Mobile Suit Gundam SEED ETERNITY

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ShadowCell
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Re: Mobile Suit Gundam SEED ETERNITY

I won't argue with the point that what I did with Kira throughout the arc of this entire tale is weird. Like I said, I worked with what I had. To do otherwise would have meant rewriting DESTINY again, and, well, like hell I'm doing that.

As for Valentine...having her get blown away by Kira certainly denies closure to Shinn, who is a much more important character than Kira in this story anyway. Athrun had written Kira off entirely by the end of "ETERNITY," but Shinn said it himself when he said he knew he'd be haunted by their unsettled score if he just let Kira go--and as far as he was concerned, Kira was beyond salvation anyway. It's not as though they were going to come to an understanding, anymore than Amuro and Char did in the end. And Shinn is not a particularly forgiving guy to begin with. He might have forgiven Rey for his manipulations, or at least stopped caring about it, but that was after he'd killed him.

And as for the rest...
I find it slightly suspicious that Kira is more or less the sole exception to this.
There are plenty of characters over the course of this entire story who have doubts but never get to act on them. Rey, for example, was constantly pushing himself back onto the path of vengeance against Shinn; numerous ZAFT characters like Glasgow and even Rudolf were willing to admit that they were doing horrible things; Kara eventually came down from the height of Natural-hatred, but she hardly chose her fate and certainly didn't enjoy it.

Kira had doubts but never let himself act on them. Plenty of people in actual history have done that. To better use an example I cited earlier in this thread: Adolf Eichmann. Hence, the difference between Kira and Sven is that Kira never actually chose his better nature. And despite all the people who gave their lives trying to get him to do so, in the end, he still had to choose it, because you can't force someone to make the right choice. That he didn't, and thus that those people died trying to save a man who was already dead, is the tragedy.

To have him suddenly realize that he's been wrong about everything at the last minute would be the kind of ass-pull that people accused me of doing in making him turn to Rau and Valentine in the first place. I'm not sure why one ass-pull should be okay but another isn't. And not to mention, it cheapens the sacrifices those previous characters made because it wasn't their sacrifices that did the trick, it was a magical epiphany at the last minute. Like I said, I worked with Kira as I had altered him, and how I altered him was in retrospect not that great, but you're still trying to apply Kira as he existed in the animation to Kira as he exists in this story, and they are obviously two different characters.

That really gets to the heart of the matter. To be honest, I think you are letting your being a huge Kira fan get in the way of your opinion, because you're making him out to be a much more important character to this story than he really was. You're acting as if the moral arc of the entire story rested solely on his redemption; it didn't, and never did, or else there would have been some motion towards redeeming him, and there wasn't (not to mention we would've seen a lot more of him). So Rau doesn't really win any sort of victory, because the battle was never over Kira.

Besides which, you're also making the mistake of assuming that Kira's moral story is the only one that matters. If you act as though Kira is still the main character and invest in him the ultimate moral meaning of this story, then yeah, it looks pretty grim--but you have to ignore a hell of a lot of stuff to get there. So Rau might have been right about Kira, but so what, he was wrong about a whole raft of other characters, and being right about one person hardly proves his point when he was wrong about so many others. He thought he could plunge people into darkness and despair and they'd never find their way out. Some didn't, but others did, and that others did proves him wrong.

Emily proves that most of all, not by misinterpreting his message, but by going through darkness and despair herself and coming out on the other side still able to pursue happiness. And that works out--because she's the main character, not Kira.



Man, I write a happy ending and I still have people thinking it's grimdark.
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Re: Mobile Suit Gundam SEED ETERNITY

I think ShadowCell's answer hits the mark as well as it can here.

The key here is that Kira in canon animation had morphed into a very different character in this story, but it's not that implausible considering the maddening moral certainty he carried in e.g. GSD to be twisted into a similar moral certainty about doing evil. The "true character that Kira is" has been unavoidably and irrevocably changed. And I thought the whole exchange between Athrun and carboncopy (N-HD?) was why he had given up on salvation, and in part because he had said goodbye to that part of his life. In that and becoming the protector/soon-to-be-dictator of Orb, Athrun has sufficiently honored Cagalli IMHO.

