Reflection and Analysis

Rage of Bahamut - Charioce XVII is a Hilter Type character (8/19/2021)

Originally posted on my MAL.

As I look at the discussion section for both Charioce and Nina's character pages on the Bahamut wiki, I see fans of his character complain that people bringing up how horrible of a character he is - that he is in fact a Hitler type character - are hating on them for liking said character, yet what I see is a fanbase who are major apologists.

I guess the best place to start is to point out that claiming someone is hating on you for liking a character simply because they are pointing out how horrible the character is in the canon material is a fallacy of logic, but what fans are really arguing is that Charioce's character should never be criticized. After all, these same fans make the lofty claim that Charioce is a well-written character, but the fact they claim this is true and the fact they like said character means said character should never be criticized, but by following that logic anybody who says anything negative is just a hater.

Which, by the way, is also a fallacy of logic.

As for Charioce actually being a well-written character like they claim, he's not. But then, it's rather obvious reading their comments that these fans bought into the narrative the second season put forth, nor do they pay attention to any of the canon material from the other series.

Yet, as someone who watched Virgin Soul first, I find it rather hard to understand how anybody could think of Charioce as this so called hero whose actions are justified as Virgin Soul actually manages to downplay the strife between humans, celestials, and demons compared to the original, thus defanging the argument that Charioce's behavior was justified because humans were supposedly powerless and just pawns in the grand scheme of things, yet even if you examine the original canon material this doesn't even hold true.

After all, we see humans summoning and using demons in the first series, which means humans are the ones with power and the ones using others as pawns, which n turn shatters this very idea that they are powerless creatures who in the sequel series simply have more power than they did before. Even Favaro and Kaisar note the fact even Azael was used as a pawn by a human when their fathers died, a pawn to gain humans even more power.

Oh, I know there are fans who will bring up the fact Azael was the reason their fathers died, but in reality, he was not. That's too simplistic of an answer and relies to heavily on this idea that matters between celestials (gods and they are called in the RoB series) and demons are black and white, that one is good and one is evil, yet using that very arguement one would need to conclude in the very least that Charioce's behavior towards the celestials was uncalled for.

Charioce apologists will bring up the celestials using characters such as Jeanne d'Arc as pawns as justification, but also evidence that they didn't care about humans, but for this to even work the idea that celestials are "good" and demons are "bad" needs to still go out the window. It also needs to confuse indifference to not caring, but even argue that choosing not to give humans the power they crave is for some reason an evil rather than something that makes sense as humans would just abuse said behavior.

Further more, when you toss out the idea of celestials being "good" and demons being "bad" with this idea that certain celestials are "bad" then you've got to embrace the idea that some demons are in fact "good", yet the cards from the games even touch upon this, such as one of Abyss Angel Mirin's card's saying "To be sure, there are fallen angels who brought on their fall by evil deeds. But there are those of us doomed by more... hedonistic flaws."

In other words, we shouldn't look at characters like Azael in such a black and white manner, but I think this was hinted at due to his status as not just a demon, but a fallen angel.

Sure, if we were to examine Azael's character in this black and white manner that demons are evil, the next conclusion one can come to is that Azael is evil. If Azael is evil, then he's the one who manipulated the human who came to him seeking power into summoning him so that he could slaughter as many humans as possible. As such, from that point of view Azael is indeed at fault for the deaths of the fathers of our heroes.

Yet, as I've pointed out, the characters of Bahamut can't be looked at in this manner at all.

Azael, as a character, does in fact have a moral compass, one that shines through majorly in the sequel series, yet it should also be noted that his moral compass doesn't just shine through there. It is demonstrated less obviously in the prequel series, something that Favaro and Kaisar figured out from observing him, that Azael actually does have a moral compass, or moral code that he abides by, which in turn led them to figure out the truth.

Part of this truth is that the vast majority of both the celestials and demons won't have anything to do with humans unless they're approached directly. It's not a matter of not caring, as I said, but more of an indifference. This isn't to say there aren't demons out there who say, like the taste of human flesh, who indeed do cause problems, and this isn't to say that there aren't celestials who go out of their way to approach humans to offer powers.

The point is, this is not the majority, yet the Charioce apologists would have you believe that all of the celestial kind and all of demonkind are at fault for the crimes of the few who did interact. There in lies one of the major problems with this idea that Charioce in fact has justification for doing what he did to the demons, that he is justified for enslaving an entire racial group simply because part of said racial group wronged his racial group in this past.

The second truth was about who was the actual pawn. Sure, Azael would love people to believe he was the one using the human as a pawn, being that he is the one who gave the human power and the means to slaughter Favaro and Kaisar's fathers, but that's not the whole story. Sure, in the same regard you can't argue that the human used Azael as a pawn either, given the fact Azael knew what would happen, yet in the same regard he was still the tool used by that human to gain power, something we see humans doing from the very beginning.

