My Midnight Thoughts

I honestly have no idea what on earth they’re doing with Blood Shepherd at the moment. 

Like, they’ve suddenly decided to give him like, three episode in a row with a massive focus on him, and each one is a duel. First Ema, where we got some back story, proof he has some semblance of a heart; then against Revolver which was basically like watching a cat play with a mouse b/c really Revolver isn’t going to lose to anyone aside from Yusaku unless it’s plot relevant; and finally he’s gonna fight Lightning next week for some reason (which again, I doubt he’s gonna win, you don’t skip all the work to get to the big bad and then actually win).

It feels like they’re, trying to set him up for some kind of arc (of what kind I do not know). The problem is, I just don’t care. He’s an antagonist but he’s not, likeable. Or particularly interesting.

Revolver, Specter, the remaining Knights of Hanoi, Lightning and his crew, SOL Technology? All likeable and/or interesting and I want to know what their deal is/what they’re doing.

But Blood Shepherd? Watching him get curb stomped by Revolver (and eventually by Lightning cause let’s face it, there’s no way BS is beating him, that’s Yusaku’s job) is more interesting.

Like, when he was first introduced I was interested, curious even. Who is this mysterious bounty hunter who takes no shit, has a history with Ema and Akira (and KNOWS who Ema is irl) and who despises AIs? What is his motive, what does he want to do, what is he going to be. I was interested in him up until his duel Takeru. Then he revealed he’s nothing but a fucking asshole and I lost all respect and interest in him.

I know, he’s an antagonist and antagonists do problematic things. Specter and Ryoken have done problematic things and I still like them. I expected him to do crappy things. I just, expected him to also have a tiny amount of human decency. In all honestly, I was hoping that, when he discovered that Soulburner was in reality a deeply traumatized teenage boy that me might have second thoughts about what he was doing. In fact there are a multitude of things that Blood Shepherd, ruthless bounty hunter and AI killer, could have done that would not have felt, particularly out of character.

-He could have decided to stop and just leave, taking with him the knowledge of who Soulburner was irl and come up with a new plan to get his Ignis that way.

-He could have fought anyways but WITHOUT using Takeru’s deep rooted trauma against him.

-He could have look conflicted for a few moments, trying to decide if he should continue with it or not before ultimately going through with it (it’s still pretty bad but at least showing that he feels conflicted would have done wonders for his character)

There are probably other things he could have done but instead he decided that digging up a teenager’s trauma and then using it against them in a duel so as to literally paralyze them with fear so he could win, was acceptable.

1) that’s just shitty. And 2) that tells me he doesn’t think he could win in a fair fight against Takeru and that he NEEDS to resort to cheating and dirty tricks to beat him. Which uh, doesn’t give me much confidence in your character buddy.

And the whole thing is extra shitty when you consider that Takeru is 16 and BS is a grown ass adult (probably at least Akira’s age, so at least 10 years older than him). Kids being shitty to each other is one thing, but an adult being shitty to a kid is just, extra levels of horrible(that’s why I can deal with Specter even though he was shitty towards Aoi, there’s no sense of, power imbalance there since they’re both 16, if Specter had been like 10 years her senior then yeah it would have been super shitty). Also it doesn’t help that he did this to my favourite character either.

So that makes it extremely hard for me to give a shit about him aside from ‘when is he leaving’ and watching him get his ass kicked. He’s just ‘revenge revenge revenge’, daddy issues and anger issues who doesn’t care who he hurts so long as he can get revenge, with no redeeming qualities (I mean heck even his DECK is boring, for godsakes one of his monsters is a Roomba with a gun). You can have a revenge driven character and still make them, interesting. And not a fucking asshole (look at Yusaku).

He COULD have been really interesting but I just, can’t bring myself to be interested in him. Or to like him.