[DreadBringer]

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Originally Posted by Mesnick

It's just that they weren't rivals, but here the rules are different. But in general, I think the characters are too keen on competition and ignore cooperation. That is, tell Ace Keiwa about the secret mission, he would willingly agree to help and no conflict would arise in principle.

This is the reason why a ruthless method that seemingly produces good result shouldn't be immediately justified due to the outcome alone or having cynical view of 'this is how the world works, it's unforgiving'. Though the problem here is about letting Keiwa become a bloody mess (unlike ep. 2), and dunno how much of a requirement would fulfill 'saving Rider' in this kick the can mission...

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Originally Posted by Mesnick

Well, we have an example of an invincible benevolent protagonist in Hibiki. Did the audience call him "gary stus"?

Yeah right, Hibiki's also invincible, but is benevolent (the actual protagonist here would be Asumu). Though for this one, it's not the matter of them viewing Hibiki as a "gary stu", but... if they would even consider Hibiki on the same level of badassery as Tendou or Tsukasa. Not to mention Hibiki seems to be one of the least-well known series... in general there are much less discussion about Heisei Phase 1 tbh in KR fandom than newer ones...

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Originally Posted by Matrixbeast

Hibiki is in a curious position. He's a teacher to Asumu, so he was portrayed as the person who can guide him down the right path. It makes sense they wanted to write him as competent and wise. He was old enough to have made his mistakes and learn from them before we met him.

This should be more acknowledged as an indicator that naivety, incompetence, or pushover aren't inherent by-product of kindness. It's just the writing choice to portray those as that (Keiwa fits tanuki motif so..). Then again as said above, Hibiki is less well-known (CMIIW)...

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Originally Posted by Daikaijuman54

Next Episode: Will Keiwa become the Hero of Justice he was meant to be? Or will Geats steal the win once more?

He already is. Accomplishing things more would make him a more ideal hero. But, why wouldn't he be one if he didn't win or just less competent than other more morally questionable characters? He already focuses on saving civilians at games, trying to take care of the Riders' well-being, insisting DGP to be used as world protectors, being heroic isn't only about beating up bad guys or being big in accomplishment, and yeah, someone who can't fight at all can be a hero if they consistently perform good deeds still.

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Originally Posted by Mesnick

I think in two thousand years Ace also had enough time to learn from his mistakes

Enough time, but seems that he never has any incentive to do so. He's hypercompetent and is able to get anything he wants.... except flirting women so far (what he loses hard to Tendou). And of course, Tendou and Tsukasa (except photograph) has no incentive to change much throughout the main series either, other than Tendou changing his stance against Hiyori to not make her live a glided cage, as he genuinely has soft spot for her.

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Originally Posted by Sh Ranger

So far, Geats seems like an invincible protagonist due to not having taken any damage yet, but his benevolence is dubious. He's kind enough to donate a large sum of money for Taira's son's operation and save Na-Go from becoming zombie's lunch. But he's confirmed that he's not fighting for peace, love or destruction, so we're left to wonder what is he fighting for, since his written desires are merely steps towards a secret true desire presumably involving his mother. That desire will determine where his morality lies.

The talk before was about how typically it seems that more capable characters are more often given more negative traits, with the benevolent role being more often given to the more incompetent characters (naive is the 'incompetent' part). The pattern just makes it quite expected that Ace and Keiwa would follow said 2 scenarios respectively like usual. By that speaking of Hibiki it's quite surprising to me that Asumu performs better than Kyosuke on Hibiki's training.

Otherwise there are much more than desire/motive to determine where someone's morality lies, like... pretty much the list here. By this point, it seems that Ace is shown to be ruthless, this manipulation is more severe than ep. 2 one to leave someone a bloody mess without much concern of it. Even if his true desire is noble, he'd still have his ruthlessness to make him anti-heroic (his donation and saving Na-Go are the hero parts).

In ep. 3, Ace brought up about the unification of Japan being done via a bloody war, but seems that it's not just a talk (also his Julius Caesar coin), Ace seems to be also the Oda Nobunaga type character himself too, implementing cutthroat warlord qualities on someone that's still overall good guy. Seems similar kind of foreshadowing as Morio bringing up money before being revealed as illegal casino worker who embezzled money.