Board Thread:Series Discussion/@comment-71.200.48.223-20150223062605/@comment-28112371-20160402103444

Alright, I just watched the second episode of the second season and I am slightly confused about how Slaine is supposed to be seen by the audience. On one hand we have our "protagonists", the Terrans, who are unjustly attacked and driven back time after time. We are supposed to root for Earth and the Terrans, because hey, nobody roots for injustice. BUT then there's Slaine, seemingly a protagonist too (with his Terran background and whatever) - but suprise, he's with the Martians! The very same guys who are established to be the "bad guys". If it's clear that Earth will not be eradicated in the end (mind you, I have not finished the second season yet and I find it hard to do so, but I think I'll watch it nonetheless, because I really need closure), then why do we have to watch one of our protagonists be an agent and enforcer of the Martians? For me, if I were invested in the story, it would create some sort of cognitive dissonance - on one hand, he's a protagonist which boils down to being a character we are supposed to like (he might turn out to be an antihero, but considering the writing of this anime, I doubt it or at least I doubt it will be well written), on the other hand he is willingly cooperating with the very people we are supposed to see as "bad" and participating in the violent conquest of Earth. What exactly were the writers trying to achieve with this? Making the Martians more likeable/"human"? Making Slaine look like an asshole? If anything, they succeeded with the second. Which leads me to the characters.

Slaine is, as I said before, a character whose role in the story is not quite clear to me. Is he a protagonist? Is he an antagonist/rival figure for Inaho? Is he an antihero? Although in the end the answers to these questions are not that important. Because whatever role he has, his character is established and not in a really good way. From as far as I watched, Slaine's top priority and motivation is his beloved hime-sama. And he is willing to go any lenghts to protect her which I personally find a bit creepy, given that they've known each other for about five years but that's fine with me, I've seen and written far more devoted characters. The problem for me is the way his devotion comes to shine - namely in the way that in the end he doesn't seem to care about the idea his hime-sama represented or the goals she wanted to fullfil. Instead, all he cares about is having hime-sama within his reach and under his control and protection. Which is plain creepy. He does not care about the war they are fighting, on the contrary, he's more than willing to fight/slaughter soldiers (with his advanced mech it really is nothing but a slaughter, except when Inaho comes to save the day once again) and use everyone (his conversation with Lemrina, anyone? To me, it seemed that he played on her feelings of being inferior to his hime-sama by using his background as an underdog to build similarity and thus connection to her to make her activate the Aldnoah again) just to keep his hime-sama safe. On a character writing level it might be a good idea (on paper, the execution is a whole other thing), on a personal level Slaine is just despicable and that's why I can't get myself to like him.

But don't get me wrong, me disliking Slaine does not mean that I like Inaho. It's quite the opposite. While Slaine is unlikable for me because of his misguided feelings, at least he has some. Inaho, our dearest main character, doesn't even have the luxury of that. For me, Inaho seems like a filler character, a thing for the viewers to project themselves into (which is sadly more or less common). Yes, he has a few defining traits, namely him being stoic and seeming emotionless (I know he has emotions because his sister kindly explained that to the viewers - and still, it's a flaw. An anime lives off visual representation and if I can barely see hints of the main character's emotions then they may as well be nonexistent) and his intelligence which is another problem. This problem is less rooted in Inaho's character, it's more of a problem that involves the whole anime. If Inaho, a 15 year old high school student who might or might not be highly intelligent, is able to figure out his enemies' weaknesses after only brief observations, then how come that the whole rest of the whole world's armies were not able to that in the first place? The adults fighting there are trained soldiers, who were aware that the 15 year long armistice was in fact temporary (why else would you train high school children in warfare) and the anime is telling me that in 15 years, in which they did find a Martian Cataphract, removed it's Aldnoah drive and installed it into a warship (for whatever reason they did that) which means they had access to this mech for more than one or two days and thus could study it, nobody ever came as close as a 15 year old high school student to finding out how to defeat or at least fight against Martian mechs. So, in comparison to the whole world's stupidity, Inaho's intelligence only seems more brilliant than it would without it. Apart from that I do have a problem with Inaho's lack of emotions/ his inability to show them (is he lacking an amygdala? did he get lobotomized? who even knows with this show) but I've gotten pretty off topic (Slaine) so I won't delve further into that topic.