I do agree that after Kira and Emily's mom's clone had perished, getting to the Goliath lacked the same dramatic impact. However, could that have been done differently? I don't know.
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ShadowCell
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Re: Mobile Suit Gundam SEED ETERNITY

Hell, my original plan for Valentine was for the beam shield to drop once Zero-Two died, and the Goliath gets blown away by faceless mooks.

I figured giving Emily one last moment in the sun was an acceptable alternative.
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Re: Mobile Suit Gundam SEED ETERNITY

I did NOT let me being a Kira fan get in the way at all, cause guess what? I'm also an Athrun and Shinn fan. But you are correct that I did view Kira, not to mention Athrun, Shinn, and Rau as the one from the animation. Did you catch what I said about how I translated, what you meant as this being a "better version" of SEED Destiny? I approached this fic with the idea that I'm reading a replacement for the animation, therefore I should consider this new animation, and in the animation Kira is a main character and therefore should still be considered as such, regardless if he's a hero or a villain, or if his screen time is minor or if its dominant. If I'm reading a completely independent fanfic done for the purpose of you doing it for others enjoyment and because you can, then a lot of what I say about Kira and his role in the plot loses tremendous applicability. Particularly when it comes to how important his final fate is, and the level I held it to as it related to potential of other characters. if he's not a main a character then anyway Kira affects other characters is less meaningful.

I should have clarified that viewpoint in my first post so I apologize for not doing so. I did not construct this story in my head around him at all, but I assumed he should be viewed on the same relevance level as Shinn and Athrun since I'm looking at a template for new animation. We'd still be having almost this exact same conversation if your Kira was replaced by Athrun or Shinn. any one of them would deserve the chance at redemption.

As a matter of fact I once read a pretty serious SEED Destiny fic a number of years back where Athrun sticks with ZAFT after being mislead by Durandal's smooth talking about the Destiny Plan. Athrun then went on to personally assist with planning and participating in an attack on Orb to force them to comply. Kira, Cagalli and even Lacus couldn't forgive him for that regardless of circumstances, and turned their backs on him. I was trying to defend Athrun in that case and thought that Kira and Co were being quick to forget him. Mostly because I put an emphasis on his past deeds earning him extra credit towards potential redemption.
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ShadowCell
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Re: Mobile Suit Gundam SEED ETERNITY

Well, I dunno what to tell you. Your interpretation is not borne out by what I wrote. Kira is an important character, mainly for his effects on other characters, and back in DESTINY he was a major character...but, well, not anymore. If I didn't write Kira to be a main character, then it seems pretty straightforward to me that I don't intend for him to be a main character.
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Re: Mobile Suit Gundam SEED ETERNITY

Man, I stopped getting thread updates at some point after chapter 42 for some reason, so I had no idea you'd gone and finished the damned thing! Good thing I stumbled into this forum the other day. (Mostly because Antares posted in the ATEOGSD thread.)

I spent the last couple days catching up and reading it. Good show, man. The conclusion was suitably epic and I enjoyed reading the whole way through.

I've got two minor gripes.

#1. Rau. Shouldn't he of the labyrinthine schemes have had some sort of back-up plan if he failed to sway Emily? You spent a lot of time building his smooth criminal-ness, but it seemed like he got caught with his mask off when Emily slipped out of his web.

I realize that his plan actually succeeding was almost definitely not gonna happen, but I feel like he should have at least adapted to the situation faster when it became clear that Emily was not gonna do what he wanted.

That said, I think it was neat that he apparently died without Emily ever really finding out how twisted he was. And Athrun and Shinn will probably let her just keep thinking that way in whatever case.

#2. Kira. I remember your first draft of the Destiny rewrite, and how Kira died in pretty much the exact same (almost word-for-word, if I recall correctly) manner at Shinn's sword in the end.

