[DreadBringer]

Actually I'd want to reply on this topic on the oncoming latest Revice episode discussions if I got a chance (the talk that corresponds to this), but for this one I'm doing it as probably there won't be these kind of talk anymore in the future.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sh Ranger

Olteca mentioned in his backstory that due to his super genius mind, he grew up being misunderstood by everybody and abused by his jealous father, which is the reason why he became a misanthropist and joined Deadmans. I guess he's another case of Adel, or Daido, or Mika from Kyuranger Episode Stinger, where an innocent character becomes corrupted due to succumbing to despair. Olteca couldn't empathize with others, since there was nobody who shared his experience, not even the other cultists who were ostracized for other reasons. Not denying his evil deeds, but he's still a tragic character who wouldn't have ended up this way if he had been shown more love. Probably the most tragic part was that it looks like he realized too late the value of his friendship with Aguilera and Julio, before he was killed by Gif.

Oh fair enough, I did forget for a moment about Olteca's relation with others part here sorry, and yeah for this part you did view him in tragic light here previously too, and certainly there are parts of it with his parental abuse (if his father abused his mother too, it's probably not a society issue as a whole but just an individual), but otherwise Olteca's past was about having superiority complex over others due to his talents, him being prodigious makes him disconnected from others with normal abilities, like how he doesn't need school due to his genius, that shows his difference to typical humans, and he'd view other humans as worthless and foolish for that (which fuels his goal to forcibly evolve humans to 'his' level).

Though it's true that Olteca did display the negative/unpleasant side/stereotype about being intelligent, how it can give them isolation, like how studies show that people with significantly different IQ scores do have trouble relating, a number of bookish/intelligent kids being quiet and reserved, a greater predilection towards clinical depression... or even serial killers falling on the extreme ends of the IQ spectrum, also reinforcing 'unable to relate'. Olteca displays the most malicious take of it (plus the serial killer part of said example), he always knows how intelligent he is and he had grandiose sense of superiority by that, wants to put other worthless idiots beneath him... just like his father being offended with his son being superior.

I admit you did explain yourself quite well regarding him being 'misunderstood', but sorry that I had problems/triggers with the general talk about villains' tragic and/or misunderstood, like either the "wouldn't have ended up this way" you brought up here or "just misunderstood" (others also can add up "not/never evil" for this one) talk is frequently used (in my experience), to shift the blame to everyone else but that villain, like blaming others for exactly not 'giving them love' but instead "denying" them from what they want (like fighting against their schemes), and like what I said, thinking that 'understanding' them meant agreeing with them and letting the villains win and get what they want (combined with utter lack of care.concern of their victims, or treating others/the whole world as "deserving" of that due to 'not understanding them'). I don't want to immediately have apologist view on villains (that is liked by audience), and I want to focus on giving counterarguments instead to their current actions and character, explaining what forms their actions has been done far more often, also often to the point that only the backstory and what happened to them is taken into account, ended up romanticizing them as a whole.

About the flashbacks with Aguilera and Julio, sometimes KR did a bait-and-switch for characters, like the aformentioned Takeshi Asakura, who had a part of the audience being led to think that Asakura had some sympathetic traits by trying to save Akira from a fire in their house, but turns out that it's just a lie made up by Asakura and worse he's the one who started the fire, and he meant for others to lure Akira to be killed. For Olteca, he had flashbacks of him working with Aguilera and Julio, but after that, he lamented about his failure to make the world his. It means he still only cared about ruling the world, and it's required for him to work with both Aguilera and Julio to achieve his goals until they're no longer useful to him (or even temporarily re-work together due to Aguilera having mutual goals to bring forth Giff) like the time to sacrifice Aguilera for Giff, so flashbacks about his attempts to dominate the world would involve both of them. B̶o̶t̶h̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶m̶ ̶a̶l̶o̶n̶g̶ ̶w̶i̶t̶h̶ ̶K̶i̶t̶a̶z̶a̶k̶i̶ ̶a̶r̶e̶ ̶a̶l̶s̶o̶ ̶a̶l̶l̶ ̶v̶i̶l̶l̶a̶i̶n̶s̶ ̶w̶h̶o̶ ̶i̶s̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶m̶o̶s̶t̶ ̶a̶c̶t̶i̶v̶e̶ ̶t̶h̶r̶e̶a̶t̶ ̶f̶o̶r̶ ̶s̶o̶m̶e̶ ̶t̶i̶m̶e̶,̶ ̶b̶u̶t̶ ̶i̶n̶ ̶r̶e̶a̶l̶i̶t̶y̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶y̶'̶r̶e̶ ̶p̶a̶w̶n̶s̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶s̶o̶m̶e̶o̶n̶e̶ ̶w̶a̶y̶ ̶b̶i̶g̶g̶e̶r̶ ̶(̶O̶d̶i̶n̶,̶ ̶A̶r̶c̶h̶ ̶O̶r̶p̶h̶n̶o̶c̶h̶,̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶G̶i̶f̶f̶)̶.̶

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sh Ranger

I'm not saying that KR shows are wrong to contradict messages from other KR shows or anything like that, but if two messages are opposites, then it makes sense that I would lean towards the one I most agree with. Just like the writers who have their own personal preferences, it's the same for everybody else.

Of course everyone would have their preferences (I also hated the message on ep. 23 for Revice before), but prefering the messages someone agrees more is still a subjective thing, it's still based on how someone feels, not hard facts, so it's probably better to not instantly deem a message contradicting/you don't agree with as the 'wrong' one and the one you agree more with as the 'right' one.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sh Ranger

Promises can be renegotiated or absolved, but only on the recipient's terms. The promise maker is still morally obliged to keep the promise as long as the recipient holds them to it. Otherwise, it'd just be an empty word with no meaning. That's why I have little tolerance or respect for people who make promises lightly.

I know that people shouldn't make promises if they can't keep it, but people still can't see the future and I'm also against the hindsight bias view to blame people due to how to those, "they had it coming". Like promises can put someone at a dilemma, when someone wants to please a kid by buying them what they want, as first they don't know 100% whatbut turns out that what they want is something inappropriate for kids, and then both outcomes now has both something good and bad, to not expose that kid into something appropriate but would break the promise, or fulfilling the promise but poisoning that kid with the content. And like I said, promise can be undone by something out of their control like, being hospitalized due to accident after promising to attend someone's special events like graduation or such. There are rooms of improvement for those, but actually none of those are outright terrible stuff, far less than being a genocidal dictator, or even behaviors like gashlighting toxic abuse even if those are upfront. And in inverse, someone's cruelty like Olteca continuing his murder spree of the cult members, would stay cruel whenever promises are involved or not.