Dadrobit wrote: ↑Tue Mar 27, 2018 10:15 am
James Polymer wrote: ↑Tue Mar 27, 2018 4:33 am
Hulk10 wrote: ↑Mon Mar 26, 2018 1:58 pm
He is like Anakin.
More Anakin stuff.
Bullcrap.
Trace was NEVER a good person. Saria's murder and his experiments in necromancy weren't some massive, mind altering, morality destroying event, it just nudged him further towards an extreme he was already pointed at in his lifelong career of being a dick towards keidran. We see that even as a child he had zero respect for them in the way that he referred to
Rose on the gallows as an "it". Then later on after courting Saria he purchased his very own slave and got into a shouting match that "
the whole town could hear" to justify it. Furthermore, it likely wasn't
just the one slave that he owned, as Nora specifically says "the
first time [Trace] bought a slave for the house".
And as for not committing many atrocities, I suppose
these children deserved to die? And the
King's Guard?
"I'll kill you all and sort it out later."
Boy! What a protagonist!
/sarcasm
And a big thing that y'all are overlooking is that "Dark Trace" is
NOT some alter ego that was created during his rampage days that he suppressed after having his memories stripped away. It is simply Trace
as he is now AFTER losing all of his memories but then finding out
how much power he can unlock. The only influence creating Dark Trace is his own realizations of his potential power.
"I don't need anything else except these powers."
Put in short, Trace was a dick growing up, Trace was a super dick as an adult, Trace was a
murderous super dick after losing Saria and vowing hyper-revenge, and Trace is a murderous super dick now just because he's got power,
(and he thinks about Flora on occasion).
The amount of time that you praise Trace for being a "protagonist" is an incredibly short period of time, (interspersed with child murder) whereas a majority of his life is spent unrepentantly having a moral compass that reads somewhere between "worse than Keiren on a bad day" to "literally Hitler."
First off, young and adult Trace were not “dicks.” He was raised in a world where different races rarely interacted unless they were stabbing each other, slavery was a widespread and accepted practice, the default form of government was the absolute monarchy, and any discussion of "civil rights" extended only to whether someone should be tortured before they were killed. Trace was a product of his environment, as are the other members of the cast (which I'll get to later).
Yes, Trace purchased a slave. Chances are slave ownership was a sign of wealth or social status where he lived, much like in the American South before the Civil War. In any case, as I recall this was meant as a gift to his wife to help her with housework rather than a field laborer or “test subject” for magic research. His expression when Saria objected to this was surprise and confusion rather than anger, as if he had never encountered this viewpoint before; this indicates antislavery views aren’t exactly common. If you're taught from birth that segregation and slavery are right–-or even worse, supported by a divine mandate–-then you will believe it, and accept it without a second thought. Incidentally, was it ever confirmed whether said slave was kept, or whether the Legacies ever obtained more before Saria's death?
Secondly, I fail to see how Trace as an embryonic Templar was in any way a “super dick.” He was annoyed that Humans and Keidran weren’t fighting, but that struck me more as a desire to have an adventure and put his magic skills to use–in other words, how the average male juvenile has viewed war through most of human history. He was melting into a desk job and wanted something to break to doldrums; that’s a far cry from pushing for genocide. He certainly acted immaturely after meeting Saria, what with staging mock battles with Nora in an effort to impress her and causing extensive property damage. However, these actions are less characteristic of a “dick” than they are of a “horny young man” clueless in the arts of wooing and willing to do stupid things to look macho in the eyes of his crush.
Yes, Trace dabbled in black magic at the academy. This is probably the most reckless and short-sighted thing he did during this period, and speaks to a certain degree of arrogance and carelessness in his character. However, he was in his late teens/early twenties, when you know you can take on the world, and who cares what those old squares say about things like alcohol or other potentially dangerous habits. Trace was one of the most gifted and powerful magic users of his generation, and even attracted the interest of the Grand Templar herself. The guy was hot bird droppings and he knew it; surely he could succeed where others had failed, as long as he was
really careful? In any case, this was before he met Saria, and his motives didn’t seem any more nefarious than pushing himself and seeking knowledge where no-one else seemed willing. His decision to use black magic to resurrect his dead wife was influenced by his pride, to say nothing of the irrational grief at the loss of a loved one.
The effects of black magic on one's body and mind has been covered at length both in-comic and on the forums, so we'll say no more about it here. Suffice to say, Trace was not in his right mind when he overthrew the Templar and became Wizard Hitler.
Finally, racism as a character trait is hardly exclusive to Trace Legacy. When Group B first encountered Flora in the bathhouse they referred to her as an "it" as well, and continued dehumanizing Sythe even
after he risked his life to save them during their village's destruction. (Even before that, Maren and Karen refused to serve Keidran in their tavern.) Kei came from a slaveowning family and abandoned his friendship with Flora when it became socially unacceptable; though he made amends with her, he still hates wolves with a passion. Eric is a freaking slave trader who actively subjugates his property's free will with control spells despite considering Kathryn part of his family. Mary Silverlock, the humane former Grand Templar, only saw fit to stop an innocent keidran girl's lynching after discovering her boy-toy was connected to her in some way. (Furthermore, despite forgiving Euchre and having a hybrid daughter she still considers Keidran "[their] enemies"). And that's not even counting the non-human cast. Zen and Natani had absolutely no problem killing anyone who wasn't a wolf, and Keith hated Keidran to the point where he
attacked Flora within 5 seconds of meeting her. Flora herself initially planned to seduce Trace to kill the Grand Templar, and still has issues trusting humans after what she and her family went through. Even the wise and worldly Lady Nora mentioned dragons view mortals as "low folk," initially referred to Flora as "that thing," and couldn't be bothered to stop her mentally damaged friend from slaughtering Keidran by the wagonload. Are we to condemn all these people as well?
I am not a white knight for Trace Legacy; the man has done terrible things and has a great deal to atone for. At this point my views on him are “ambivalently sympathetic,” and everything will depend on what the man does moving forwards. If he cuts and runs from his problems despite seeing all the suffering his actions have caused (and continue to cause), then he will get it from both barrels. If, however, he takes responsibility for his actions--whether he was in his right mind or not--and tries to make things right, then he will have earned his redemption.
"Human salvation lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted." - Martin Luther King, Jr.
"The mark of a truly wise man is that he acknowledges when he doesn't know @%$#." - Me