Ana93 said:
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.)
Well yeah, I agree with you there too, the scene was just sort of slapped on there to give some sort of closure to it but it really was not satisfying where I felt Zero or Kaname or Yuuki had changed much at all, she is just winding things up but not to most readers real satifaction. Like she built characters up and then doesn't finish with them and Zero is no exception to that even though he got a lot more than the poor night school characters who are just back like an after thought instead of woven into the second half of the story.