Reading that again, well...

I like that death for Kira, but I'm still of the mind that it should have happened at the end of Destiny, as you originally planned.

As it was, Kira really never progressed incredibly far as a character throughout Twilight and Eternity. He just kept descending and descending into a pit of delusion and self-loathing until it swallowed him whole. He was basically just there for the name-recognition and to be a big brick that Athrun and Shinn happened to have a personal connection with.

In that general manner, he ended up not all that different from actual, canonical Kira Yamato.

(Although your Kira actually has more of a personality, but I digress.)

Personally, after falling so far, I'd have tried to bring him back (just a little, maybe not redeeming him at all, but forcing him into a situation where he has to work together with Shinn and Athrun for some reason or another). Or at least have to have a "civil" conversation with each other and not shout variations of "You don't understand me!" back and forth.

There was a fantastic issue of IDW's Transformers comic just recently (I think it was # 22) that had Optimus Prime and Megatron actually sit down and have a civil discussion. They talked of their personal history, their goals, and it really got at the core of why these two characters would probably always be enemies, but still understood each other more deeply than any other two beings.

I would have liked to have seen something like that with Kira and Athrun, or Kira and Shinn. If they could stomach being on the same ship with Rau for so long, they could certainly be in the same room with Kira for a short time under some pretense of treaty or whathaveyou.

But that said, on the whole, I enjoyed the crap outta this fanfic, all of them, everything you've written. And no matter who may criticize about "grimdark" that and "Victory rip-off" this, no one can or should deny your writing ability and talent. I eagerly await whatever you write next.

Oh yeah, I caught all the "Jedi" references, but I also noticed a possible Dark Knight Returns reference- "The world only makes sense when you force it to!"

Was that intentional? :)
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Re: Mobile Suit Gundam SEED ETERNITY

I don't really read comics so I don't know what all is in there, but I knew that particular quote was from Batman and rather liked it, so yeah, it's intentional.

There's references in this fanfic to everything from Half-Life to My Little Pony. It basically turned into a game of finding unobtrusive points in the story to make references to all kinds of esoteric stuff and see who caught on. I'm pretty sure that was the motivation for like 95% of the literary "allusions" I had to decipher in my high school literature classes.
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Re: Mobile Suit Gundam SEED ETERNITY

Thundermuffin wrote:But that said, on the whole, I enjoyed the crap outta this fanfic, all of them, everything you've written. And no matter who may criticize about "grimdark" that and "Victory rip-off" this, no one can or should deny your writing ability and talent. I eagerly await whatever you write next.
And that's probably what I've been wanting to campaign on Shadow's behalf in places like TVTropes or something. I'll say it until I'm blue in the face, but "shiny happy people" doesn't produce compelling characters, and neither does tossing them in the Sarlacc pit for laughs and giggles. Every event within a story contributes to the greater meaning of the whole.

DESTINY, TWILIGHT and ETERNITY can be called a thematic whole by these terms.

P.S. DESTINY may have some of Victory's spirit, but TWILIGHT and ETERNITY have the After War charm.
"No, it is not your lack of experience that is your greatest flaw. It is your disdain. Your defeats will not come from those more brilliant than you. They will come from the patient, the plodding, the mediocre." - Shibumi
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Soma Taozi
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Re: Mobile Suit Gundam SEED ETERNITY

Sorry for the wait Shadow Cell! I have no time to write anymore now that I am in college! What with the studying, the reading, and the epic partying (hey I am living in Florence! Don’t judge!), finding the time to write this was actually pretty damn hard. But it is me. So I pulled it off ;)

So…here we are. The end of Eternity. Despite the unintentional irony of that statement, I am very sad that this story is over. I remember coming home from work and looking forward to see if you updated and posted a new chapter for Eternity. I loved being able to contribute my two cents and opinions into a work in progress (even if they weren’t always right or wanted :) ). If I could, I would buy every single person who contributed to this thread some Italian Vino. :)

So, for the last time, what did I think about the last chapter in Eternity?

