#not to mention the conflicts??? imagine having discourse internally/externally??? anise/raven/alvin levels of betrayal character in game?

[rangetsuryuu]

tozx redeems the most unredeamble parts of the game

Rewatched a lot of the TOZX anime in 2024 and honestly. This show does a lot to save the characterization and plot of the game, but also not enough.

The anime's 2nd season is still burdened down by the rushed 2nd half of the original game. Rose is again done dirty, and everything they do to build her up as a chracter is still reduced to just being a puppet molded by Dezel's meddling and desire for vengeance.

Still, there's still a lot I like about her portrayal in the anime. You get to see the side of ther that's cold, calculating, methodical, brutal... I love it. They actually gave some proper insight into her motivations, whereas the game attributed all of them to Dezel. But. It's not. Good enough.

I love that Rose is getting the opportunity to finally confront her past on her own terms. That she's choosing a version of justice that's not really as straight forward as Brad's. But I dislike how much influence Eguille and Dezel seem to have on her. People always want her to be a certain way. Eguille's constantly reminding her to be calm and indirectly implying that she needs to be cold when it could have been better if it was the other way around. IMO, her final attack on Konan would have been much more impactful if she was telling her guild to stay calm, when she was the one who still carried a very personal grudge.

I feel like that's also better in line with how her own malevolence is described in the game. She does 'evil' things but doesn't breed Malevolence. In the game, it's implied that Rose has no hate or negative emotions despite her job. She lacks Malevolence. In the anime, negative emotions are said to influence malevolence and that threshold is different for everyone. No real indication of the the level malevolence in Rose in the anime.

The anime comes this close to bringing her hate to the surface and makes it seem like she WILL be overwhelmed by it. She acts recklessly and takes Konan on solo even when he's clearly become a hellion. The biggest proof of that is that she takes off her mask when she's about to kill him so that Konan KNOWs why he's going to die. That is in complete contrast with how she took out the pope dude in Lastonbell's church. Rose took that guy out, in cold blood. It was just something she had to do.

But Konan's hit was PERSONAL. She's not turning off her emotions fort this. She's angry, she's got all these negative emotions and compared to how impersonal Rose has been about almost everything else, it's awesome. I love it. It's real vengeance for her own sake, not just for someone else's.

Her inner turmoil, her doubt, those are all things I like. By itself, I don't think this would be an issue, but my issue is how they follow up this episode. What the heck is the conflict that they're giving Rose here? She confronted Konan, but now what?

What are the consequences to her giving into her emotions that she was supposed to have buried? To taking on a personal grudge? What are the repurcussions? Especially now that her identity as an assassin is exposed to Sorey who doesn't want her to kill?

The game and anime both fail to bring her into any real conflict with Sorey, the Shepherd who insists that killing is not the answer. And that's because the anime kinda implies that Rose's methods are not wrong. (IMO the game kinda does too tbh)

It's almost suggested that her method are actually one of the few tools that people have in combatting an otherwise unseeablee threat; the Malevolence of the modern age. While not the solution, her assassinations have been alleviating the symptoms of something awful, unseen, and untreabale. She's never painted in the wrong for it. It's implied that Rose never hurts or kills anyone that doesn't deserve it.

And the anime never puts Rose in a position where she might have hurt someone that doesn't need to be killed. She never actually has to be truly combatted for her ideals by anyone but herself.

The Scattered Bones take on contracts and enact vengeance for civilians. For those that don't have the power to protect themselves or defend themselves. That's the vibe you get when you see them killing the corruption that's in power. Killing those that need to be killed. The law and people in charge aren't doing enough. So someone needs to take action. Real action. Not just promised action for the distant future. Immediate action and immediate justice.

A philosophy that was inspired by Rose's lost foster father. In a way, Rose's guild is portrayed as a successor to her father's guild that was revered as the kind that doled out vigilante justice.

What other parties have been dealing with that corruption that's hurting the common man? Who's actually standing up for those who can't?

Alisha is implied to be lowborn princesss constantly struggling against the corruption of her country's monarchy and military despite being a princess and a knight. She's monarchy and military, but she's separate from the actual decision making. She is constantly butting heads with them. She has limited influence but her conflict has always been that she's struggled to make an actual meaningful change for her country's people. That's why she wanted to find the Shepherd. She believed the Shepherd would be needed to save this place. It's largely implied that she doesn't believe she has enough power to make any change of her own power. She believes in true pacifism and never hurting someone else. Even in self-defense, to never kill someone.

