wintercrush said:
Reading this argument makes me laugh.
If anyone can't see that Kaname is the true villain here...I don't know what to say.
Just because Zero is wearing his emotions on his sleeve doesn't make him the scum bag of the manga, as the poster above me said, his actions are merely due to the tough situations he has had to endure in his short lifespan.
At least Zero wouldn't punish Yuuki on a constant basis like Kaname does to her.
I mean all in all, Kaname sees all of the people surrounding himself as PAWNS and he is always constantly manipulating them and shaping them.
When has Kaname EVER punished Yuuki? In every moment of the manga I've seen he's always been extremely gentle to her and protected her, even as her enemy.
This page
This page
This page
Vesperlynd said:
Honestly, I really don't see anything outstandingly unique about Kaname. He fits squarely in TV trope's Beautiful Elite and Anti-Villian lists as a glaring trope of the first order. Still, that is not to say I dislike him as a character.
I also think Kaname is definitely not a selfless person lol. Selflessness is to be concerned more with the needs and wishes of others than with one's own. Kaname is clearly incredibly self-confident and thinks he knows best. He does what he wants. He disregards much of what other people say. He is inconsiderate. He doesn't give a shit about what Yuuki thinks on how to deal with the co-existence issue of humans/hunters/vampires/purebloods. Although you could argue that he's in a sense doing it for her, she clearly does not want him killing so many people for her so no brownie points there.
As for your examples, I think they simply illustrate how much Zero hated vampires, especially purebloods, including Yuuki in the early chapters. Clearly from the most recent chapter Zero is shown to have changed his mind completely. It's very hard to blame him and call him out as an asshole for hating vamps because -
He was educated/brainwashed to hate vampires from a young age as a hunter in training.
His master was grievously injured while protecting him from a vampire.
His whole family was killed by vampires.
He was changed into a vampire by a pureblood and had to endure enormous personal pain AND alienation from the Hunter's Association where he by rights belonged.
If he didn't have trouble overcoming this hate then there would be something intrinsically wrong with him. And anyway he was portrayed with character flaws in the beginning so Hino could slowly show his characetr development into the better, more mature Zero of recent chapters.
Really, if anything could be called an asshole moment then you can't forget the multiple times Kaname told Zero he was a mere pawn/weapon and only alive because he allowed it. lol
Like I've said I've never encountered that trope in main character of a shoujo manga before. So Kaname's character feels new to me but maybe I just haven't read enough manga because I encounter Zero like characters far more often.
I still believe Kaname is selfless, what he's doing is clearly not for himself right now. Yuuki even speculated in the manga that he's doing it for the female ancestor and Kaname even states it's "her wish":
This page
I do also suspect that part of it is for Yuuki as well and just because she doesn't approve of his methods does not make it any less selfless because he is doing it with her in mind rather than himself, two of my theories include:
A) Kaname plans to eradicate all purebloods BUT Yuuki, have her kill him and then live happily with Zero (this theory came when Zero asked if all their feelings up to now have been real, which made me wonder if Kaname plans for them to fall in love so Yuuki can be happy once he's gone)
B) Kaname plans to have Yuuki become queen of the vampires by opposing him and earning their support. He then will have Yuuki kill him and live happily with Zero similar to theory A.
Both my theories have Kaname dying in them, I speculate this because he did ask her to kill him before. Of course if either of my theories are correct and Yuuki does follow through and kill Kaname then I will be extremely disappointed in her.
I also agree that Kaname does have a tendency to lie and be manipulative, Yuuki even said that Kaname is a liar, this does not mean that in the end he is not a selfless person just that the ends do not entirely justify the means (And I never said they did, I just said that I can sympathize with him, not that he does not have flaws). This is also true of Zero, his past does not justify present actions. Just because he had a messed up past, that does not justify him treating people that care about him like total utter crap.
I'd also like to point out that while Kaname does use people like pawns and is manipulative he also cares for his "pawns" general well being as one can see when he tells Yuuki to take care of Ruka. He has also expressed sympathy for Zero on an occasion, when Zero stabbed him when they first met, Yuuki pointed out that Kaname is bleeding and Kaname states that he's not the one that's really hurting, this can be interpreted as sympathy, and perhaps, based on facts presented in later chapters, guilt.
Also, Kaname treating Zero like crap and Zero treating Yuuki like crap (as most of my examples show) are two entirely different things. Kaname does not like Zero because Zero is his love rival you can't expect him to treat Zero nicely and vice-versa I do not expect Zero to treat Kaname well either and perhaps the example in which Zero stabs Kaname should be removed. However in the case of Zero and Yuuki Zero loves Yuuki and thus him treating her badly makes him appear as an a-hole regardless of whatever terrible past he suffered because that has nothing to do with Yuuki.
My final statement that I'd like to make is that, yes it appears that Zero is changing, and my feelings should have shifted a bit and I should have disliked him less and this argument has given me further insight into why I don't. To be honest, I have never actually HATED an anime/manga character prior to Zero, and this includes the bad boy characters that i call cliche. I have expressed slight to moderate dislike towards some but have never felt hate. I believe about half of the reason why I feel this way is because of the majority of the fans of Vampire Knight. (This final statement isn't aimed at you Vesperlynd as you don't display the same close-mindedness that everyone else seems to show with a few exceptions)
It seems that the majority of the fans gloss over, and justify Zero's actions saying that everytime he acts like an asshole towards Yuuki and treats her like crap is because he had a messed up past and it's no surprise that he hates vampires, and then they say that they feel so bad for him and that he is awesome. However then these same fans turn around and say Kaname is the villainous scum of the earth and should just die (funnily though even though I hate Zero I've never wished for him to die), we aren't even going to bother analyzing his present actions and shall just take them for what they are. I believe one person on here even compared him to Hitler. And I don't just see comments like that on the MAL forums, I see them EVERYWHERE.
This ticks me off and makes me come to hate Zero more than I probably should because it's wrong to justify Zero's actions by bringing up his past and then say Kaname is a villain when he also has had a painful past, and still seems to be carrying a lot of pain on his shoulders. You can't justify one character's actions and not anothers, you either have to justify both (which only a naiive fool would do) or justify neither in which case you admit that both have their flaws and both have done bad things (this means Zero is a cold-hearted, asshole and Kaname is a manipulative, liar). This is not to say that you can't prefer one character over the other either, as I still prefer Kaname if I analyze them both from the same standpoint. This is because Kaname appeals to my romantic, ideal, of a man, and I feel a large amount of chemistry between him and Yuuki. I just don't see it as fair to gloss over and justify one character's actions and then not do so to another.