I loved it! It had every element that lured me into Shadow Cell’s stories in the first place! It had intense action, death, lose, determination for the future, and a bittersweet ending that left many things open for the fans to decide what happened.

As for the whole argument with Kira…I felt that it was well done and the fact that he wasn’t able to redeem himself was tragic. Since Kira knew deep down what he was doing was wrong, yet he was unable to change. That is a grim fact of life, people are sometimes unable to change who they are and find the right path. Kira’s death was very Evangelion…a good person who was swept up in events outside their control and was unable to change themselves…despite given many chances to do so. Perhaps his death was a little too sudden…but then again, there was a shock value in that as well.

However, my only problem with this chapter was how Valentine died. It wasn’t that Emily killed her or anything like that…it is the fact that she died so silently.

The last we saw of her was in the beginning of the chapter…and that was it. I would have thought that while Emily was tearing apart the Goliath, Valentine would have been trying to talk her way out of the situation. Having a conversation where Valentine rants or tries to sway Emily from what she is doing would be very interesting. Both lost the person they loved in the battle, both want to build a new world, yet while Valentine is following the path of Rau…Emily transcended the darkness. I think even a short conversation would be very cool and the fact that there wasn’t in the last chapter was, I feel, a missed opportunity. Plus, a little more Valentine would have given her character more closure instead of Emily feeling fear, and it would have shown that valentine as something outside just a simple extension of Kira.

Just a suggestion to an otherwise perfect final. :)

Now, I am done talking about the last chapter and I want to talk about Eternity as a whole and just some things that I noticed. I don’t think I need to say again how much I loved this story…I say it every fricken time I put up some feedback.

You said at the start Shadow Cell that one of the hardest parts of the story was going to be keeping track of everything because so much was going to happen in Eternity. You have done an exemplary job at being in control of your story, so brava! However, some things randomly disappeared and weren’t mentioned in the final…also these things never really had any closure and were just loose ends.

The first thing I want to draw attention to is the Aristotle. The last we saw of that ZAFT sub was that it evacuated civilians from the Gigifloat. Maybe it should be mentioned in the epilogue that it joined the Orb fleet or something…you mentioned the Deliverance…so why not the Aristotle? Oh and on a ship note, someone already mentioned how the Beelzebub kind of disappears…maybe it should be blown away by the Goliaths first shot? Just something like that.

The next thing I want to mention is Jane, Ed, and Dana Burrek. All these characters had several chapters in the middle of the story and it seemed like you were setting up a possible return in the final…but they never did. I was given that impression especially since Dana Burrek never bit the dusk.

But since she doesn’t appear in the final battle, maybe you should have Ed ram his sword through her cockpit…just to end a character that confused and frustrated me to no end. Also since the alliance splintered…maybe a moment where Ed and Jane are mentioned as being leaders for South America might be in order. Since they did finally get independence. It was what they were fighting for the WHOLE time, right? Them not being at least mentioned at the end feels like their side-plot had no point. Also, maybe a quick thing about the Desert Dawn too…since they never appeared again either.

My last point with the person who just disappeared is, of course, Yukiko. Where the hell did she go? With all the buildup of Sven plotting to kill her and you establishing her as an evil bitch…she just disappears? A perfect opportunity for her to die was during the civil war where Sven, Shams, and Mudie all flee. Maybe a quick paragraph where Sven kills her before he lives the ship or he sees her escape shuttle heading towards Phantom Pain ships and shoots her down. Just something so we know that she is dead and gone.

Now the final thing I want to mention in looking at Eternity as a whole is: The first battle with the Vega Freedom.

