How tf would merlin know she would save those people I think u got timelines fuked up the people she saved thousands of years later has nothing to do with her greed for more power. Show me were in this scan that she did it to save people no she did it cuz she was greedy for more power or else she wouldnt have played 2 gods like that hence why she is gluttony. I agree that her saving people and stopping the commandments later on made her a better person but saying those actions in the past for anything other than greed doesn't make sense it says she wanted gifts of her liking knowing each side would want her as her own and knowing damn well there will be consequences.
Obviously Merlin can't just see the future, so sure, that does put her whole decision in a worse light. I agree with you a bit more now on that but it doesn't change that she still seemingly got much stronger due to having moves like Perfect Cube that can block almost anything when her normal power level is limited. What threw that all into being nonsense was her BS power scaling where she is suddenly omnipotent with Double Impact and arbitrary limits of Infinity and so on. So overall you could say Merlin did a pretty criminal thing in choosing to do something she knew the gods would exact vengeance for, even if she wasn't the one to do it herself.
But how in the world is it equally bad for Merlin to be greedy and to let others get killed by the vengeance of the gods which they would often exact on other innocent people either way whether Merlin did anything or not, compared to Zeldris openly genociding tons of people and destroying their souls? That is not equivalent at all. Although Merlin's motives for getting stronger are important too and I would say her decision could be more evil as a result. For example, if she did all this for the sake of helping Elizabeth/Meliodas/etc win the war and prevent humans from either being exterminated or becoming slaves, it makes more sense and is morally more justifiable, but if she originally did it for the sole sake of her own greed, I agree that that's a lot worse.
Again tho, even that is nothing compared to the mass genocide Zeldris and Ludociel planned on doing. Also it would be better if you put such big pictures in spoilers so it's easy to read your post at a glance, but it's not a big deal.
youngodin said:
Meliodas was known to be ruthless and did not care about people's lives even stated by the demon king himself to be the most ruthless and evil knowing zeldris exist well whatever here are the statements.
The reason why they did way less than meliodas are the statements from the scans above by estarossa and the demon king himself the most "ruthless,disregard for life and evil " statements when the demon king and estarossa know monspeit,derieri, and zeldris exist.
To be honest Nakaba is so vague with Meliodas's lore that it's very hard to get a clear picture. Remember he has also stated in other panels that Meliodas always saw the war as meaningless, but did it out of a sense of duty. Those could technically overlap in him being 'ruthless because he saw that as his duty', but it's still somewhat contradictory. As far as we know, Monspiet/Derierre weren't doing the same things back then of mass genocide on all civvies. Yes, Demons ate souls, as shown by the flashback with Garan asking if he could eat Elizabeth's souls, but they did not initially plan to mass genocide every other race. So the ruthlessness of Meliodas does not necessarily mean he was doing the same kind of thing as Derierre and the rest are doing in the more recent holy war arc. It just means he killed people without hesitation, not that he was killing innocents who were not part of the enemy armies. He might have been more of an evil character back before Elizabeth met him but the way he was after that was different.
Plus, can you really imagine Nakaba showing a flashback where Evil Meliodas ate people's souls before meeting Elizabeth? Like it's just not gonna happen, Nakaba would never do that, just as he would never give Zeldris the same treatment now that he's determined to make zeldris 'good'. Zeldris 'merely' ordered that to be done en mass, he didn't do the dirty deed himself. The 'meliodas is most powerful ruthless and evil demon' stuff is mainly for Meliodas Wank purposes in showing how strong he is and making him look cool.
youngodin said:
This is a good point but it is possible that this happened when he met Elizabeth meaning he wasn't fully on their side seeing as how they state this happens right before his betrayal.
youngodin said:
Never said zeldris was good Yeah that is evil and ruthless for zeldris to do apparently way less less ruthless and evil than meliodas stated by the demon king and estarossa. Meliodas was redeemable even if he was stated to be the most ruthless and evil leader of the ten commandments.