More specifically, human goes to demon seeking poiwer. Demon gives the human the power to summon him. What does said demon, particularly one as strong as Azael who is in effect considered to be Lucifer's right hand man, gain from such an encounter.

Nothing.

Well, sort of.

Sure, one could argue that this was to stave off his boredom, but if Azael wanted something to do to stave off his boredem, he certainly didn't have to give a human the power to summon him. One could argue its because demons are super evil, but we've already established that isn't the case, though one can argue that this is the perception humans have of demons which in turn gives humans, or at least most humans, reason to leave demons alone and not seek out their power like they would the celestials.

In fact, Charioce's father was guilty of seeking out power from the celestial side and went mad because he was deemed unfit to recieve their blessing, which plays into the ridged rules of the celestial kind regarding who they will give their power to. As that one fallen angel noted, not all of the fallen fell because they were evil, but because the strict rules of the celestials bothered them. That in turn means that while some of the demons are indeed evil, the rest are simply not as restricted in the rules regarding the lending of their power.

And right there is the problem.

Azael did what he did in order to maintain an image, pure and simple, yet Favaro and Kaisar realized that he wouldn't have lifted a finger to harm a human unless that human first lifted a finger to harm him, which was a sure thing to happen if he were to be summoned into the middle of battle. In fact, it's worth noting the reason Azael falls in many of Cygames incarnations is an angel who fell not because he was evil, but because of hedonistic reasons. Same actually goes for Lucifer. For Azael, his story is often tied to having fallen in love with a human, while Lucifer's is about questioning whether what he is doing is right or wrong.

Yup.

The current leader of the demons fell because he questioned whether what the celestials were doing was actually right, but if you pay attention to Genesis you see a group of individuals which are quick to condemn and slow to forgive. There's a major difference between punishing the fallen who fell because they were evil, and punishing those who fell for hedonistic reasons. The image that Azael is trying to maintain isn't the truth regarding demons, yet said image also provides a layer of protection for the weaker demons who might be taken advantage of by humans.

You know - the demon children whose wings were cut off under Charioce's rule, right? I admit that humans don't have an equivilent, but last time I checked in a thousand years of history, the demons didn't haul a good chunk of the humans away into slavery let alone force them to fight gladitorial matches. Sure, there were demons who experimented on humans like humans experimented on demons, yet they were a small handful in comparison to the number of humans who - because Charioce said it was okay, treated the demons the way they did - like an inferior species.

Okay.

So Azael does say that a mere immortal is inferior to him in his card series, yet - we're also talking the demon who in another series - Grandblue - has a halloween card where he's playing with children. Human children, mind you, but a lot of his dialogue in Grandblue presents him as a being attempting to maintain an image to hide his real self, which is a real softie at heart, particularly when it comes to children. Which in turn means his line about humans being inferior is - well, as I pointed out, his story line in many of the different spin off series has him falling in love with a human, so that's something to take with a grain of salt.

It's only ever the humans who ever treated another race as inferior, yet we're supposed to believe that this inferior race will suddenly be happy to live along side humans as if nothing ever happened, as if the humans never wronged them in the first place.

Okay.

So maybe they might want to live alongside the humans who treated them well, but Charioce isn't one of them and yet he is being treated as hero because he was supposidly selfless and was going to sacrifice his life, but because of Nina's sacrifice didn't have to.

Um, no.

There was nothing selfless about his actions which was to effectively be the one to finally defeat Bahamut, to the point he rushed Bahamut's return which interestingly enough only happens when something happens to catalyst it into happening, rather than because its supposed to happen. It might have been for the greator good of the humans, to be the one with power like his father wanted, yet right there is the problem. He is in effect a human who wanted power for his own self gain, not because he wanted something such as peace among the races.

Not to mention --

The real issue humans have with celestials and demons is that they're born with power, and humans crave that power and selfishly feel they should have that power as well. To buy into the narrative the appologists want, you've got to believe that denying humans the power that celestials and demons are born with is somhow a crime against humanity. You've got to believe that allowing humans to solve thier own problems is cruel as well, when this isn't at all true.

Most importantly, there was absolutely no justification for Charioce's actions, for two wrongs do not make a right, yet the whole celestial, demon and human thing isn't at all black and white like that, where humans are somehow the only "grey" party in all of this.

Narratively, the problem with Charioce's character is that he was forgiven when he should not have been, simply because the narrative suddenly decided he should be the hero and get the girl. Appologists argue - but it's their story, so - right there is not only a fallacy in logic, but the people creating the narrative for the second season weren't the original staff for Genesis nor are they copyright holder of the games from which the material was supposed to be adapted. There's no getting around the fact Virgin Soul went off the rails regarding what the copyright holder wanted.

And - the appologists are appologizing, aren't they? They're trying to pretend his behavior isn't what it is, let alone that it is somehow justified when there is nothing that ever justifies that kind of behavior.