Now that the story is done…in hindsight you may want to spread out the destruction of the Gundam’s a little more. Have Kira blow away the Legend and maybe the Abyss…but there were several battles (especially towards the beginning) where the Minerva pilots flew mass-produced machines…which easily could have been replaced by their Gundams. You can have them damaged or crippled…but I think that even with the Vega Freedom’s power…taking down and damaging the entire Minerva Gundam team was a little much to swallow. There were so many battles where a ZAKU Sting was flying could have been replaced with a gunbarrel-less Chaos or Auel with a beaten Abyss…

Even if you do change the chapter a little, where it is clear the Gundam’s of the Minerva are getting in each other’s way…the fact that all of them got there asses handed to them was a little much. Especially right after Twilight, where they fought large numbers of mobile suits, mobile armors, and several Destroys without too much damage.

I know this would require a bit of work and rewording of your chapters, but honestly it would streamline the story A LOT more and make the transition from Twilight to Eternity a little smoother. Think about it. Suddenly, after being on equal terms with every enemy, the Minerva’s Gundam’s are suddenly outclassed? All of them? At once?

At least have Kara and her team do more damage to the Gundams then…or something..anything. Again, just suggestions. But in hindsight the first battle with the Vega Freedom was the weakest part Eternity.

And that is it. That is all I have to say about Eternity. If I think about something more to say before you post this on FF.net, I will say it here on this thread (would you expect anything less from me :) ).

But I doubt it. You have created an amazing story Shadow Cell and you should be proud of all the time an energy you put into it. Nice work and thank you for using my Meyrin’s birthday party idea for a chapter in Eternity. My favorite part of the whole series by far :)

Thank you Shadow Cell and I hope to see more from you one day if I am still around. Until then, I will read The Golden Age Trilogy on fanfiction. I have a long way to go on that story and it will kill some time for sure. I will miss you Shadow Cell!!! Ciao!

*Digital kisses on the cheek (hey it isn’t weird! It is common here in Europe!).
For 2000 years I lay dormant, now I have returned to bring good cheer to you all once again!

-Me, 7/19/2020
Antares
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Re: Mobile Suit Gundam SEED ETERNITY

Soma Taozi said:
*Digital kisses on the cheek (hey it isn’t weird! It is common here in Europe!).
Yeah we would tell you that, wouldn't we. :D

My final salvo is along the same lines here; looking back on Eternity I am simply swamped by the number of characters presented. It has been a great feat for ShadowCell to keep track of them as well as he has, but considering some pruning, some more definite cases of "exit stage left" might be welcome to make the story feel less sprawled across all of CE. On the other hand one of the strengths of the story IS that it sprawls ALL of CE. When I wrote my own fanfic, I hadn't even heard of Astray -stuff. It was problematic to say the least to answer questions like "where was X during all this?" on the fic, whereas, excluding a few loose ends, ShadowCell does deliver all of them. :)
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WindamX
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Re: Mobile Suit Gundam SEED ETERNITY

ShadowCell wrote:Well, I dunno what to tell you. Your interpretation is not borne out by what I wrote. Kira is an important character, mainly for his effects on other characters, and back in DESTINY he was a major character...but, well, not anymore. If I didn't write Kira to be a main character, then it seems pretty straightforward to me that I don't intend for him to be a main character.
Well "Main" was the wrong word for me to use. He's a Main character in the canon which translates to still Major character in the DESTINY rewrite and here in ETERNITY (as I said I assumed that your trilogy was a template for new animation. Which is why I've been so critical of it). I've re-read some things and after the fact, while my opinion on Kira serving the story better by living past the fight with Shinn has not changed I can see that I definitely went about... "ranting" the issue in the wrong way by speaking too much from Kira's perspective. Which was pretty stupid of me to do in retrospect.
ShadowCell wrote: As for Valentine...having her get blown away by Kira certainly denies closure to Shinn, who is a much more important character than Kira in this story anyway. Athrun had written Kira off entirely by the end of "ETERNITY," but Shinn said it himself when he said he knew he'd be haunted by their unsettled score if he just let Kira go--and as far as he was concerned, Kira was beyond salvation anyway. It's not as though they were going to come to an understanding, anymore than Amuro and Char did in the end. And Shinn is not a particularly forgiving guy to begin with. He might have forgiven Rey for his manipulations, or at least stopped caring about it, but that was after he'd killed him.
Well first off in that instance I would implore you to NOT under any circumstance have Kira get Valentine, specifically for that reason. That kill belongs on a moral level only to Shinn, and purely action scene wise to Emily. Every time I said Kira "Good Guy" turn I was referring to him simply not being evil anymore. If he's just floating in a disabled Vega Freedom watching Shinn show him another way to save the world, that counts as good guy turn to me.

