That was just stupid. Even if the president is a magius etc., that *everyone* falls in line like that. Only explanation is that everyone is brainwashed.
Assuming that at like 5 people in ARUS know about magius (and thats generous, given that even e.g. K12 and the others don't know about it in Dorssia), they see a broadcast by Dorssia that supposedly proves that the Valvrave pilots are immortal. But: Dorssia just *hacked* that line. It was (officially) not set up. And: Dorssia is (officially) ARUS enemy. Why believe that without further prove?
Next: If the broadcast is actually true, which they should very much doubt, it just has been proven that a sword through the heart doesn't kill them. Saki was shown to be fully conscious just a few seconds later. So how would shooting them actually help? I mean, it might be worth a try if you believe yourself in a trap by monsters, but they were like "They are immortal, lets kill them".
And then that guy that was shot first didn't get up again. It wasn't even brought up! If before they were just following orders, the common soldier should have his doubts by now. They could always cover that up somehow, too, and order them to shoot the rest, but it wasn't even brought up.
There's also a big leap between one person being (supposedly), per hacked video broadcast of your enemy) immortal, and all Valvrave pilots. And an even bigger one between Valvrave pilots and the whole population.
Then the common population of Jior believing the Dorssian broadcast, too, despite their friends, class mates and relatives getting slaughtered by Dorssia and Jiors new ally ARUS. And they never had heard anything about the Phantom before, but immediately believed it belonged to the Valvrave pilots all along etc., despite the fact that e.g. the Valvraves haven't been kept secret, and that everyone knew how that all happened, how the pilots where chosen - or chose themselves.
They basically discarded all knowledge, friends, memories they had to immediately believe some random guy that wasn't willing to help them for months/years, and the other random guy who attacked them out of nowhere and didn't stop since then.
And when the guys slaughtering them after filmsy prove that they know isn't true offers them to spare them if they sell out the Valvrave pilots, they believe them. And later Shoko somehow fails to mention that they have to sell out all pilots. Or is Haruto enough? What exactly makes him special at that moment? They don't know that Valvrave pilots have special abilities, and they don't know that only Haruto has the urge to drink blood. Makes no sense to single him out at that moment.
For Shoko, that they didn't tell her about the Phantom the moment they were back, and that Haruto still didn't tell her about his condition is a (barely) allevating circumstance for her behaviour, but for the general population this doesn't even factor in.
That it all was a set up from the get go is always irrelevant, because it's about what the ordinary people do, soldier or not, and that nobody at all questioned any of those big holes in the story.
Heck, even if every ARUS soldier attending that conference knew about it beforehand etc, which is extremly unlikely given that L-Elf and K-12 etc. don't know, that still doesn't explain how Iori etc. behaved.
The council of 101 is also weird. They say they want to interfere as little as possible, while controlling at least both major natiions. They say they need to destroy JIOR because they are getting too close to the backstage, but they are only getting closer because the council is constantly interfering. The first attack was that started it all, and every further just makes it worse. Had they infiltrated JIOR silently ad shipped of the Valraves in standard shipping containers, nobody would be the wiser. But no, they decided using a fleet clearly from Dorssia was they way to go. Why they had to grab the Valvraves at that specific time, and not before or later is also left unanswered so far. Clearly they fail at not interfering.
Overall just a mess story wise. Of course it was needed, things were going too well for JIOR, but all that could have been handled very differently. |