Comments by "Roope Reimi" (@Yurikon3) on "Trope Talk: We're Not So Different" video.

  1. What I have heard, there is this notion in religions, especially Judeo-Christianic spectrum that every human is somewhat bad. One constantly hears about some more vocale preachers shout how everyone is hopeless and in some extreme cases some even consider babies hell-bent. This is usually brought up in dialect "faith vs. works" and seem to usually be kinda like mental hostage tactic to tie one to Jesus of community. The notion of "everyone is evil" might sometimes be mockingly used by villain as justification for their "we're not so different"-moment. I suppose the problem lies in misunderstanding of the ancient mindsets and how "hate and love" or "good and evil" were pretty comparable terms. Compared to "Perfection", in this case "The God", every human is imperfect, but it is crooked to think that young child is comparable to robber baron. Such a notion might in ancient world (and understandably even now) the view of injustice. The notion of "evilness of all humans" is more akin to "tendency to do evil" and their choice to decide following that tendency or choose other route given by outside force, in this case, once again, "The God". It is kinda like reverse for Kingdom Hearts' "inner light which never goes out" mentality where in every heart there is permanent darkness, but person can decide to look at the light outside and use it to quench darkness within. Sometimes some heroes might fall and it is considered a time of slippery where they might walk further from light cause that light hurts them or they know they are not worthy to look at it. This usually requires someone "better" than hero to work as broker between the light and fallen hero. This is like Iroh to Zuko, Sora to Riku and of course Jesus with humanity in their relation with The God. The point of "we're not so different" is bent because even if hero and villain had in certain point committed same wrong action, but in crossroads hero decides to walk away from evil he had done and decided to take other road. That fact alone makes them different from villain cause good and evil are comparison terms. It is true that in face of perfection villain and hero aren't so different but in comparison hero is good because he did better choice whereas villain decided to keep walking the road he took. This kind of "comparison morality" can be found in honor-shame type cultures like Japan and it might be a reason why there seems to be more "redeemed villains" in anime spectrum because good and evil are more about comparison and not solely "innermost" feelings. Vegeta might have not been good guy in general spectrum, but unlike many others like him he decided to not go full rampage at certain point (even if the motives were kinda selfish) and by that fact Goku didnt need to constantly fight him unless he had to. This allowed Vegeta actually learn and control his own tendencies and over the course it started to affect his own innermost self. The "innermost darkness" can be seen as more like challenge which some people fight against in their life or just "give up" and let it control them (which also returns to ancient notion of being "slave of sin").
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