Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-23.243.83.197-20140707011600/@comment-172.249.15.246-20141219231255

Dear Mr. Demotivator ....

Let me clear up one thing: I HAAAATE Rachel (a practically universal sentiment considering she tops almost every MOST HATED character poll among on-going mangas), but I LOOOOOVE hating her. That means, I love the fact that someone like her is the chief antagonist (or at least, I am hoping she becomes a very important antagonist) of the ToG series. I love the fact that she is or at least appears to be very ordinary and ordinary-looking, because you're right -- she does "massively subvert the whole "super-powered villain" tropes that almost every series has." And I LOOOVE that, because it is reflective of real life. Take Hitler as a real-life instance, one of the greatest villains ever to come out of history: he's ordinary-looking, not even tall, not especially brilliant or a genius like Napoleon; probably the only thing he has going for him is his public-speaking skills and his massively enormous presence (based on real-life encounters I've read in history books). And yet he'd probably outrank Satan himself in the evilness popularity polls. So let's agree on one thing: we both wanted Rachel to stay in the series, we both wanted her to have an even bigger role as antagonist or anti-hero, we both wanted her to have even more screen-time (or frame-time, or whatever), but I am going to stay my ground in claiming that she is indeed evil, and that people's reactions toward hating her is well-placed or at least well-grounded.

Having said that, I couldn't agree with your claim that Rachel shouldn't take responsibility for her own "corruption" and that we ought to place that blame on Headon, or FUG, and Baam. You might as well tell us she shouldn't take responsibility for herself all. With Headon, if she didn't want to make any deals with him, she could have just simply taken the test in the first place: she saw first-hand that it is indeed doable, since Baam managed to pass the test before her very eyes. Even Headon himself said that the important thing is whether she was willing to take that first step. If you wanted to become the hero of your story then you'd have to acquire the concomitant qualities and skills to make you such: courage, determination, some upping of skills, friends and allies to help you along the way, etc etc. Yes they are cliches but that doesn't mean they're any less true. But she didn't even have enough courage or determination to try and enter that fish tank. She is always opting to take THE EASY WAY OUT: which in this case, is making that deal with Headon. And she got corrupted by FUG? I beg to disagree -- what made her appear in the FUG's radar in the first place is because she has been corrupt to begin with. FUG attempted to corrupt Baam himself, and yet Baam managed to free himself from their clutches without losing himself or any of his ideals. And how can anyone say that Baam is attempting to corrupt her?! I really honestly don't see how he is doing that or how that is even possible?! If I were Rachel and I managed to make a great friend and ally like Baam who is loyal and also crazy-talented, wouldn't the most natural, rational, and efficient thing be to get him to help me climb the tower together? Baam was very willing to do so, and that's what HE HAS BEEN DOING ALL ALONG till she pulled the ultimate Judas by shoving him out of that bubble tank. Really, I reaaaallllly don't get her.

Granted that might have been part of the deal she made with Headon, but if I were her I would have F-offed and betrayed Headon instead of Baam. I honestly don't see how anyone could construe what she did as anything BUT evil. Wouldn't the ultimate betrayal be evil? And really, I am curious to know, what is it that you would constitute as evil? Maiming a tied-up ally by stabbing him repeatedly on the foot just because he mouthed off not evil enough for you? Milking the kindness out of your allies by pulling-off a poor-little-can't-walk-me act for 6 years and letting them do all the work and free-loading off their hard work doesn't strike you as reprehensible? Wouldn't a good person be good precisely because they're especially resistant to evil or corruption? You don't think that developing the character or skills so that you can rely on your own self and not have to rely on the easier, way-more-corrupt choice (like willingly becoming an agent for FUG or pretending to be crippled) require any huge amounts of effort on your part? That remaining good and retaining your ideals is actually the harder choice because it requires a great deal more work? You keep repeating that moving up the tower and that the tower's system is what is making Rachel corrupt. Uhmmm, you do realize that everyone in Baam and Rachel's class that we'd met in the series so far has more or less the same desire as Rachel in trying to reach the tower top but not one of them did half the evil things that Rachel did, and not one of them were as easily corrupted as Rachel, and yet they have all the same desires in trying to get to the tower top and they're moving within the same tower. So it's not the tower or its system that is at fault here; this is all Rachel.

