DA agrees entirely with you and the previous anon about Armin. He struggles very consciously with morality versus necessity, more so than any other character who's committed acts of violence.
And this is apparently the part around which a good chunk of fandom can't wrap their mind around. Probably because so much media codes manipulativeness as an evil trait, same as accepting the need to kill before the action goes down.
And because a lot of fans, a lot of people in general, see things in black and white. IMO this fandom would be a lot less wanky if more fans were able to deal with moral ambiguity in fiction.
True, there would be probably less drama. But it's not really anything new. The human mind likes to latch onto easy familiar patterns rather than things that challenge an contradict them. Armin's overall character is like that. He is the kind nerdy type but he is also a pragmatic manipulator. He basically merges two character archetypes which don't overlap often in fiction.
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(Anonymous) 2014-06-10 12:55 pm (UTC)(link)And this is apparently the part around which a good chunk of fandom can't wrap their mind around. Probably because so much media codes manipulativeness as an evil trait, same as accepting the need to kill before the action goes down.
And because a lot of fans, a lot of people in general, see things in black and white. IMO this fandom would be a lot less wanky if more fans were able to deal with moral ambiguity in fiction.
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(Anonymous) 2014-06-10 04:44 pm (UTC)(link)