Weed's Confusing Morals

[Kuro]

Something that's always confused me in GDW is Weed's views on enemies that deserve to die.

Throughout the season, we're to expect Weed believes all dogs should live in peace and learn to get along or.. something cheesy like that. That's fine, he's a kid who just wants to make the world better. So, he spares Hougen, despite all his crimes of killings of friends, taking Paradise, cannibalism, and killing/eating humans.

But when he hears the tragic story of Kaibutsu, once being a dog but then mutated, he doesn't think he deserve any pity at all? I don't even think he hesitated or thought about it, or even SPOKE to Kaibutsu. He just immediately jumped in to help kill him. Kaibutsu took paradise and killed humans and dogs, just like Hougen.


What exactly makes Kaibutsu more worthy of dying than Hougen?

I guess we could force a thought of Yoshi showing this is Weed growing as a compassionate person, but usually characters like Weed and Gin know the answer from the very beginning and 'are never wrong'. Plus, that same day, in the manga, he allowed Sniper to die, so ... Hougen being spared is STILL confusing.
What're your thoughts? I'm not the only one who feels confused of Weed's standards, am I?

[Deleted]

This is kind of opinionated, but these are the reasons I believe weed is a hypocritical protagonist. And why he has strange morals.


-he is supposedly so compassionate and wont kill you but only if you’re 100% dog (lookin at you kaibutsu) or a completely irredeemable boss dog (after killing a bunch of underlings i guarantee you)

-is literally in love with his mom and i don’t mean he loves her i mean he took a mate who is canonically acknowledged to look just like his mother and EVERYONE noticed

-on the topic of his mom: imagines his mom puppeting back the words he wants to hear in order to justify his actions

-on the topic of his mate, he allowed his father (who he spent an entire arc trying to rescue) and a bunch of his close friends and comrades fall into mortal peril, even when they BEGGED for his help, cuz he was on his honeymoon with his mate

-remember that time he forced a horribly abused puppy to forgive his awful father right before said awful father died, just cuz weed has his own father issues and can’t comprehend not loving your parents even if they’re abusive? let me reiterate, that’s not just up to interpretation

- HE EXPLICITLY SAYS IT DOESNT MATTER HOW CRUEL YOUR PARENTS ARE, THEYRE STILL YOUR PARENTS AND YOU SHOULD LOVE THEM


-OH on the topic of mercy; would rather spare a horribly horribly probably mortally wounded dog and send him off into the wilderness to die a slow agonizing death rather than kill them himself
that’s all that comes to mind right away. i hope that’s what you wanted.

[kagetora]

A life is a life! Unless you're not 100% dog then lmao go ahead and die don't care

[Kuro]

Sept 19, 2017 16:43:49 GMT -7 @bree said:

This is kind of opinionated, but these are the reasons I believe weed is a hypocritical protagonist. And why he has strange morals.


-he is supposedly so compassionate and wont kill you but only if you’re 100% dog (lookin at you kaibutsu) or a completely irredeemable boss dog (after killing a bunch of underlings i guarantee you)

-is literally in love with his mom and i don’t mean he loves her i mean he took a mate who is canonically acknowledged to look just like his mother and EVERYONE noticed

-on the topic of his mom: imagines his mom puppeting back the words he wants to hear in order to justify his actions

-on the topic of his mate, he allowed his father (who he spent an entire arc trying to rescue) and a bunch of his close friends and comrades fall into mortal peril, even when they BEGGED for his help, cuz he was on his honeymoon with his mate

-remember that time he forced a horribly abused puppy to forgive his awful father right before said awful father died, just cuz weed has his own father issues and can’t comprehend not loving your parents even if they’re abusive? let me reiterate, that’s not just up to interpretation

- HE EXPLICITLY SAYS IT DOESNT MATTER HOW CRUEL YOUR PARENTS ARE, THEYRE STILL YOUR PARENTS AND YOU SHOULD LOVE THEM


-OH on the topic of mercy; would rather spare a horribly horribly probably mortally wounded dog and send him off into the wilderness to die a slow agonizing death rather than kill them himself
that’s all that comes to mind right away. i hope that’s what you wanted.

If I could give this post a million likes, I WOULD

I'm glad to see this list of all of Weed's faults that makes him more of a bad guy than good

To add to the list, as kagetora would love to point out, Weed would also rather fight as a one-man army to 'fail save his father' than have people who disagrees with him in his army. Dictator much?

And despite hearing about the monkeys taking pups/beating pups [possibly even his OWN brothers, Joe and Yukimura] to feed to their boss, he'd rather spare those monkeys .... because. They were forced? But still think enemies like Kaibutsu deserves death ....