And, uhm, "why exert yourself if you can do the exact same thing using an easier method" is the VERY definition of lazy. Sure you can study for a test, but why study when you can just cheat your way out of class? That would have been "doing the exact same thing using an easier method." Cheating is lazy precisely because it takes much less effort. It's taking the easier way out and cheating your way out. The entire purpose of developing and upping your skills through training and study is that so you'd have better chances of facing the challenges and tests as you move up the floor. Rachel never did any of that in the 5 or 6 years Baam went AWOL -- which is a waste of time and whatever inherent talents she might have had. THAT is what I find especially reprehensible -- even the greatest villains in the history of anime and manga go out of their way to find that one special weapon to annihilate the hero or trained their butts off before the face-off. Rachel literally never got up off her ass.

Even if you say she prefers to manipulate her way through the floors, what's the harm in upping your skills along the way? That can only be a plus any way you look at it. No, the reason why Rachel pretended to be a cripple is because she takes SPECIAL DELIGHT in managing to make slavish fools of everyone around her, especially a talented genius like Koon. Man, that laugh and dance number she did early on in Season 2 ought to have cemented her evil-bitch status in your eyes. It certainly did in everyone else's.

And, this:

''                Rachel ... has manipulated and deceived her way up the Tower. Manipulation and deceit takes effort; the ''

''               better you are at it, the less effort it looks like you're putting in. ''

Let me get another thing straight: I wouldn't instantly hate on a character just because they're a genius at manipulation and deceit. Koon Aguero is my most favorite character in the series even above Baam and he is a trolling-genius-king. And I mean favorite-favorite as in I wouldn't mind having his near-genius trolling abilities for myself and apply it in real life. Hisoka is also my favorite character in the HxH series (and is also very popular among fans) precisely because of his trolling skills. If Rachel was the brains behind the decimate-Koon's-team-and-get-him-to-fall-into-a-trap plot in the beginning of Season 2, she would be instantly catapulted in my Top 10. But I very much doubt it; I don't think you could convince anyone that that was all Rachel. That was FUG through and through, and no argue. Deviousness actually makes me like a character more, which is why I rate Koon higher than Baam in my favorites rankings. But all Rachel did in that operation was pull-out the same ole cry-cry-my-ugly-face act she's been pulling since Season 1. Yes, she's manipulative and deceitful, but she couldn't even be bothered upgrading her scores on that count.

And yes, I agree, a little bit of deviousness is useful and even a requirement to get anything done in real life, especially in running a government or in handling politics. This is exactly why Koon managed to seat his cousin in the Zahard Princesses' council, and why he would be very ideal and very effective in any positions of power within the tower. You wouldn't get any argument from me on that point. But can you seriously say you can actually see Rachel effectively heading any of the top positions of power within the tower, say one of the 10 families, or the Wolkhaisong, or even the FUG, and not expect that group to crumble within years, or even spell the end of the tower itself? Really, Rachel is nothing more than Kim Kardashian without the looks or the booty. You keep making her out to be a manipulative genius but she is not -- there was not one case where her deviousness is what kept things at play. We saw plenty of that in Koon, and especially in Yu Han Sung. And yet there's practically no hate among fans directed at Yu Han Sung, even if he is a top agent of FUG and the chief antagonist in Season 1. Again, the only time we see evidence of Rachel's deviousness is in her acting skills -- I VERY HIGHLY DOUBT she could have been the brains in any FUG schemes whether in the past or in the future.

And boy, you sure liked to nitpick every point I've made in my comments so far, so yes I guess I'll do the same:

                           I wouldn't call Baam charismatic by a long-shot, but he does have a quality about him that draws 

''                          people towards him. ''

I think at this point we ought to be getting the exact same identical dictionary. But let's go with the lazy route and use google search instead. This is what I got when I typed out what is charisma? on the google search engine:

