[DreadBringer]

Sorry for the late and longpost, but...

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Originally Posted by Mesnick

Well, Michinaga is a concrete example of just such blind cynicism. In fact, he and Keiwa are two extremes, which is why even their desires are directly opposite. It is not clear why you then unconditionally believe him in Shiro's characterization.

I don't know if you're agreeing with his views, but my point was that you can ironically acting like Michinaga in this talk for your assumptions and downplays here, including extending to adding some headcanons to make Ace further look terrible. I don't believe Michinaga in Takeshi's characterization, which is why I replied about other Rider's genuineness here, which you're pulling similar thing to Michinaga for other Riders without "noble occupations" like firefighter in Takeshi.

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Originally Posted by Mesnick

Well, I'm on hiatus, so I don't know how often and in what context the rescue of the Sae family is discussed. But I can definitely say that you are wrong. The Ninja buckle could only be obtained by saving another rider, so helping your comrades is fully justified and beneficial in the DGP.

Fair enough, then it'd be not guaranteed benefit unlike civilians, because it's wholly unknown and so far none of the Riders have precognition so it shouldn't reduce the validity. And should a little, likely chance to get benefit from this discourages helping them (who doesn't get reset unlike civilians) for "genuineness"? And they're their rivals, won't letting them die if you can benefit as they'd deal with one less competitor? Damned if you do/don't for cynical views. The shitty part of Ace's Ninja Buckle part was about how he sets up the mission itself by getting another Rider severely injured for that, which'd be more like Morio setting up the attack on civilians to save them and get points, but saving missions can be done without that setting up move, like ep. 21's civilian mission to just, well, save them.

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Originally Posted by Mesnick

Personally, I perceive Neon as an anti-hero. She is capable of both selfless deeds and cruelty. After all, directing Keiva to the mines, Neon definitely could not know that there would not be a bomb in the traps, after which his pieces would be scattered all over the street. That is, Ace couldn't shoot Girori's PunkJack, and even almost Jamato Michinaga didn't kill other riders (again, from what I saw). While Neon could very well have caused Keiva's death and certainly caused his injuries. So everything can be expected from her, especially considering that she won?t win either for plot or moral reasons.

Yeah, she had done bad things in ep. 22, but the part of her directing suspicion to Ace though. But the DezaStar mission cards shouldn't being ignored for leading Keiwa to trap part, they're forced to perform mission cards as the rule in ep. 20 stated, DezaStars aren't free from terms and conditions, thus it's not that easy winning as DezaStar as thought - I think actually the easiest way is to never perform any griefing at all to other players, but ofc, the mission cards give more challenge to actually perform the job while still not being noticed. To keep holding principles while performing the missions, she can fulfill the forced missions by doing the bare minimum to technically fulfill it, to be limited on hindering fellow Riders to an extent, like throwing the bomb only once to hit Riders but not cause much injuries to them.

And the Riders aren't as fragile as normal humans like you think of how being caught in a trap would get them instantly killed. Traps itself also don't necessarily mean insta-death and can only mean to hinder their chance to win the round. And even for the worst case scenario of it probably killing she can jump in to save him (not negating the DezaStar missions but a counter against the view of her would be willing to let others die you suggested). People like Keiwa has no obligation to grief like that, but at least he'd vote out other Riders as it's forced for all Riders, he doesn't like, vote himself. In that position though he won't like it he might be willing to perform the missions in bare minimum way and act if things go south.

But anyway, it'd be actually not anti-heroic (as them overall, but only briefly for her) when someone does bad things only when forced into extremely difficult situations, and ends up regretting it, while under most circumstances tries to not do bad things or minimize it. It's important to look at the character as a whole of their good deeds vs their bad deeds (and then factoring in WHY they did bad things); like there's a difference between someone who consistently kill anyone 'bad' in cold-blood, and someone who disagree on killing bad ones but at one point is forced to do it due to the situation, while not liking it and regretful. It's context that really weighs the scale in either direction. Losing her wish permanently (+DGP memory wipe) would make her stuck living like what's seen after her elimination forever, otherwise she tries to be upright as she could, and when she have to resort to underhanded means she'd still feel bad about it. Not only cherry-picking certain actions for both good/bad sides; as in treating only paragons as straight heroes and only people as horrible as Isaac or Beroba evil/villains, and lump everything else together.

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Originally Posted by Mesnick

Disagree. There is a difference between giving a couple of thousand from your account to charity and getting another person out of a burning house. And the first cannot be called heroism. This is no doubt a good deed, especially if done from the heart, but there is no heroism in it. Heroism does not require suffering, but it does require risk. For this is what distinguishes a hero from just a good person.

For superpowered beings, doing the "getting another person out of a burning house" will also put no risk on them anyway, like how they themselves would be invulnerable to the fire, but the normal people on those house won't and thus they're doing good by helping others who don't have similar luxury to them in the same situation.

I know courage and determination (which'd be why risk is often elevated) is often the traits used by people to talk about heroism, but I personally won't follow that. Because risk (w/ courage and determination) can be used by super persistent villains by plowing through any odds, enduring/resisting any fatal punishments without taking any breaks for dedicated pursuit of their goal sonce they set their mind to it (and on some occassions they got glorified as heroes for this trait). The difference of "refusing to stop at anything thrown at them" for the heroes is that it's done for good deeds, which I'd conclude this means heroes are good guys - as in how they're broadly defined - but to me the specific definition would be someone that has positive qualities and consistently do good deeds. Consistency is important as, villains doing a single good act, even self-sacrificial one, won't put them on the same place as heroes in morality - looking on the character as a whole.

About only counting the risky ones, this can be why something like beating up bad guys is so elevated as this is done by fighting superpowered villains that'd put their lives at risk, but this'd sound like the view where heroism is limited to fighting (or similar big ones), when the world is full of people who need healing, care, love, compassion and help outside of monster fighting stuff - I'd value how much and extensive they care for. This'd be why I value the parts like charity (of which both it and saving lives can be done together) because it shows how they care more than just keeping people alive but also improving their lives, other than how the risky part also shows they care enough to put themselves at that situation for other's sake; I'd place as high regard on Yuusuke's child consoling as much as Grongi fighting. Thus I'd encourage the display of many morally good trait and deeds in addition to risky ones for heroism.

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Originally Posted by Switchblade

Yeah. The approach the show took of focusing more on Keiwa and Neon is interesting, but it does leave us with a more distant understanding of our actual title character.

I personally would disagree with those 2 getting more focus, or at least recently/so far. The bigger focus seems to go on Ace's mysteries and also how Michinaga deals with Jamato faction (this happens since Divergence arc too). Those 2... doesn't even get further upgrades like the other 2 (yeah the Jamato Buckle for Michinaga) which gets them tossed around more recently.