Do we see this as Yoshi writing Weed badly as a wanna-be cute protagonist? Or is Weed purposely just a ... delusional protagonist that we're suppose to see through this crazy path he goes down? I wish we knew what Yoshi planned with that sort of thing.



edit:
Also just want to say THANK YOU for pointing out the horrid scene of Weed and his army allowing Genba to "be spared" by leaving him brain damaged in the wild. If that's considered okay in Weed's book, then .... wow.
Technically, Tesshin didn't tell him why "genba could no longer go into the battlefield" and Toube/the underlings didn't say why "Hougen killed Genba", but honestly that makes it more annoying because the story itself still viewed it as 'Hougen is bad for giving his brother mercy, he should have kept him half-dead like Weed totally would have'.

[alpha]

The way Weed is obsessed of his mother seems to point to the Oedipus complex, which is a mental illness that causes men to be so attracted to their mothers that they will pick out a wife similar to the mother.

[smiff]

It's hard to know what Yoshi's intention is with Weed. If we go from the perspective of the narrator in the manga, Weed is supposed to be perfectly innocent and therefore his "justice" is pure.

But his actions are clearly not always morally sound, and it becomes confusing when Yoshi seems to want to drive the point home that Weed is this ultimate symbol of fighting for peace - but then even has some of his own characters (like Kyoushiro and Orion) say how they don't agree with the way he does things.

I have no idea if Weed is written this way on purpose, but the way he ends up acting is reminiscent of someone who grew up with a lot of trauma and never really learned how to cope with it. Which... seems pretty spot on if you think about the events that dictated his young life. In any case, Weed's character was actually interesting (and flawed to a reasonable extent) until after the Monkey arc. After that, it makes me angry that none of his followers ever want to stand up to his BS because he literally puts every single one of his comrades into danger by being so self absorbed.... not to mention he ends up beating his kid (Orion) in front of the entire Ohu army at the end of GDW:O.

[kolasis]

Sept 19, 2017 16:43:49 GMT -7 @bree said:

- HE EXPLICITLY SAYS IT DOESNT MATTER HOW CRUEL YOUR PARENTS ARE, THEYRE STILL YOUR PARENTS AND YOU SHOULD LOVE THEM

I think this legitimately Yoshihiro's opinion! It's not only Weed who says the above. After Kyoshiro reflects on his tragic past, he concludes "Still, a parent is a parent." and so that his father should be respected simply because he fathered him, no matter how murderous and abusive he was. Pretty sure we were supposed to see Kyoshiro as an extremist criminal who saw the light and renounces his evil ways of beating up child abusers because... fathers MUST be respected. Yoshihiro likely subscribes to traditional East Asian views of unconditional respect for one's ancestors.

For Weed helping killing P4 while sparing the assassins, Genba, Hougen etc, I think it's partly because Yoshihiro still hadn't established a solid personality for Weed yet. Weed didn't even attempt to save him, while he tried to save Sniper later. P4 was one of the few 'villains' who deserved to be spared.

And I believe Yoshihiro intended to make Weed perfect and always right: the narration practically screams "THIS IS HOW YOU SHOULD FEEL ABOUT WEED". The fact that many of the audience disagree with Weed is due to bad writing, not because he intended to make him hypocritical.

[smiff]

Yeah, Yoshi has expressed some very problematic views on 'respecting your elders' in Ginga. I know its a 'traditional' viewpoint, but its still majorly fucked up. Still, some of his accounts of abuse are so damn spot on that I really wonder if he actually believes that.

For example:

When Jerome gets banished and Kyoushiro leaves the pack. When he comes back and Weed welcomes him without any conflict, Kyoushiro immediately starts saying "you should be mad / you should punish me" which just affirms the fact that he was abused as a child.

But then of course WEED DOES ACTUALLY PHYSICALLY HIT HIM. Which is like.... ???????????????????? yes way to just nail the trauma your supposed best friend has experienced home. I really have no idea. I think Yoshi is just an 'accidental' genius sometimes and then questionable the other times.

Weed's questionable ethics/morality is why @bree and I have actually made Weed into the antagonist in our Ginga AU/Fanfic.

[kagetora]

Sept 20, 2017 17:42:20 GMT -7 smiff said:

Weed's questionable ethics/morality is why @bree and I have actually made Weed into the antagonist in our Ginga AU/Fanfic.

Heheh that's perfect. Is that public? 

[smiff]

it sure is: silverfangau.tumblr.com/

[kagetora]

Sept 27, 2017 13:32:59 GMT -7 smiff said:

it sure is: silverfangau.tumblr.com/

Thanks I'll check it out