cha·ris·ma noun: charisma; plural noun: charismata''1. compelling attractiveness or charm that can inspire devotion in others.'' Uhmm, isn't that what we've been getting from Baam and his friends from the very first chapters till the last? He managed to get a hothead like Yuri to part with the Black March without even trying; he made a life-long friend with Koon whose mantra is not to trust anyone; a devoted friend with the behemoth-with-a-heart-of-gold Rak; Ha Jin Sung the FUG agent practically wanted to adopt him as his son; he even managed to peak the interest of a megalomanicac like Urek, and the list would go on I suspect as we progress through the series. I personally don't find him as charismatic either -- he is too simple-minded and too transparent for my taste. But the point is that the other characters find him as such, and so in the world of ToG he is such a one. A charismatic character that is. Yes, there are few people that seem to be repelled by this "goodness" or charisma but the ones who were attracted by it were the ones with the healthy psyche, and the ones repelled by it are the ones who are slightly bonkers to begin with: the despairing suicidal Ho and Rachel-Rachel-Rachel. Which means that you basically just proved my point. And lastly, this: ''No-one said you have to be overwhelmingly powerful, amazing in battle or even outwardly amazing to climb and conquer the Tower; sure it'll probably help loads on the way, but it's definitely not imperative. Evan Edrok is ranked around 100th out of all the inhabitants of the Tower; you telling me he got there using his fighting abilities alone ? I very strongly doubt it.'' I've never said anything about Rachel not deserving to go up the tower because she hasn't got mad-combat skills. The expressed tenet of this thread was "Is Rachel really a bad person?" and that's what I try to address with my first remark. And my response was a no-holds-barred-unequivocating-YES. She is bad, she is evil -- whether or not she is unredeemable is something we'd just have to wait and see. And the second thing I try to address is why all the fan-hate towards Rachel, which is maybe not outwardly expressed by this thread but is inevitable in this discussion nonetheless. And the point I was trying to make is that there had been plenty of evil villainous antagonists in manga and anime before but they didn't inspire this much hate; and some like Vegeta of DBZ or Sesshomaru of Inuyasha to cite a famous example even outrank the MC in popularity polls; and there had been Irregulars in the tower before but they actually inspire awe and admiration among the residents of the tower instead. So why this much hate toward Rachel when in essence she is just another Irregular who is simply playing the antagonistic role and the chief motivation for our MC Baam? This is what I was trying to deconstruct with my earlier response, and so let me reiterate a few more points with this one. Let's stick to the world of ToG in my getting my point across. The Irregulars were the most famous "Rankers" or personalities of the tower because they brought in legendary awesomeness and badassery into the history of the tower; the Regulars keep retelling and repeating their exploits even if they did bring in chaos and messed things up for a while. This isn't necessarily bad; stagnancy in any system for any length of time is actually what's bad; bringing something in to shake things up once in a while actually reinvigorates the system and would be good for it in the long run. I think the major players in the tower instinctively recognize this and that is why there's instant attraction toward Baam. Why do you think major players like Urek and the Zahard princesses were always on the lookout for Baam from the get-go? If Baam is bad for the tower -- the tower which is effectively the stage they are living out their lives in -- then they ought to have killed him or kicked him out the instant they laid eyes on him. No, something inside them tells them "he's a good thing; it's a good thing he's here; let's keep it that way." My point is, being an Irregular isn't necessarily a bad thing; and I am actually arguing the point that it is actually a GOOD thing. So the fact that Rachel is an Irregular herself shouldn't inspire hate or fear among the tower residents; and yet it does. Now why is that? You keep arguing on and on about the un-necessity (may not be an actual word but I like it and it expresses exactly what I meant) of not having mad-combat-skills to become high rankers in the tower. Yes, Evan is a perfect example of that. And yes, it shouldn't spark this much hatred toward Rachel simply because she appears to be the weaklingest among the Irregulars. But what you are not getting is that us fans of the series are hating on her not because she is the weakest, not because she is an Irregular, but because she wanted to be the heroine of the story and she wanted to be the focus of everyone's attentions and she wanted the story to revolve around her and she wanted everyone to wait on her hand and foot and she wanted to be the baddest badass in the history of the tower without having ANY OF THE QUALIFIERS -- other than ambition -- to qualify her as such. This is tantamount to the lead of the school play going to the least attractive, least talented, least charismatic part of the cast. We probably wouldn't mind as much if she happens to be the most hardworking, but she isn't even that?! This is a huge slap on the face among the rest of us who worked hard perfecting our craft just so we can take center stage in the play or move up the corporate ladder. She basically got the leading role by whoring herself out to Headon, the "director" of the play. The Rachel of TofG is exactly the kind of Rachel we hate in real life, for good measure and for good reason.

Again, I cannot repeat this often enough but even though I hate Rachel I LOOOVE the fact that she is in ToG. I LOOVE the fact that SIU isn't making her out to be OPed (over-powered). I LOOOVE the fact that she isn't necessarily pretty, and is not a natural stand-out. Evil wears many faces and sometimes that face is plain and humble and ordinary. If SIU decided to off her unceremoniously in the next frame she would be sorely missed.

I think it's about time we realize that whichever side of the Rachel camp you decide to camp on tells you more about yourself than the actual Rachel herself. I have enough commonsense and self-awareness to know that adapting any of the Rachel qualities for myself would have been extremely self-defeating in the end. This is what engenders the hate, or at least my hate -- towards Rachel. It's simply a well-honed sense toward self-preservation. I think this actually applies to most of the Rachel-haters out there whether they are aware of it or not. I don't know why you're so adamant in taking up with the pro-Rachel camp, and it might be interesting to hear some more of your points.

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...... but I'd probably steer clear of you IRL.