Ana93 said:
inzaratha said:
See, I also thought him being able to stop being so angry was a personal accomplishment for him.
The purpose of forgiveness is not something you are giving to the other person - No, most people have a very poor understanding of forgiveness.
You forgive not for the other person at all really, at a deep level what being able to forgive gives you the ability to release that anger and move on with your life - it makes you be able to release the bond that is created with another person through hatred, which is the worst type of bond cause it keeps an attachment on your person with the person who has committed a grave crime or offense against you.
I think that only those of us who have had a horrible crime committed against them or have witnessed someone being freed from a bond of hatred by forgiving the other person can really understand it.
What Zero is doing here is NOT for Kaname - NO not at all - This is Zero being able to move on and not be angry ALL the time. Its Zero growing up. It has nothing to do with Kaname, it is Zero saying - I'm not going to be stuck in the past anymore since the past is the past - I'm moving on.
I really, really agree with your definition of forgiveness. Forgiveness is a gift you give to yourself, not to the other person. That's why I want to see Zero's actions in the last chapter as personally liberating for him, I really do. And I do think on some level they are, but my problem is that I think it's only on a very superficial level. Enough to make us feel like Zero has just had a major breakthrough (when really the whole purpose of the speech was to give Yuuki a happy ending, not to truly evolve Zero as a character).
Part of the problem is that I think there wasn't enough build-up to Zero's forgiveness speech to make it seem natural, and not something the author was forcing onto the character. Characters either have a major change of heart because something big happens to them and it triggers a change in their thinking, or there's a slow build-up to it with lots of little things happening before they finally change their minds.
In Zero's case, Kaname didn't come to him and apologize, which would have been a major event that encouraged Zero to forgive him. Up until he got his memories taken away, Zero was helping Yuuki chase him down, so there wasn't gradual build-up to it either. Only a short amount of time has passed in the manga (a couple of weeks maybe?) since he found out that Kaname plotted for his family to die, and he didn't take the news all that well at the time. So there was no chance for him to gradually decide to forgive Kaname either. He's been gradually accepting vampires this whole time, but accepting vampires is not the same thing as forgiving Kaname.
I think the main reason why he forgave Kaname in this chapter has nothing to do with Zero's own feelings. It's because Kaname is going to die and poor Yuuki will be all alone! (God forbid she should have to stand on her own two feet for once in her life.) And Yuuki's happiness is more important than Zero's own feelings.
Most of what Zero said to Kaname had to do with Yuuki, in fact. The bit about him making his own choices was only tacked on at the very end of his speech.
And that's the other part of the problem: If the majority of the speech had been about Zero himself, and how he had come to this realization and was moving on, then yes, absolutely, I would agree with you that this was a decision he was making for himself and for his own good, and I would be at peace with the decision.
But almost everything he said was Yuuki, Yuuki, Yuuki: Kaname doesn't think he has a right to be with her, but his actions are hurting her, she will be sad if he's not around, so come protect the school for her sake, and BTW, Zero is doing this because he wants to. His speech ultimately had more to do with encouraging Kaname to live than it did with Zero's choice to move on from his hatred.
So that's why, to me, what Zero said was indeed more for Kaname's sake than for his own. Or should I say, for romance's sake than his own. If Kaname lives, then Yuuki ends up with a guy at the end of the manga, and that's what this manga truly cares about. (Obviously not its plot or characterization.)
+1! That´s what I wanted to say. Zero forgives Kaname because of Yuuki, not because of himself. Kaname did not apologize to him which was a big flaw for someone who loves humans. For someone who wants to die so badly to help humanity, he is out of character. Despite Zero forgive him or not, he should have apologized to him.
Zero is letting go of his hatred, that is great. But what pisses me off is that is also out of character.
IMO,There was no time, not enough development for it Regardless of what "forgiveness" is (and I agree with the definitions given here in the thread) Most of people do not forgive a person following these types of events. That kind of forgiveness almost seems forced, and does not feel like a real forgiveness. So we´re forgiving him because the guy wants to die and because he is the dearest person of the person we love. Is that real forgiveness? Shouldn't we "let go" because of ourselves and not because of others, regardless we love them or not?
In fact Zero´s actions were driven not by his own will as he thinks, but for Yuuki´s happiness and for Ichiru´s words "Go and fulfill your goal". Was his goal to forgive Kaname? Was his goal to make Yuuki happy? I still do not understand. I do not think that was what Ichiru had in mind, but....okay.
Regardless of how this ends, It won't get a rate higher than 3 from me. Why? Because I had huge expectations from this and I spent years reading it, hoping it would improve, and Im not talking about pairings, because I honestly do not care about with whom Yuuki ends up.
This is just bad executed. Very bad plot. Null development. IMO.