The true source of Shinn's problems are Valentine and the Zaku Golaith. The Zaku Golaith was originally designed with Shinn in mind as the pilot, and was the reason Durandal was so adamant about controlling him. Valentine is the source of all evil and is Kira's puppet master, the one behind all of his actions and is using him ti do her dirty work while Kira takes the fall. One of many reasons that have nothing to do with Kira himself why I feel Kira serves the plot better alive, since that translates to Shinn still being battle capable and having the motivation for a final confrontation with the Zaku Golaith and Valentine. I personally feel that Shinn's story is incomplete without that confrontation. Its what would bring his story full circle, and he certainly has more riding on that then what he has with Kira IMO, though Shinn never realizes this. Shinn killed a puppet but left the master behind, the one who is at the source of his and everyone's problems.

The writing off of Kira as beyond salvation is where my issue once again arises. I know we've been through this already, but to heck with it. Going into the last battle writing Kira off was a pretty solid conclusion initially, but Shinn was proven wrong when Kira's kernel exploded and his fear and regret surfaced. Shinn also thought it wasn't worth saving, but under the circumstances if Shinn is going to remove himself from the battle in a totally unnecessary fashion by killing a defenseless Kira and setting off his reactor, what does he have to lose in disabling and taking a real good look at Kira for who he truly is before passing judgment? For the Amuro/Char comparison, I never saw Char's counterattack but despite them not ever seeing eye to eye didn't Amuro let Char live long enough to see that he was wrong when his own forces tried to help stop Axis from hitting the Earth? If Shinn had let Kira live long enough to see ZAFT defeated it probably would have woken Kira up from his delusion, resulting in Kira begging for redemption.

As far as Shinn not being forgiving, well this is pretty extreme, but lets look at it from this perspective for a moment. If vengeance is that important to Shinn that he is willing to without hesitation unnecessarily remove himself from the battle, to kill a man who is no longer mentally, or emotionally capable of continuing the fight (Fllay's appearance) after seeing the proof that he was salvageable (Emotional outburst from his dark resolve cracking), when ZAFT has 2 super weapons of planetary death on the field. If Shinn's need for vengeance on anyone who wrongs him purposely or accidentally is what truly defines him, that he is without hesitation willing to effectively condemn the whole world to death like he did in the story in order to get it. If he needs it so badly he can't move on and live with out it, then I don't think Kira is the only monster here. Its a shame that vengeance is the final and most important thing that defines who Shinn Askua is in his most critical moment. Especially when after he gets it he feels no different. it shows a real lack of introspective on Shinn's part which really denied him a chance to achieve some serious final character growth.

If Kira has to die right there, right then, that suddenly, and unredeemed I think it would have carried a lot more meaning if Shinn died right there with him. Because as it is, it cuts both of them short of what they, or at least Shinn could have done further. And I fail to see why Kira is punished for seemingly taking his first step back to the light, and Shinn is rewarded for giving in to his darkness and thirst for blood, despite his higher importance to the story. (Strike him down with all of your hate and your journey towards the dark side will be complete, anyone?)

Hmm... This is becoming another rant so let me cut it short, and ask the big question that may save me a lot of typing later.

