Do you consider Rowd a villain or not?

Ask questions about the personality and backstory of the multitude of characters in the Suikoden series.
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Sasarai10
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Re: Do you consider Rowd a villain or not?

Post by Sasarai10 »

sticky-runes wrote:So a character who sentences you to death twice is preferable to characters who literally give their lives for you? I'm glad I'm not your friend :|
Well....it's just me then. Anyway Gremio/Lyon had this super-annoying characteristic i despise in humans. Being ridiculously overprotective to the point you want to strangle their necks.... :|

Not to mention you had to carry them in your party wether you wanted or not....
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sticky-runes
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Re: Do you consider Rowd a villain or not?

Post by sticky-runes »

I might drop gremio for Humphrey or Lyon for zegai, but those are trustworthy characters. Characters who aren't perfect and have made mistakes but own up to them and devote their strength to your cause. There's no way I'd pick someone like rowd to replace them.
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Sasarai10
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Re: Do you consider Rowd a villain or not?

Post by Sasarai10 »

sticky-runes wrote:I might drop gremio for Humphrey or Lyon for zegai, but those are trustworthy characters. Characters who aren't perfect and have made mistakes but own up to them and devote their strength to your cause. There's no way I'd pick someone like rowd to replace them.
Actually Prince could use the fact that Lyon belonged to the Nether Gate once ,in order to kick Lyon out of his army. 8)
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Re: Do you consider Rowd a villain or not?

Post by Antimatzist »

Having a person be willing to protect you at the cost of their own life might be maybe enerving sometimes, but generally that's not something I'd kill someone for.

I mean are we seriously discussing if someone who allows the slaughtering of the kids he was supposed to protect is evil?

One of the closest real-life comparisons I can make are people who worked in the German concentration camps. Afterwards, their exscuse was "we just followed orders" without feeling that much guilt or anything. I think Rowd is similar (as wataru14 pointed out, if Luca Blight comes at you, you don't have much of a choice - but you could still try to run away if you don't want to have anything to do with it).

It all comes down to perspective. Most of the time, characters aren't really thinking about the consequences of the war in the Suikoden games. You are killing tens of thousands of soldiers during the first game - only because they are not helpless civilians justifies killing them. I think Mathiu might be one of the most pacifist characters in all the games which is funny considering he is the tactician of the rebel forces.

In the end, a lot of times the terms "evil" and "good" are what the winning side of the war decides. But in Rowd's case, I think he's evil nevertheless and even if Highland had won the war, they wouldn't build a statue for him in L'Renouille (rather, they'd kill him because he knows too much).
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Sasarai10
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Re: Do you consider Rowd a villain or not?

Post by Sasarai10 »

So do you believe if Jowy won the war he'd never forgive him?

He even allowed Yuber to be part of his army. Yuber is basically the definition of evil,he's even more evil than Luca.
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Re: Do you consider Rowd a villain or not?

Post by Antimatzist »

Sasarai10 wrote:So do you believe if Jowy won the war he'd never forgive him?

He even allowed Yuber to be part of his army. Yuber is basically the definition of evil,he's even more evil than Luca.
I don't remember clearly, but wasn't Yuber invited by Leon? I don't know how much Jowy knew about his backgrounds. I mean even we do only know very little about him.

And it'd depend on Jowy's style of ruling if he'd forgive him. But if you take real-life examples such as the Soviet Union, they killed the early leaders of their movement because of (potential) power struggles within the country. It'd make sense to silence Rowd so the real reasons behind the Unicorn Brigade Massacre will never be known.

It's similar to the Kalekka Incident, the public only knows what they should know. But then, the leaders behind it weren't executed but rather went into "hiding" themselves.
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Re: Do you consider Rowd a villain or not?

Post by BrucePrintscreen »

Dudes, you'd better hope my wife never gets cancer, otherwise I'll slaughter my entire neighbourhood and trigger a nuclear war if it can allow me to pay for her cure. That doesn't make me evil, right?

Actually, my wife loves me very much, that's a bit suffocating sometimes, I should just kill her and invite that horrible spoiled princess who annoyed everyone at my school to live with me instead, after all, she treated me and my friends like shoot, she's exactly the kind of person I need around.

Seriously, that topic...
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Sasarai10
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Re: Do you consider Rowd a villain or not?

Post by Sasarai10 »

Ok i got your point everyone.

No love for Rowd. :(
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Re: Do you consider Rowd a villain or not?

Post by sticky-runes »

If I was gonna take anyone from highlands side it would be culgan. He needs to stop hanging around with that twat seed and get himself a nice boyfriend.
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Re: Do you consider Rowd a villain or not?

Post by Antimatzist »

Sasarai,why don't you rather explain why Rowd should be loved? Without comparing him with other characters.
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Re: Do you consider Rowd a villain or not?

Post by Sasarai10 »

Antimatzist wrote:Sasarai,why don't you rather explain why Rowd should be loved? Without comparing him with other characters.
First of all he's WAY underrated and undeveloped. He vanished suddenly in the middle of the game,his major battle stats were crap compared with other Highland generals (ATT 8 DEF 5)...and he was giving the impression his military career was a failure. Even at some point he mentioned "it might hurt my career as well",which probably means he had failed multiple times.

We don't know exactly what happened to him once he retreated from the battle against Kiba and not even anyone among Highland generals questioned "Where's Rowd?". Some people say he fled south,and others say he was fired from Highland army. Basically it seems like he was being ignored among other Highlanders as well,and he didn't have the chance to explain his true motives.

edit: Found the screenshot:

Image
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Re: Do you consider Rowd a villain or not?

Post by Antimatzist »

I think this picture sums up his motives perfectly. He just wants to get a high rank and a good life.
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Re: Do you consider Rowd a villain or not?

Post by wataru14 »

He probably just deserted from the army and went into hiding. With Luca Blight out of the way, Rowd knew Jowy would be in charge of Highland after the wedding. Once that heppened everything was over for him. Rowd not only tried to kill him during the Unicorn Brigade Massacre, he also was about to sell him out to Luca for letting Riou and Teresa escape. There's no way in hell Jowy's going to let Rowd's career go forward after that. If you try to kill your boss, he's not going to be too happy with you, is he? He got out while the getting's good.
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Sasarai10
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Re: Do you consider Rowd a villain or not?

Post by Sasarai10 »

wataru14 wrote:He probably just deserted from the army and went into hiding. With Luca Blight out of the way, Rowd knew Jowy would be in charge of Highland after the wedding. Once that heppened everything was over for him. Rowd not only tried to kill him during the Unicorn Brigade Massacre, he also was about to sell him out to Luca for letting Riou and Teresa escape. There's no way in hell Jowy's going to let Rowd's career go forward after that. If you try to kill your boss, he's not going to be too happy with you, is he? He got out while the getting's good.
I see....so you believe he was afraid of Jowy and he left?

There's a rumor about it indeed...but still nothing's verified about Rowd's mysterious disappearance. Last time you see him is after defeating Kiba. That was before Jowy's coronation wasn't it? So where he was after Kiba's defeat and before Luca's death?
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Re: Do you consider Rowd a villain or not?

Post by wataru14 »

Culgan, and Seed weren't there, either. Nothing mysterious about it. He's not present during Ridley's interrogation, either. Rowd is captain of the 4th Company, which is probably the lowest-ranked one. Which is why he pretty much just sits around in every battle not doing anything unless you engage him. When Yuber and Sasarai showed up, Rowd's JV squad was probably sent back to Greenhill to play defense.
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