#beyond redemption

So you know western cartoons? And Im not talking about "adult animated sitcoms" or the recent surge of "totally mature and bloody!!!" cartoons that in the end are the same juvenile superhero stuff lol just with exploding heads and awkward animated sex scenes lol.

Yeah, just the standard cartoons that people get really insecure about liking, and make video essays about how "actually it is a masterpiece of mature writting". But instead of me mocking this fact to try to hide my own anxiety over being somebody who makes a fanfic comic, lets go with this

So lets circle back to the title of this "essay" - and start with an example - Everybody loves Zuko from Avatar, I watched the show as a kid, you did, probably kids today do it when all their influencer idols force them too.

Perfect for exploring the point then: And that is the point, people claim how realistic and satisfieng Zuko's arc is, how the redemption is both earned and not without hurdles, not without fallbacks. So where is the issue?

Well I remember sometimes smugly thinking "Well what a coincidence that Zuko never actually on screen killed anyone so he never is really a bad guy...' And this I interpreted to be mostly the case of the rating - basically without the restriction the show would probably include Zuko killing what is at best combatants of the defending side or at worst even civilians. And this would probably kinda derail the arc or leave a bad taste in everybodys mouth...

But the question is left unanswered - is it at the end better, that Zuko gets redemeed in a way that is setup to leave out this elephant out of the room? Hell even I felt kinda weirded out about how nonchalant everyone was about the fact that Zuko hired an assassin, like it was kinda played off for laughs, but maybe that was to show "see we are redeeming him without writting out realistic evils like murder!" - still there is a difference between killing civilians and hiring some copyright free terminator.

So no answer? Well maybe lets look at the opposite case - anime, the cartoons that can kinda go away with showing unscreen murder and atrocities. And to bring it back, lets go with Soul Eater (and no manga spoiler this time cause Im generous and because this would open another can of worms, and I'll save that for the future)

Everybodys favorite charachter that gets reduced to one trait that ironically would be kinda problematic if one really was thinking about it in a certain way - Crona. Also know for killing people who were pointed out to be "not evil enough for it to be ok©®™"

So here we have this charachter, with a whole arc of being abused, having the famous trauma™, doing bad because of a parental figure and wanting to make that figure happy even if its in a twisted way, not getting what real love is...

Basically Im saying Zuko and Crona share a lot of simmilarities looked at this surface level. But only Crona has the problematic aspect of "mass murder". And even I kinda felt it being pushed under the rug no matter how I'll defend Crona from slander on the net while being sick both in body and soul lol.

But here is the thing - atleast I see Crona (atleast in the anime) as mostly some kind of child soldier - I dont think anybody thinks that some african boy that was forced at gunpoint to snort coke and kill his parents while being abused all his life, is "guilty" of the crimes in a way that an adult who does it for a less extreme reason.

Still, even if for me that is mostly justification enough (even if I kinda problematise the whole guilt thing in my comic), I still get it - even if explained it still leaves a bad aftertaste

Like even the most goodhearthed person would probably be weirded out if the person next to them would go "Thank God I was saved, cause till I was 14, I was forced to go from village to village and shoot everyone that moved!". One can say neither person is really at fault yet still it is a sticky topic.

And maybe thats where Im going with this - the problem isnt about depicting the redemption or whatever of killers, but if a story is mature and "deep" enough to handle it. So with my Avatar example I think that in a back handed way, it was good that Zuko wasnt a killer - becaue even if everybody loves the show (I mostly do to, shit was fun) - its kinda clear that in the end the writting and themes etc were on a level of a kid show - enough for kids, but not complex enough to actually deal with some things that other works could (and not even talking about something being grimdark or complex, cause nah everybody hates DBZ but that shit was so.good everybody felt Vegeta turning good and dont make essays about how bad that was, anyways that is why DBZ is too complicated for most western fans💅💅💅 ((but thats a topic for another day))

So to come back to the Crona question - was Soul Eater really prepared to deal with the topic of mass killing inocent people (mostly)? Especially when Ohkubo says himself that it was "a show where death isnt taken seriously"?

Cause I think, with Cronas struggle being mostly about abuse, doing bad things because of parental abandonment, fear etc, was it really necessary to add this baggage? Especially with a show that has that many visual metaphors?

And one example that I would use kinda proves my point and maybe implys that Ohkubo also kinda started backpedalling - the second time we see Crona, there are no wannabe gangsters, just souls of already killed people by another kishinegg which is just a wacky bad guy who isnt even really alive himself (and eve. comically survives)

Basically what I'm entertaining, is if wouldnt have been better to have Crona absorb souls that other Kishinseggs had collected, in this way preserving that they do something wrong (but reversible as later shown with the confiscation) yet never having to go to the extreme of "haha check out this wacky outfit our new friend Crona is wearing! Also twenty people were murdered in that church, shit was crazy"

But am I really basically saying 4kids Crona is the answer. Putting it this way lol, I dunno, I mean I like the pirate rap, but just sanitising everything seems off to me to. So yeah I dont even know.

And that is what leaves this whole question like the socratic dialogs, without any real answer with more confusion than before. But maybe it could "start a discussion" or whatever. But in case it was just a waste of time, without going anywhere:

Yeah... Sorry

Also quick manga spoilers as a bonus