#gray characters

Only a little over half way through this series and we are properly obsessed. We love watching these manipulative, scheming red flags turn into the biggest whipped softies. We knew they were going to hurt us and we weren't wrong. So to soothe our wounds, we will revisit sweet and precious moments like this...

Here are some of our favorite posts so far (spoilers ahead):

Content: Undead, slave brand, magical control, action horror, beating and knife fighting, character "death"

A Slave’s Rebellion 1/2

Nife

The priceless look of shock on the lord’s face faded into something more controlled. Something more familiar. 

He was uneasily looking her over and over, examining her like a painting with those cool yellow eyes that missed nothing. The slave cuff still stuck to her wrist, the cool gray skin of her chest and arms now revealed in the absence of the beads she’d ripped off after breaking those chains with her bare hands.

“What the fuck,” He managed.

“I’m here to kill you.” She said disgustedly, being honest for once in her life. It felt good.

And she really shouldn’t have told the truth, because again for once in her life, someone believed her, and it wasn’t Striker.

“Lay one hand on my little brother, and you’ll regret it.”

Heinkel met his wife ( who would tell him that she is sure he can be the next sword saint so she was his rem ) before he had a crisis like Subaru did so he was able to bounce back sooner than him. But with her now gone and Rein easily being better than him it was like a rubber band and shot him even further back

Honestly feel like Aganua if Subaru was based of henikel

Both alcoholics

Both crippling depression

Both fueled by hatred

boboth subaru and heinkel have a girl in a coma who they are trying to wake from it.

Absolutely yes to all of this. Subaru and Heinkel have lots of parallels and I LIIIIIVE for all of them because – while they both faced similar circumstances, the way they dealt with them was completely different.

And arguably, Heinkel did better—at first, at least. Mostly because he did worse. Let me explain:

Heinkel and Subaru both deal with huge expectations—they both fail to meet them. But as far as we know, Subaru actually did meet them at first??? He was popular, had good marks, and people liked him!!! Then he had to put in an effort, didn’t, failed, felt shame about it, and ended up shutting in because of it.

Meanwhile Heinkel was a failure from the get-go! He doesn’t know greatness. Until he meets Louanna—then he does something right??? He has mommy and daddy issues and some people try to ruin his (already pretty bad, because of the aforementioned expectations) reputation, but he still manages to be a good husband.

Cheers for him, cheers for him.

Until he doesn’t, because something bad happened to Louanna, she fell into a coma and the one thing he was good at… he is not anymore.

And I think this is the core difference!!! (I might be wrong, but everyone, please tell me if you disagree).

Subaru dealt terribly with failure at first because he knows how greatness feels. Thus, he shut in.

Heinkel dealt decently with failure at first because he was never great. Then he does, and when he fails, all his previous insecurities return.

But one went through the crisis as a teen, and the other went through the crisis as an adult.

The fact Heinkel is better when Wilhelm gets erased shows his daddy issues are what affects his interpretation of the entire world. More than Louanna’s coma itself, even.

I headcanon that part of the reason Wilhelm is so kind to Subaru is because he feels Subaru is similar to Heinkel, and as he totally failed to bond with his son, he projects his relationship there and tries to bond with a blank state Heinkel instead.

I never really read Aganau If so I can’t talk about that Subaru, but the *from zero* speech always felt to me like the moment in which Subaru learnt to accept failure as something that you deal with to later on try again better, instead of something you must live with and can’t change.

Heinkel’s only success was his wife, so his way to become successful again is to bring her back?

I might be rambling now.  

Great > shot for being an accessory to Dome's death

Tyme> shot due to his vengeful scheme that got ithers hurt

Grandma >shot for just letting Tyme go on with his scheme

Predictions

Tonkla will probably be shot by Win because he has shot/killed 3 people for vengeance and you don't get away scot free in Thai shows. ( But I'm all for him getting 4 minutes power and living a happier life that way)

Korn will probably just be poor / left with no one or get shot by Ton kla

Great's parents > probably arrested or killed

Random business partner that just showed up and is killing Tyme and killed his family > will die somehow

He's a gray character.

Gray characters are the ones that can't be categorized as neither good nor bad nor evil.

And Percy fits that category.

While many people will say that Percy is a hero(aka. a "good character"), that is simply not true.Heros do things for the greater good, while also willingly sacrificing everything, like, let's say a loved one.Percy would never do that.He would never sacrifice a loved one that he holds dear.And if a loved one is hurt he would act reckless,tear down everything and everyone that hurt that person, kinda like how a villain would react if someone dear to them is hurt.

But Percy isn't a villain either.Yes, he's shown multiple times that he had a dark side to him (when he gulit-tripped Nico into helping him in PJO and his whole journey through Tartarus),but, unlike a villain, he would never hurt anybody just because he could, he would never hurt people just because he wants to, when he hurts others it's always because the person (ex: A monster) hurt somebody he holds dear.

The reason Percy is seen like "The hero" by the fandom and other characters in Rick's books, it's because he's the main character, he's the one, the "chosen one" to say, and we're usually told that these types of characters are the good guys all the time, wich isn't true in all cases.Yes, Percy may be the hero in some povs but sometimes he fucks people up (Ex: Nico).

I'm definitely not the first person to tackel this subject, and i'm also maybe missing some key points, but I had this idea one day and had to post it.

I always see some videos and posts about Pink Diamond and the ongoing discussion of people judging her for everything she has done. I must say that I love EVERY morally ambiguous character because, to me, only such characters truly represent humanity with 98% accuracy. Observing how people pass judgment on them demonstrates our capacity for hypocrisy. If you were to put a camera to record people's lives 24/7, you'd realize that not every decision they make during the day is the best one. If any of you have seen My Hero Academia, you might recall a statement made by Deku in the last season: "It's not just black and white. Most of the world is gray, filled with uncertainty and anger." So, every time I witness people criticizing morally ambiguous characters, I wonder if they would act differently in their shoes.

I had the opportunity to witness this happen when the Brazilian streamer Cellbit, the creator of Paranormal Order (an RPG game that has gained popularity outside of Brazil in recent months), forced his chat to confront their own biases. The Paranormal Order fandom, at least the Brazilian part, is known for its toxicity. So, Cellbit ran a spin-off called "Sinais do Outro Lado" and did something remarkable: he left the fate of ALL the characters on the table in the hands of the chat. Whether someone would live or die was entirely up to the chat. Without giving too much spoilers, it didn't end well. The amusing part is that people were constantly suggesting that player X or Y should have made different decisions to achieve a better outcome, but when the time came, they couldn't live up to their own words. Furthermore, I believe that if Cellbit hadn't designed that part with the expectation that the players would collaborate with the chat, everyone would have survived (if only you had seen the spam chat gave).