Slaine, worst character of 2014?

Sinyan said:
Hated =/= Badly written

Poor judgement =/= unrealistic

Look at OP throwing around one-dimensional like he knows what it means. Slaine fucked up but he was still better written than Inaho. Well shit even Count Saazbaum was better written than Inaho.

YumeNoMonogatari said:
Look at these people making the nth thread where they complain about a character shooting another.

Redfoxoffire said:
"Let's help the guy who wants to kill the princess instead of the guy I know has been protecting the princess."

No matter how you slice it, Slaine is a fucking moron. Worst character of 2014? Maybe, maybe not, but he's up there, so I voted yes anyway.

batossai said:


+10000

his cognitive reasoning skills are severely lacking, a straight up dumb ass.

Chawp said:
In the situation where he had to choose between saving the Count or Inaho, I believe he made the right choice since here are his two options.

1) Save the Count who is gonna kill his beloved princess but also was the only other person apart from the princess that showed him kindness. Also the Count's Kataphrak, one would assume, is more badly damaged then Inaho's at that point.

2) Save "Orange" who already declared him as an enemy and has foiled his previous attempt to rescue the princess.

Lets say he did save Inaho and now there is a stand off between Slaine and Inaho. Would Inaho and Slaine talk it out and become best buddies? most likely not.
Would Inaho try to stop Slaine from reaching the princess? Yes.
Would Slaine be able to defeat Inaho? I would say yes since Inaho was already damaged from fighting Count Sassybutt but we don't know if Slaine knows any of his Kat's combat ability and whether or not Inaho has more ass-pulls up his sleeve.

So IMO, Slaine chose the "lesser" of two evils. If he took out Inaho, I don't think the Count could really pose a threat as his kat was critcally damaged. This would give Slaine the higher chance of finding the princess then GTFOing as far from the Count as possible.

Chawp said:
In the situation where he had to choose between saving the Count or Inaho, I believe he made the right choice since here are his two options.

1) Save the Count who is gonna kill his beloved princess but also was the only other person apart from the princess that showed him kindness. Also the Count's Kataphrak, one would assume, is more badly damaged then Inaho's at that point.

2) Save "Orange" who already declared him as an enemy and has foiled his previous attempt to rescue the princess.

Lets say he did save Inaho and now there is a stand off between Slaine and Inaho. Would Inaho and Slaine talk it out and become best buddies? most likely not.
Would Inaho try to stop Slaine from reaching the princess? Yes.
Would Slaine be able to defeat Inaho? I would say yes since Inaho was already damaged from fighting Count Sassybutt but we don't know if Slaine knows any of his Kat's combat ability and whether or not Inaho has more ass-pulls up his sleeve.

So IMO, Slaine chose the "lesser" of two evils. If he took out Inaho, I don't think the Count could really pose a threat as his kat was critcally damaged. This would give Slaine the higher chance of finding the princess then GTFOing as far from the Count as possible.

Savethebestforu said:


Please answer this question honestly. Do you really think that Inaho is a better character than Slaine?

Think about how utterly boring this show would be with Inaho as the sole MC. Inaho actually isn't even a real person. He's just the most exaggerated form of the "Silent Bad-Ass" in any anime I have watched. Think about his motivations and complexities...oh yeah he doesn't have any of either. Except eggs, we can't forget Inaho's eggs because LULZ HE SO RANDOM RITE?!?!?!

He was created to advance the plot for the audience until Slaine actually started the conflict. I really hate 1-dimensional characters, but I don't even think it's fair to say Inaho even has 1 dimension. He's just...bleh. I will say that he finally showed himself as somewhat of a realistic human being this episode, but then he died. Oh well.

That's fine if you want to see the "Do no wrong" good guy smash the bad guys before getting the girl in the end, but mature writing isn't done that way. I'm not saying A/Z is anything close to a mature show, but Slaine doing what he did is a step in the right direction.

y123y said:
Its between

Inaho

Tsumugu from Asukara

Tatsuya from Mahouka

Kakeru from Glasslip

All emotionless MC characters.

Darklight0303 said:


Oh yes cause being only emotional and cocking things up at every step is so much better. Then again what else can one expect from a Slaine fandumb

Darklight0303 said:

The count would hunt him down endlessly. Hell his castle could track his escape vehicle. He didn't choose the lesser of two evils at all.

Chawp said:


At least then he would have time to figure out how to use his OPKat, giving him a better fighting chance. I don't know how long it would take for the Martians to 1) repel the Terran Assault force and 2) repair the count's kat.

Darklight0303 said:


Oh yes cause being only emotional and cocking things up at every step is so much better. Then again what else can one expect from a Slaine fandumb

batossai said:


what i dont understand is why people think that inaho being "emotionless" is a bad thing. For one he isnt emotionless he just acts using his brains rather than using his emotion, I for one find that more satisfying than a character that keeps messing up all the time because they are overly emotional.