What was the reason for you turning Kira evil in the first place? I don't criticize you at all for the plot itself, it was actually one of the things that got me reading this since it is different. But with all said and done now, I don't see the real reason behind it, besides feeding Kira to Shinn at the end, keeping Rau alive for DESTINY, and (forgive me for if I'm wrong) some personal dislike of Kira? Because for such a major character change as you yourself said, it wasn't really all that plot relevant in the end.
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ShadowCell
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Re: Mobile Suit Gundam SEED ETERNITY

I think you're starting to forget that Kira actually did some pretty evil stuff in this story. Leaving aside Cagalli and Lacus entirely, he nuked the Austral Colony in "Red Planet," he went around massacring civilians, he destroyed space colonies, he took part in the gassing operations on the moon, and he joins the ZAFT fleet in protecting the Goliath as it blows up cities. I should think all that justifies Shinn's belief that there's nothing left to save. As Princess Leia says of Darth Vader at some point in the Star Wars EU, one moment of contrition doesn't erase years of atrocities.

Besides which, there is another scene you're forgetting. Perhaps it got buried in all the fighting, but in Phase 48, Shinn rescues Riika from an untimely demise and explicitly tells her not to get fixated on the idea of revenge, because he did and he's a mess because of it. The difference is that even though he's a mess, Shinn isn't nearly as much of a mess as Kira, and he hasn't let it turn him into a monster. And even if there was some redemption possible for Kira, it hardly erases all the terrible stuff he already did. That, after all, is why Sven died during his redemptive moment--and Sven never did anything monstrous on nearly the same scale as Kira. Yes, Shinn was still running on a desire for revenge--but that had morphed into something as much about destroying what he perceived as a genuine threat to the world as it was about revenge for all the things he'd suffered at Kira's hands. I think their requisite philosophical argument during their mobile suit battle makes that rather clear. Even if what pisses Shinn off the most is what Kira did to him, it's not as though he doesn't have other grievances that don't rest on revenge.

At any rate, it's not as if these two characters were ever going to come to an understanding anyway. Amuro and Char certainly didn't. Even though Amuro took Char with him as he tried to stop Axis, there was no understanding between them; they were screaming over how they'd wronged each other down to their last moments.

I'm not sure why Shinn would suddenly wheel around on Valentine, really. It wasn't Valentine with whom he had his rivalry. If anything, that sounds to me like it would wind up turning into what 00 did with Ali, Setsuna, and Lockon. They spent most of the first season building up Ali as Setsuna's rival, as the force that helped turn Setsuna into what he was, as Setsuna's thematic foil, as the dragon that Setsuna would have to overcome over the course of his development...and then they threw in Neil out of left field and decided that he was Ali's archnemesis instead. And on that note, it's not like he willingly removed himself from the battle. He took down Kira--a perfectly legitimate target on purely military grounds at any rate--and then the Gundam exploded and when he woke up, his Gundam was broken, he was in the sickbay, and he didn't really have a choice but to let his protege take care of the rest.

And I'm really not sure when Kira ever really "stepped towards the light." The guy spent most of this story aiding and abetting attempted genocide. He may have looked at the light a few times, but he never stepped towards it.

So to answer your question, turning Kira into a villain was wrapped up in a lot of things, but the fundamental reason was that I wanted to see what happened to the other characters around him if the moral certainty he had in DESTINY that aggravated me so much was turned towards something that would horrify the other characters, like Athrun and Lacus--the ones who, for the most part, didn't cruise through DESTINY with Zen-like certainty in themselves and their missions. They all eventually came to follow him and Lacus, who never questioned what they were doing; so what happens when one goes to the other side and the other starts having doubts?

Antares is ultimately right about Kira's presentation here. In some ways, Kira is extremely different from his animated self; in the animation, Kira Yamato would have never nuked a space colony or killed his sister. But in other ways, he's still Kira Yamato. My biggest gripe with Kira in DESTINY is that he seems to cruise through the story without doubt in himself or his mission. I can deal with a character who has certainty, even inhuman certainty, as long as they have to maintain that certainty. Athrun being back in ZAFT never shook him up, when you'd think it would have; the world descending back into war despite all his sacrifices in the previous one never shook him up, when you'd think it would have. Even if he'd still decided that it was his job to descend from on high and deliver the truth to everyone, I would've found it easier to swallow had he had to battle down doubts and second thoughts. But he really never did.