Sorey on the other hand, has never actually lived in the day-to-day reality of the modern world. He was raised in complete isolation by Seraphim. As a Shepherd, he's supposed to learn and fight back against humanities long bred Malevolence. His entire journey is learning about humanity and where humanitie's Malevolence comes from. He comes to understand Malevolence as a cycle of hate and vengeance. It's something he wants to stop cold after he sees the aftermath of it firsthand. But he doesn't have to take any action against humanity or anyone. He doesn't have to actually stop humanitie's conflict, he just needs to deal with the aftermath. In the game it's outright implied that he needs to take a neutral stance for peace. That his goal is to really cut down the symptoms of human hate, rather than to take on the root problems. Still, he knows he doesn't want people to die, no matter what.

Both Sorey and Alisha, have a stance of pure of never killing.

Alisha and Rose have an outright conflict of ideals, with Alisha's pacifism at the cost of self, and Rose's killing for the sake of others. Sorey and Rose are practically DESTINED to have a conflict about how they handle the cycle of hate respectively.

But Rose's ideals are never challenged in any meaningful way by anyone else.

Again, Rose's methods are implied to actually be a realist solution.

This is really cemented by the fact that Alsha takes absolute 0 issue with Rose being an assassin. She welcomes Rose to kill her in season 1, if Rose truly believes her to be in the wrong. The PACIFIST PRINCESS. Gives an ASSASSIN the green light to kill her, if that would mean true justice for her people.

To me that's how that scene reads. Not as some game of chicken, but an acknowledgement that Alisha's methods, if flawed, deserve the judgment of a third party that the Scattered Bones have set themselves up to be. Rose's methods may be different but they have the same goal, of protecting the people that need it. If Rose's method can do that better than Alisha's then THAT'S how it'll go down.

Now, obviously, there is that scene where Alisha prevents Rose from going in for the kill in an act of self-defense, when they're surrounded by Landon's men. But this instance of kiling is separate from Rose's actions as an assassin. In this instance, Rose is about to kill a man for supposed self-defense. THIS is what Alisha takes offense too. If Rose is going to kil Alisha for being evil, FINE, that's okay but if Rose is going to kill someone else for trying to kill them, then THAT'S WHERE SHE DRAWS THE LINE.

It's honestly hilarious, and a little messed up. Alisha never takes any action to report Rose. She never steps in to stop her or talk her out of it. She never even tells Sorey that Rose is an assassin. She never rats them out, even after exposing Rose's actual identity. She picks Rose out as an ally she wants to back her up. Is it just me, or does that read as complacency? A silent, acknowledgement that she won't interfere? This is Alisha we're talking about, if she thought somoene was doing something wrong, wouldn't she try do someting? Especially since she has the upper hand. She's clocked Rose, and the Sparrowfeather's guild as assassins.

But instead...Alisha HIRES them. (I mean as merchants but.)

Point being. No one contests Rose in any meaningful way for being an assassin. They should have let someone have an actual confrontation with Rose about this. And they almost did.

When Edna learns that Rose is an assassin she has a PROPER reaction and a proper response, as someone who does not like this, and won't condone it, unlike Alisha's who's pretty much dropped it.

Edna immediately hops off to try to get Sorey to stop Rose. It doesn't matter if she's heard the tragic backstory. To Edna, not even monsters deserve to be killed.

Edna has a an actual, deeply personal reason to be opposed to Rose's entire character. Edna's brother has been turned into a literal monster. And he's been slated for death, by just about everyone except Sorey. But shes clinging onto hope that he can be saved.

That is DIRECT conflict with Rose's ideals who will kill monsters for the sake of others.

Rose: Monsters(human) deserve to die.

Edna: Monsters(any) don't deserve to die.

Isn't that perfect?

So how does this resolve? With crickets. Nothing.

That's what Sorey's lukewarm intervention was to me. Just crickets. He finds Rose, tries to stop her. He doesn't even do shit, he just gets beat up and knocked around while Rose is trying to kill a man!

AND THEN HE CARES FOR HER IN THE AFTERMATH. AND RIDES WITH HER CARAVAN. And Edna? What does she do? Fuck all.