I agree to some extent on the vagueness and weirdness of this but it honestly may be due to the 'change' in the war. Like, Meliodas was the most evil and ruthless, but that was before the Demons were hellbent on mass genocide of all their enemies. Upon which Meliodas turned traitor and Zeldris took over as the one willing to enforce the DK's goal of genocide. So while I agree that it is way too vague and Nakaba should clarify the lore, I do think Meliodas is not supposed to have done the same sorts of things that Zeldris was willing to do, and that the DK was willing to do. As he is supposed to be better than them and have turned good and so on to be a good guy or else the whole lore makes a lot less sense. Maybe Evil Meliodas let other Demons eat souls of the soldiers of their enemies in battle as Garan's statement in 'Ten Commandments vs Four Archangels' showed that as 'normal', although that too might've been due to the shift in the war towards a genocidal focus. But I do know for sure that he at the very least didn't want a mass genocide way back in the original holy war, or he would've just ordered it, since he was the leader of the ten commandments.
youngodin said:
My point was not that they should all be executed My point was that they all did shitty things fuked up things and wanted to make up for it I agree with you on gowther but my point still stands with Meliodas and Merlin they are not gonna take out the MCs little brother if so nabaka has balls. Meliodas is stated to be the most ruthless and evil of them all before he met Elizabeth and is somehow redeemable.
OK let me try to understand this. You basically agree about everybody but Meliodas and Merlin. But Merlin is nowhere near as bad as Zeldris and Ludociel and the SD and DK with their mass genocide goals. She was greedy and let other people take the fall for her, but it is just nowhere near as bad. Unless you are going to argue that it is as bad. Like, would you punish Merlin in any way for her 3000 year old crime if you were Bartra? Do you think Elizabeth/Meliodas/Drole/Gloxinia should have refused to accept Merlin on their side because of what she did? If you think nobody in any group should have punished her then I fail to see how you disliking what she did means anything, when if you were one of the characters, you would not want to do anything about it. And to be honest, it seems like her getting the Dark arts of the Demon Realm was pretty worth it, with how much Perfect Cube made her way more powerful.
And as for Meliodas, you are just going with a vague statement that does not prove any specific atrocities which you are assuming it does. And there is strong reason to assume he didn't do any massive atrocities despite how 'evil' he was supposed to be, he was just ruthless in killing his enemies or toying with them in battle. There is never going to be a flashback panel of Meliodas eating souls lol. Or of him killing a ton of innocent civvies. It just isn't in line with Nakaba's characterization of him, he was always supposed to be somewhat opposed to the war even when he was 'evil'. Just look at scenes like him saying he never acknowledged the DK as a father.
You are just assuming Meliodas did something utterly irredeemable like Zeldris because he was said to be evil and ruthless. We know he looked down on humans as lowly and vile as shown in his fight with Escanor, but there is no evidence he committed mass genocide upon them and intended to destroy their race. Nor is there any evidence he even ate any human souls or those of other races including Goddesses. All you have is headcanon which is contradicted by the facts available. I can agree somewhat on cases like Merlin being morally debatable depending on how you interpret it, but none of these characters really deserve to be killed. While Zeldris honestly does. The 'literally Hitler' argument is simply true with him, assuming my 'Piety mindcontrol' headcanon is false, which it probably is. He literally orders mass genocide on screen. If that doesn't make him evil and deserving to be killed then I don't know what does. What, is Meliodas supposed to spare the Demon King and Supreme Deity too?
Now I realize that at this point in the story it is 100% impossible that Nakaba will ever kill off Zeldris and everything shown indicates that it will never happen. Meliodas will never seek vengeance against him and the humans will conveniently forget about all the evil he has ever done. I am not saying it is going to happen, I am just saying that the Zeldris Redemption Arc either never should've happened, or Nakaba should have made him a mindcontrolled slave via the Piety commandment and so on forcing him to obey the DK's will. Like what would you do if you were Meliodas? Would you want to spare Zeldris after he turned that evil?
Meliodas's line of thinking right now lol:"Ok, Zeldris was going to genocide everyone including Elizabeth, but it's cool, who cares about any race but Demons anyways. All's well that ends well right?"
Just seems too ridiculous to me. I know this is a shonen but come on, there is no way he should be forgiven after all he has done. He is the MC's little brother, so by Nepotism he gets to be cleared of infinite war crimes? K then.