So, in the course of writing him here, I've tried to show him doing just that. He knows what he's doing is evil. He knows he can't go back. He has doubts, but he pushes them back down so that he can focus on his mission. That's what one would presume Kira did in DESTINY. We just never saw it.
Antares
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Re: Mobile Suit Gundam SEED ETERNITY

On illustrating the difference and yet intrinsic similarity of "canon-Kira" and "ShadowCell-Kira", there's always the possibility that Kira (in GS/GSD) was schizophrenic and that helped him retain his moral compass directed at "self-righteousness" at all times.

There is personality A, let's call him Jesus Yamato, who wakes up in the morning thinking he is awesome and right.
Then there is personality B, let's call him Toady Yamato, who wakes up with personality A to provide nothing but positive feedback to A's (delusional) self-image.
A: "I really am awesome today, aren't I."
B: "You sure are, big man. And morally superior too."
A: "Athrun seems to have some issues about it, though."
B: "Meh, just cut his Gundam to pieces, that'll show him who's right."
A: "I'm so glad we had this talk."

And then Gundam Seed Destiny would happen. :mrgreen:

In ShadowCell's story, Kira A simply thinks doing what he does is a necessity, whereas Kira B reinforces this by saying things like "you know there is no alternative", or "you know there is no going back" to the point that this becomes everything Kira truly knows. In this, his death is ultimately very tragic as written out here.
-We will not be caught by surprise!
*Almost everyone I've killed uttered similar last words.
-Then I am glad once again that you are on my side.
*They've often said that too.
Rob DS Zeta
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Re: Mobile Suit Gundam SEED ETERNITY

I never would have thought that the most debated topic in the story's aftermath would be the fate of Kira.
*insert witty eyecatch here*
Zeino
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Re: Mobile Suit Gundam SEED ETERNITY

Would it be wrong of me to say to you Shadowcell that while I find your CE trilogy to be very well-written and engaging, I still like canon Seed/Seed Destiny better?
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Soma Taozi
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Re: Mobile Suit Gundam SEED ETERNITY

Zeino wrote:Would it be wrong of me to say to you Shadowcell that while I find your CE trilogy to be very well-written and engaging, I still like canon Seed/Seed Destiny better?
Well...no one is telling you what to like more. And in the end it is your opinion that matters...so no. It wouldn't be wrong at all. Why? What were you expecting?

Do be honest, such a statement is incredibly random.
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NightFall
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Re: Mobile Suit Gundam SEED ETERNITY

Shadowcell I noticed a old thread where you posted art of the characters but all the links seem to no longer work, is this art still around for us fans to see?
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ShadowCell
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Re: Mobile Suit Gundam SEED ETERNITY

Technically it is, but I reorganized my Photobucket account a long time ago so the links broke. I'll figure something out in the meantime.
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Gyra Solune
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Re: Mobile Suit Gundam SEED ETERNITY

I remember hearing about that NaNoWriMo thing before. *way too late on the ball*

And considering my own thing has about 26 chapters (well technically 13, but they're divided into two parts) each at ABOUT 2500 to 4000 words, and if I had written it faster then this could've been my entry. Alas, I've been working on it since the summer, so it wouldn't count.

This is very good so far though. Despite how SEED/Destiny fics kinda make me want to say "another one?", this is much better than many of them.
domino
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Re: Mobile Suit Gundam SEED ETERNITY

I didn't read the entire series for reasons I gave earlier-on in the rewrite of Destiny but for such super-powerful Gundams as Shinn and Kira had, their fight was WAY too much dialogue, dodging and then a sudden death from Kira that left me feeling disappointed.
Shinn also came off as the annoying know-it-all protagonist while Kira was the emo confused antagonist. I really think more could've been done to make their final battle more interesting.

Take that with a grain of salt though. I might have felt better if I had read the entire story and seen more of their development that led to this kind of battle.
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