Darklight0303 said:


He lacks the knowledge Inaho had. He would just rush at Sazbaum next time he attacked and would get demolished because he has not demonstrated even the slightest sliver of tactical thinking throughout the series. He would still die like a dog and the princess would follow. Letting Sazbaum die and then finishing off the damaged Orange was his best chance.

Chawp said:


I agree with letting the Count die first then taking out Inaho. By no means am I not calling him a dumbass. I can just see his "justification" if you will, for his dumbass decision.

The only reason I like Slaine more than Inaho atm is that there isn't any backstory or reasoning on how Inaho is/was/became a tactical genius.

Chawp said:
In the situation where he had to choose between saving the Count or Inaho, I believe he made the right choice since here are his two options.

1) Save the Count who is gonna kill his beloved princess but also was the only other person apart from the princess that showed him kindness. Also the Count's Kataphrak, one would assume, is more badly damaged then Inaho's at that point.

2) Save "Orange" who already declared him as an enemy and has foiled his previous attempt to rescue the princess.

Lets say he did save Inaho and now there is a stand off between Slaine and Inaho. Would Inaho and Slaine talk it out and become best buddies? most likely not.
Would Inaho try to stop Slaine from reaching the princess? Yes.
Would Slaine be able to defeat Inaho? I would say yes since Inaho was already damaged from fighting Count Sassybutt but we don't know if Slaine knows any of his Kat's combat ability and whether or not Inaho has more ass-pulls up his sleeve.

So IMO, Slaine chose the "lesser" of two evils. If he took out Inaho, I don't think the Count could really pose a threat as his kat was critcally damaged. This would give Slaine the higher chance of finding the princess then GTFOing as far from the Count as possible.

batossai said:

why does he have to save anyone? If i were slaine and i saw the two of them duking it out I would just go back and let them fight, and focus on finding the princess. what he did was irrational, he had nothing to gain from saving the count.

Darklight0303 said:


Nope definitely Slaine. he's almost tied with Demonic Justice girl from Akame ga Kill

y123y said:


I never said I was a fan of Slaine

SolviteSekai said:
Again

>implying kirito isnt the worst character of 2014.

BishoooDuck said:
I don't see him as a bad character , honestly he's more fun than the dull genius or your usual kind princess who wishes for peace , its natural to do what he did at that state of mind after knowing you saved the one who killed the person you like , then again not sure if he left Saazbaum alive or dead but if he chose to let him live then Slain is weird and contradicted.

kokkoderrisch said:
Why do you consider him a bad character? He's the only halfway decent one in this whole series.

Darklight0303 said:


No that would be Sazbaum until the last episode. Slaine is a dumbass who makes the most idiotic decisions all throughout the series.

kokkoderrisch said:

>implying being stupid makes a character bad

Darklight0303 said:


When your stupid gets the most important person to you killed, it is.

kokkoderrisch said:

Uuuh, no. That's not what bad writing is.

Darklight0303 said:


Oh please. Name one positive effect that was solely achieved by Slaine alone. The man is a walking disaster and the end of this episode just turned him into a rabid dog that needs to be put down

kokkoderrisch said:

What are you even talking about? What does the consequences of his actions have to do with how well written he is? You're just taking your subjective opinion and propagating it as fact.

Darklight0303 said:
Oh look the slaine fandumbs are crawling out of their caves at last

Savethebestforu said:


I've seen you around everywhere shitting on Slaine. I frankly don't even know why people are hating on Slaine. He turned A/Z on it's head and made everyone excited for January.

Before this, it was the Plot Armored Bad Ass leading his harem into battle and winning every time. Inaho was probably the least interesting character in the show. Not to mention he was ALWAYS against the odds and still managed to "outsmart" every enemy every time. It's funny that the one episode that he is faced with adversity, he dies.

And look at this from Slaine's point of view, guys. He saved Saazbaum due to his bad past with "Orange". In a second that could determine everything, he saw someone that he understood/knew about to be killed by someone that he thought was more of an enemy than the Count was. I, for one, love what Slaine did. It was tragic. It was split-second. It was realistic. It was...human. He's not a robot that thinks every situation through 1000 times in his sleep like Inaho. He is a normal person that acts irrationally at times, because human beings make mistakes. Yeah, it was the totally wrong decision...but that's what makes it interesting. That's what make future complex characters.

Darklight0303 said:

Well written, Slaine. Oh god that's a joke. Lets recap your well written Slaine. Obsessed with the princess to the point that everything else could burn.

