#i mean HECK in s1 it was very clear that they were loyal to Ryoken more than Dr. Kogami

[authoratmidnight]

Honestly I think the Knights of Hanoi (or at least Vyra and Aso) are a bit more complex than people want to think about. At least regarding the scenario they wound up in early on.

Like, consider the following scenario.

You’re a young adult, barely 20 years old and still in medical school (med school takes a number of years to finish so she probably wasn’t done with it yet), practising to be a doctor, when a high ranking scientist at the biggest name corporation (or one of the biggest), in the area hires you and a colleague on to work for him. Or perhaps you (and said colleague) already know this man and have worked with him in the past on smaller things to the point of being almost family like with him and his young son.

This is a HUGE opportunity for you.

And then you find out what, exactly he’s doing and it’s, horrific. Cause, you know, it involves torturing  a bunch of kids. Or at least observing and monitoring said kids (which is probably why you’re brought on, cause you’re studying medicine and he trusts you).

Which leaves you with a serious problem.

If you report it, well that basically ensures you have NO future ever, in medicine or anything since you’d be implicating yourself in it.

And then there’s his son. If you DO go against him and it does all get brought to light, this kid is going to end up in foster care more than likely as all the adults around him are likely going to be taken away and put in jail indefinitely. And the foster system is not exactly, great (I mean Specter went missing for 6 months and no one cared). So you know, there’s that wrinkle in the whole thing, not wanting anything to happen to Ryoken.

It’s not made clear when they met Ryoken and Dr. Kogami, if it was before or after the start of the LI, but flashbacks show that Kyoko and Aso at least were close with Ryoken, to the point of seeing him like family (iirc they referred to him as being like a little brother to Aso and the shot of three of them together, Ryoken looked hella happy so they clearly cared for him).

And of course, that’s not even touching on the kind of power and influence the boss has. Best case scenario he covers everything up no one takes the fall. Worst case, he finds a way to pin the blame on YOU/your colleagues and gets away scott free.

(Plus he probably, constantly fed them the idea that if a few lives are sacrificed to save the world then it’s an acceptable loss-’the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few’, as it were)

There is no winning in this scenario. Like, none at all.

And while I can’t speak for Aso or Genome cause we don’t know about their situations, this is, from what we saw in canon, the situation Vyra was put in. She didn’t just wake up one day and go ‘I’m going to help torture some kids’. She got roped into it by someone she respected and was perhaps close to, while she was young and impressionable and easy to manipulate and ended up in a no-win, inescapable scenario that was going to end badly for someone.

Sure she could have ratted Kogami out when she realized what he was doing but, would it have done any good? As we saw, SOL managed to cover it up anyways and everyone got off more or less scott free.

If someone had tried to report it right from the beginning he would have known, or at least figured out that it was one of his employees that spilled the beans.

No it shouldn’t have been left to Ryoken to put a stop to it at 8 years old. But like, I highly HIGHLY doubt the situation was an easy one for them to put a stop to as well.

Also, like, you don’t think he would be monitoring them at all times just to make sure they didn’t???? Or using some kind of threat/bribe/blackmail (like the fact that if one of them spills the beans they’re all going on, cause newsflash, humans are selfish and sometimes self preservation wins out) to keep them silent and loyal. Heck, there could have been financial manipulation at play as well. med school isn’t cheap. For all we know, Kogami could have been helping her through it. If she turns on him, he’s going to stop paying and she won’t be able to finish. She’ll be screwed. But, that’s speculation, we just do not know b/c the show did not give us a lot of details about his relationship with the Knights/how or when he met them and get them to work for him.

Ryoken slipped past the radar b/c he was a young kid, and Kogami was probably banking on familial loyalty to keep Ryoken silent.

On that note, familial loyalty, that is something that is HUGE in Japan so like, if they were close with the Kogami’s before the LI, to the point of being like family, that’s another reason they’d be less inclined to turn on him. That’s the thing, we *don’t* know when Aso and Kyoko and Genome met Dr. Kogami and Ryoken. As and Kyoko at least knew him for longer than Genome and were closer to him/Ryoken at any rate. The flashback, since it lacks Specter, seems to indicate they probably met and became close before the events of the LI. I think it would be rather hard for Ryoken to develop close feelings for either of them had he met them then and was aware of what they were doing.

Dr. Kogami is a powerful, scary man working for a powerful scary company and if you think someone working under him could have easily just, spilled the beans on the LI, I think we watched two VERY different shows and I don’t think you understand how difficult it would be to go against someone in such a position of power over you.

From an outsider perspective it seems easy to say ‘well they should have just’ yeah, they should have, but I really don’t think it would have been that easy.

Im not saying they didn’t do horrible things, b/c they did no doubt about that. I’m just saying I don’t think the situation is as simple as saying ‘well they should have just done something’.

Has anyone stopped to consider that, maybe they couldn’t?