#Obviously I didn't include every single instance of a character being a bastard here or what they did to try to redeem themselves

[solradguy]

curious if you could elaborate on, like, specific cases(?) or just the general phenomena of gg community ignoring character flaws since i feel like i probably agree n wanna hear someone else's thoughts on it

Almost every single Guilty Gear character has done something that would get them ostracized in other fandoms, I think. But what I see sorta often in GG's community is that sometimes people will go to great lengths to defend one character and then talk about how bad another character is for the things they've done. Zato, for example, did horrible things to Millia and her hating him/wanting him dead is entirely justifiable. But Zato gets condemned for that while Happy Chaos, who brainwashed numerous people to fight and die for him just because he thought it was funny (among other things he did before and after that), rarely gets criticized, presumably because his personality is sillier and he's got a more broadly appealing design.

I get stuff like this happens in pretty much every fandom that's ever existed ever, but it's really funny seeing it in a game called Guilty Gear, where every character has done horrible things that haunts them haha. I went with the Zato and Chaos comparison because at least in some other characters' cases, the character does have some guilt over their actions or has a redemption arc of some kind (Bedman and Ky are good examples of that), but neither Zato or Chaos seem to have much remorse over how they've treated other people yet Zato is frequently hated while Chaos is adored.

Going back to Ky for a sec since he might seem like an odd choice to include there: Ky was a child soldier that wanted to utterly annihilate a sentient species capable of intelligent communication with evidence of a unique culture, and he killed them mercilessly when he could. But he eventually realized what he was doing was awful and went back on everything he was raised to believe to try to make up for what he did. And it haunts him. It wasn't like he woke up one day and just decided to stop killing Gears because he got bored of it; it's a major part of his character that the weight of what he had done was crushing him and he'll never fully forgive himself (or ask for total forgiveness) for it.

Bedman doesn't get as much of a chance before he dies to try to make up for what he had done, but it's still there a little bit right at the end. He's also young too and not having a fully developed prefrontal cortex is a pain in the ass. Sympathy to all the people younger than 25 out there.

Even Sol, the other main box art guy, has a whole list of awful shit he's done. He also wanted to destroy the same creatures that had individual thoughts and desires as Ky did and in Sol's case it might even be worse because he was partially responsible for their creation in the first place, and he was ruthless during his Holy Order arc when he fought against Gears the most. Ignoring Aria's wishes to be allowed to die peacefully from her illness and Sol wanting to sacrifice the entire world to save Jack-O' at the end of Strive are both selfish and awful in their own ways too. Sol is also THEE guilty Gear though. We know that's all weighing on him something fierce.

But this is what makes Guilty Gear so GOOD. It's not black and white. The good guys are deeply flawed and the bad guys can be sympathetic. This series has an insane amount of nuance that all too often gets boiled down to who's redeemable and who isn't and nearly everyone's a little bit of a bastard in their own unique ways.

I guess what I'm trying to say here is that I think if someone is a fan of a character that's taken/tried to take away the autonomy of another character, emotionally manipulated someone via dog murder, or wanted to exterminate an entire species that was mostly fighting back because of how humanity had treated them in the first place, that they should keep that in mind when harshly criticizing other characters' actions.

#asks #Obviously I didn't include every single instance of a character being a bastard here or what they did to try to redeem themselves #I've got stuff I need to get done today lol #But know that I'm not trying to make excuses for characters being awful either #There is a decent chance someone is going to read all of this and assume to absolute worst of me I can feel it in my bones