SAVES the one person who would stop at nothing to kill said princess. Even if he didn't know she was close, saving Sazbaum put her in danger long term. Sazbaum would have found them eventually and would have blocked them from seeing the emperor too. THAT is what makes him a bad character. He saved the person that was the biggest threat to his primary reason for existing

Darklight0303 said:
Oh please. Name one positive effect in the story that was solely achieved by Slaine alone. The man is a walking disaster and the end of this episode just turned him into a rabid dog that needs to be put down

kokkoderrisch said:

What are you even talking about? What does the consequences of his actions have to do with how well written he is? You're just taking your subjective opinion and propagating it as fact.

kokkoderrisch said:

As you said, he couldn't have known that the princess was there, and he was still on the Martian's side. He was in the middle of a battle, there's no wa he could have just relaxed and thought it all through. He also didn't have a very good relationship with Orange either, who could be a bigger threat than Sazbaum. What if they killed the princess when they had no more use of her?

Midoryu said:


Ever since watching the OP and ED sequences, something's ALWAYS bothered me. Why is it that Inaho and Slaine are always juxtaposed together? I mean, they're both main characters, and they all operate on logic (hear me out on this; when Slaine was trying to find out what happened to the Princess, he reasoned that since Asseylem was interacting with Orange, the logical step to take in tracking the Princess down was finding the Orange Kataphrakt), and they're just pretty similar in general, right? So how come the anime juxtaposes them like they're polar opposites?

Obviously enough, it's because they ARE. It's easy to see that they are the classic foil to each other. But in what ways are they opposite to each other? As if the anime hasn't made this painfully obvious enough, it's in their methods of dealing with situations in general. Setting my absolute dislike for Inaho aside, let's look at his case first.

We can see that Inaho's all about deciding on the best logical course of action after gathering as much information as possible. He's calculating yet pragmatic - the ideal decision-maker. We see a solid example of this in his dialogue between the Princess in episode 12, that he's not "interested in emotions such as hate, which can be used by higher-ups to instigate war". All throughout this war he's kept thinking ahead, and looking forward when there was no conflict. He's even on his freaking tablet instead of playing cards with his friends, looking at God-knows-what but that just goes to show how much of a thinker he is. Effing mannequin. Even Kristen Stewart has more facial expressions than he does, but whatever. Summed up with one word, Inaho would be the "superego", as outdated as this sounds.

Now let's look at Slaine. That kid is like the classic case of NTR. Well, maybe not that extreme, but how does any human being NOT develop any feelings for a party that has benefited said human being in some way? The first member of the antagonist Empire that he encountered was one of the representatives of the entire Empire, the Princess of Vers, and she showed him freaking KINDNESS. I dunno about you but if MY first impression of an oppressive kingdom was that of a kiss of life's, I wouldn't really be ready to accept that said kingdom is all that bad. In fact, Slaine ended serving the great Empire of Vers (not that he had anywhere else to go), but behind it all his devotion was to the Princess, who personified the ideal Vers Kingdom. This is key (but not to be explained in the scope of an internet post). Summed up in one word, Slaine would be the "id". [EDIT]: Wanted to note that a solid evidence of Slaine being the id manifests itself when Slaine is overcome by confusion and emotion (mostly emotion) and starts to rampage by shooting wildly (he even misses some shots, gg wall).

All this talk of emotion brings me to my point about Slaine: he's not as hate-worthy as he initially seems. This kid operates largely on emotion. On feelings alone, he (likely) broke military regulations (if Vers had any) by stealing a military aircraft to cross a large body of water just to track down his girl. But it was those very feelings of his that made him bound to Lord Saazbaum. You gotta remember that this Slaine kid will be emotionally attached to whoever shows him kindness. As such, after getting the gifts of 1) not being killed by Saazbaum, 2) a nice meal and drink (even if he didn't touch it), 3) the answers to the questions of assassination he's been seeking, 4) knowing that his dad the scientist saved a life of a future Lord who shows moderate mercy, and 5) a high-performance OP mecha, there's NO WAY Slaine ISN'T attached to Saazbaum in some way. Additionally, Saazbaum has also given insight on what drives him to perpetuate this war, and has shown Slaine how HUMAN he could be (evidence of this is Slaine's expression when he sees how Saazbaum grips the knife and his eyes of determination - piece it together yourself). Heck, I bet no emotionally stable human being will still have no respect for Saazbaum after this. In light of this, Slaine's actions of saving Saazbaum during that split second makes perfect sense (keep in mind Orange has openly declared Slaine as an enemy - those two will NEVER be allies, so as far as Slaine is concerned Orange Kataphrakt can literally go die).

Having defined these two main characters' construct, we can now see that they are complete polar opposites, which consequently lead into why Slaine did what he did, and ultimately why Urobuchi was able to f**k with our feels so much. I'd like to keep going with a wider, overall perspective, but maybe I'll wait for someone with better literary comprehension to come along and explain what Urobuchi had in mind when he made these two characters (it's interesting to note that you can still see an inkling of the psychology research Urobuchi did back when he was working on PSYCHO-PASS).