies that a unstable sadist lies beneath her officious exterior, at least in the anime.

To get a bit philosophical, characters that claim to act on an entirely logical basis to attain a single goal fall foul of Sartean bad faith. Werner Locksmith from Planetes, for example, uses remorselessly logical means to build a spaceship that reaches Jupiter; but is the goal of reaching Jupiter a logically necessity? Unless we accept that God has created humans for a set purpose, every human purpose or principle is a mere choice and a conceit. Except for perhaps the quest to discover humanity's ultimate purpose, and to remain alive to do so. If Tanya's thirst for promotion is simply to preserve her life, her solitary purpose of survival is, in fact, a logical necessity. That the sole purpose of life is to preserve itself may be an animal's level of existence; but at least Tanya has chosen to reject the human quest for higher purpose, and live as a ruthless, intelligent wild beast.

We can follow her thoughts in the novel so that's no claim. She acts entirely on logic and efficiency to achieve goals. She's neither evil nor good, as pure logic is neither; she's gray, neutral.
And this is incorrect, she doesn't live as a wild beast, the exact contrary actually, she's a complete 100% efficiency oriented machine.

[Flower]

Just stepping in here.

Lets please remember to be careful to not veer off into territory not explicitly shown in the first episode, okay?

[Kismet-chan]

I personally think it might benefit some people to go find and read the author's note at the end of the first novel. The author himself tells you exactly what kind of story and protagonist to expect... and that if you aren't into this sort of thing, you might as well drop out now.

[Ghostfriendly]

Originally Posted by Zefyris

We can follow her thoughts in the novel so that's no claim. She acts entirely on logic and efficiency to achieve goals. She's neither evil nor good, as pure logic is neither; she's gray, neutral.
And this is incorrect, she doesn't live as a wild beast, the exact contrary actually, she's a complete 100% efficiency oriented machine.

The next episode will certainly give us more to work with, but that evil grin gives a completely contrary impression to the character you've described. The light novel characterisation isn't decisive, since we don't know that the anime writers will portray the same character, or interpret Tanya's character as the novelist does. If they are trying to be faithful to the novel, that evil grin was quite a misstep.

See PM for thoughts about logic, morality and human/animal purpose.

[orion]

Originally Posted by bakato

At the cost of the lives of said unit. Insubordination cannot be tolerated on the battlefield.

They were low on manpower. It doesn't take alot to send them to another unit. Besides, she actually loved it when she received notice that they died. 'Monster' doesn't cover this.

Originally Posted by Kismet-chan

I personally think it might benefit some people to go find and read the author's note at the end of the first novel. The author himself tells you exactly what kind of story and protagonist to expect... and that if you aren't into this sort of thing, you might as well drop out now.

Now ....you don't know if the anime is going to follow the same characterization. Besides, this is an anime thread. If we have to read the novel to figure Tanya out, then the series is pretty much doomed.

[Zefyris]

That's exactly what she did. They were sent helping at that pillbox, which is a job that someone has to do, and where their insubordination cannot endanger others. Furthermore, you cannot just send them on another unit without any form of punishment after what they did, low on manpower or not. What you're asking for is the doom of any army really.
That pillbox was bombed because it was useful. The imperial army was moving back the line, which means that the pillbox that was on the rearguard became at the front. Obviously soldiers stationed here are not evacuated first, they'll have to keep in check the enemy's advance as long as possible to facilitate the allies' evacuation and save a lot of lives in the process. Obviously the artillery is going to destroy it to counter it sooner or later, but until then, they fought to defend their comrades, and then they died. The two soldiers they replaced there were probably saved thanks to this as well.
That was exactly what those two asked for. And I cannot think of a more useful way of using a human resource that refuses order regularly btw.

Plus why do you think she enjoyed their death? Her tone was calm and detached. She wasn't surprised, but she wasn't rejoicing. Her smile was answering Tanya's question, not the death of those two.

Well you'll certainly have to cover more than the first episode of the anime to figure her out, that's for sure. Because if peoples start thinking they figured her out with just that, the anime is pretty much doomed as well .
Especially since all the first episode did was to show the external pov of that character, whereas to understand it you need an internal one.

[Ghostfriendly]

If the anime series has failed to give a clear idea of Tanya's basic character in ep 1, that's a failure on their part.

Plus why do you think she enjoyed their death? Her tone was calm and detached. She wasn't surprised, but she wasn't rejoicing. Her smile was answering Tanya's question, not the death of those two.

Hmm, reasonable point, but I don't buy it. The girl's question referred to death of soldiers. Tanya's smile wasn't smug or contemptuous, regarding the girl's naivety, but a picture of sadistic glee, at the girl's horror or the men's death. Either or both, sadism is sadism. Her detached tone contrasts with her crazed expression, so that she seems even more schizophrenically crazed than otherwise.