Like bro what? You have a perfect drama baked into their characters. WHY NOT TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THIS? Why can't we have characters actually disagreeing and fighting each other? I want to see how that would have resolved.

And this is so unfortunate, because I feel like we are SO so close to a character in this show having some kind of growth or real conflict with SOMETHING.

But at least Rose has a conflict wiith herself. For once she is challenging her own ideals.

She has baggage, she's chosen a course of action for herself. She knows it's immoral in some way, but she's still taken this on to beat down those that are even worse.

And she has this awful revelation in the middle of this forest full of the dead, where ghostlike banshees, that she can't see are screaming past her, that maybe, she realizes, it was all for NAUGHT. She has this horrible realization that she might not have made an impact at all. That everything she's done up until now might be completely insignificant. That she might not have had any real power to do good, maybe she's just deluded herself into thinking she could.

It is the only time any character has to actually confront some aspect or part of themselves in a MAJOR way.

BUT THIS DOESNT HAVE AN ACTUAL RESOLUTION. . .? There are no CONSEQUENCES to what she did. Her actions aren't actually painted as wrong in any light, it's literally just set up as a completely personal drama. The conflicts that she has with other characters about this is brought up and then dropped. And then it's left up in the air whether or not she really killed Konan but somehow still imples that he kinda is actually DEAD for real this time. So. She still won? She beat the guy who ruined her life. Didn't she get her revenge in the end?

I don't understand and I can't actually understand what the anime is trying to say about her character after this point.

What direction has her character actually taken? Does she regret choosing killing as her method of justice? Has she renounced her previous way of life? What about her role as leader to a whole assassin guild? What does this mean about her relationship to Eguille and the rest of her guild? Does she have the entire guild change tunes? What does this mean about the legacy of her guild and foster father's ideals?

Well. I don't got a clue. Her inner conflict changes nothing about her relationship with anyone, despite how it very directly has conflicts with other people.

Instead, we see her really pushing to find a way to help Sorey. The power he has to do good is something that she's been lacking. She thought she was doing everything she could be to do good for the weak but it wasn't enough.

For me, I interpret this as her trying to choose a new path for herself. A more solid way to make an actual long term, permanent change for people, and not just the short-sighted justice she was carrying out.

Okay. So she's moved past the philosphy she's long since believed in, in that sense. But what about the stuff she already has going in? Is she completely renouncing her entire past?

She'll fight malevolence with the Shepherd's power instead, sure. She's course-correcting, I guess. But the issue is, this doesn't actually address her past actions. It's not implied at all that she's disbanding the Scattered Bones or turning a new leaf in the same vein. So is she regretful for killing people? Or is she regretful of the fact that she misinterpretted what power she needed? Maybe it can be both, but I don't think she's put in the wrong for her actions at all.

if the act of her killing was actually wrong, why isn't it condemned? Where are the repurcussions? Proof that she's actually hurt someone or set her own goals back by doing what she's been doing? Conflict from people she cares about?

There's nothing. Not even a single acknowledgement by anyone that she'll stop. So what the HECK does that mean?

Every time she's killed someone they HAVE deserved it. They've been proven AWFUL people that would have continued to hurt people if she didn't take action.

Sorey, never learned about the corruption of the Blue Storm Knights and the church. And even when he learned about the corruption of Hyland's royaly, what could he do?

He didn't confront Alisha about it, he didn't develop a mistrust, and he didn't need to. His role was to acknowledge, learn, and understand humanity to be the Shepherd that they needed him to be. His role is the Shepherd of the world.

So who else was going to stop the pope or Konan? It wasn't going to be Sergei or Alisha. So were they supposed to wait for someone like Sorey to findout he was a hellion to purify? No! If Rose didn't take the action she had taken, then people who had suffered would have continued to suffer.

So is she still in the wrong for what she did? Is being the Shepherd's squire the only way she can actually help people? What BULLSHIT!

Anyways. The whole game was trash, every character deserved better and only Alisha got better in the anime(kinda.) I don't think she should have been crowned Queen TBH i think they should have just kept the political drama going and let ALL characters slowly and surely address the malevolence with their powers, and be unified under Sorey's meteoric rise and fall.

Game sucks. Anime sucks less.