Gundam Villains - Who Can Be Saved?

[Erisie]

I did this a while ago for a certain image board. I think that covers everything so far: http://i.imgur.com/MExsMsD.png

Shinn is not and never was a villain.

"Villain" is too strong of a word. Like the relationship between Char and Amuro, Shinn was an antagonist for the de facto good guys of Destiny (Kira, Athrun and the rest of the TSA/Clyne Faction).

[AmuroNT1]

"De facto good guys" if you ignore everything except the last cour, that is.

[Erisie]

everything except the last cour, that is.

They hijacked the show at the end of the first cour, with ZAFT (and Shinn in particular) shifting from heroes to villains depending on the episode. For instance:
PHASE 16 (Shinn liberating slave workers from the EA): heroes, despite Shinn getting scolded by Athrun for no reason.
PHASE 23 (Freedom's flawless intervention against both sides): villains.

[YazanGable]

despite Shinn getting scolded by Athrun for no reason.

There was a good reason. Shinn was acting in defiance of orders. He'd been told to hang back and decided he was gonna deal with this instead.
Which might be acceptable from 'teenage draftee #4534', but Shinn was an enlisted soldier who'd been through all the proper training and even graduated among the top of his class. So his deciding to ignore orders becomes harder to forgive by its design.
If anything, the big problem here is why Athrun has to be the one to lay down the law here while Talia and Arthur sit on their hands.
...then again, CE had already established by this point that, where discipline was concerned, ship captains were really just glorified babysitters, so that is just right in line.

Of course, the show kind of doubles-back on this later when Athrun decides to argue with Shinn FOR following orders, but that's a problem for later episodes.
Point is - within the context of just this episode, Athrun DID have a point. We may not like it because it flies in the face of morality, but the fact is, Shinn's a card-carrying soldier, and should have been in better control of his emotions than that.

[yazi88]

Let's not go down this rabbit hole AGAIN when discussing about Destiny, we all know how THAT turns out...

[BrentD15]

Let's not go down this rabbit hole AGAIN when discussing about Destiny, we all know how THAT turns out...

Agreed.
Nothing good can come from discussing bad fanfiction.

[Gundam420]

Shinn is not and never was a villain.

I know, it's just I had a feeling someone else would bring it up.

[AmuroNT1]

Yeah, if people really want to know my thoughts on Destiny they can hunt down the topic from when Burke went through the series a few years ago. But regarding that specific instance, I'll agree that Athrun had a point, but he could have handled much better than punching Shinn in the face and calling him an idiot.

[Erisie]

Shinn is not and never was a villain.

I know, it's just I had a feeling someone else would bring it up.

As I said, "villain" is the wrong word to describe Shinn. Characters such as him, Char in 0079, Jerid in Zeta or Graham in 00 aren't villainous [adj. "befitting a villain (as in evil or depraved character)" <a villainous attack>]. All of them, including Shinn, are antagonists [n. "one that contends with or opposes another : adversary, opponent"].

Shinn was the antagonist to the main cast (Athrun in particular). Chairman Gilbert Durandal was the villain of that series. The "spotlight hijack" and the shift from protagonist to antagonist is a different matter. Kira and his cronies went from support characters from full-blown protagonists in the span of... 15 episodes?

[YokozunaBulldozer]

Bootleg Wolverine from AGE?

[Massignifico]

lol

Imo Scirocco can be saved too... he may think that Lacus is the queen he was searching and defects to player team with Jerid, Mouar, Yazan, Sarah and Reccoa. It would be pretty cool

[BrentD15]

IMO, Scirocco can be saved too... he may think that Lacus is the queen he was searching and defects to player team with Jerid, Mouar, Yazan, Sarah and Reccoa. It would be pretty cool

Well, that would explain a lot.

[AmuroNT1]

Wasn't the whole point of Scirocco's goals that he wanted the "queen" to be his puppet?

[Massignifico]

Dunno, Scirocco's goals were never clear. Maybe he could use his newtype magic to charm Lacus

[YazanGable]

Wasn't the whole point of Scirocco's goals that he wanted the "queen" to be his puppet?

This was always the impression I got.
Especially when you consider that the one person in show he expresses interest in making the queen (Reccoa) he has wrapped so tightly around his finger she's cutting off circulation.

On top of that, if his goal were really that altruistic, I don't imagine all those Newtypes, with their ability to sense what he's really like, would be all "Yeah, he's gotta go. Do your thing, Kamille."

In a lot of ways, the idea of ruling through a puppet makes sense.
If the people turn against the puppet, they can be disposed of easily enough and a new proxy installed in their place.
If there's one thing Scirocco knows how to do, it's work people, so this would be right in line with him.

EDIT: I picture Scirocco with Lacus and I see something less like Scirocco seeing the error of his ways, and more like when Kagatie tried to use Shakti as his pawn to run Angel Halo.
Paptimus would try to win her to his cause while making her think she's still calling the shots.

[AmuroNT1]

Well yeah, but the whole point of this topic is whether certain villain characters can be saved/redeemed. Scirocco is a fine example of one who can't: one who's utterly selfish and unrepentant, with basically no positive traits to their name.

[Android raptor]

Coming in with my obligatory answer, I say Ghinius since he was less an inherently awful person (unlike Char or Scirocco) and moreso a mentally ill guy who ended up in the absolute worst situation someone with his particular dysfunctions could end up in. Granted, he'd still also need years of therapy to have a real quality of life and gain healthy coping skills since I don't think he has much of either, but still.

Adding other obligatory answers of mine, Quess and all the Zabis other than Giren (because Giren's one of the closest things to pure evil to ever come out of UC).

[teslashark]

I suppose there is a "kill on sight" list for any sane space-time traveler who happen to enter a SRW or G-Generation game...
Yazan (unfortunately Ark Performance liked him so much that they are redeeming him in the Johnny Riden story)
Ali
Rau
Sirocco

[BrentD15]

I suppose there is a "kill on sight" list for any sane space-time traveler who happen to enter a SRW or G-Generation game...
Yazan (unfortunately Ark Performance liked him so much that they are redeeming him in the Johnny Riden story)
Ali
Rau
Sirocco

I'm not so certain about Yazan.
Yeah, he is a blood-thirsty fighter, but he still has morals.
For instance, he was against gassing the colonies to drop them onto Von Braun.

[AmuroNT1]

Yazan can actually join the heroes in Super Robot Wars Alpha 3, but by that point he's pretty well the last vestige of the Titans, working with OMNI Enforcer because nobody's left. As psycho as he might be, he recognizes that the the Alpha Numbers' goal is to prevent the destruction of all humanity (including himself), so even if it's out of simple self-interest it's still worth noting.