7th annual Halberd reopening conference, colorized.
(ID and reference under cut)
a redraw of this pic
[IMAGE ID: A color illustration of Meta Knight and Susie Haltmann from the Kirby franchise. It is a redraw of the “Short Tyler1″ meme. Susie is holding a microphone and speaking to an off-screen audience. Meta Knight is looking up at her with his fists clenched. End ID]
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I might get torn apart for posting this, but imo it must be said.
To make it crystal clear, I don't excuse Susie's actions in Planet Robobot. But I don't excuse Taranza's actions in Triple Deluxe either.
I think people in the Kirby fandom infantilize Taranza way too much.
I am not joking when I say that I've seen people go as far as to say that he was "never a villain in the first place". That he's "innocent".
I'm sorry, but that's just flat out wrong. He was objectively the villain during Triple Deluxe. "He was just following orders!" is not proof of innocence when he was following the orders of a dictator. Taranza was a dictator-enabler. A dictator's right-hand man. That's not innocent. He lowkey kidnapped people in the name of this dictator.
Who knows what he could've done off-screen during the game while dragging Dedede around with him... probably could've tormented a lot of unshown Floralians while Kirby was trying to stop the takeover.
I also believe that Taranza loved playing the villain. He looks incredibly smug while dragging Dedede around and provoking bosses into fighting Kirby. Not to mention the very things that he says in his monologue right before he uses Dedede like a puppet to fight Kirby.
.... So much for the claims of "never a villain in the first place".
I very much believe he's reformed (Susie too, tbh) but I wish people would stop totally erasing his actions and pretending he did no bad.
This is not meant to demonize Taranza in any way. It's just... I absolutely hate that people treat him like a poor little innocent baby while simultaneously treating Susie like an irredeemable, unforgivable monster. They committed very similar crimes, but somehow get treated like they're opposite ends of the spectrum morality-wise.
Now, when comparing them, Susie is indeed the worse of the two overall, because her actions were done on multiple planets vs. one country. But that doesn't change the fact that it's still hypocritical to treat one of them like they're innocent while demonizing the other.
Regardless of the different scales of their crimes, they're both ultimately just second-in-commands to corrupt higher-ups that then helped give Kirby something to fight the final boss when it mattered.
I like to think that Taranza and Susie are both rather morally grey people with good and bad qualities. To me, they're friends with Kirby now, but they still have flaws despite not being as bad as they were before. I'd put Magolor on the same boat alongside with them too.
Taranza can both have grief and still have flaws. And I think Susie 100% has had grief for her dad too, even if she's less open about it.
One of the reasons why Susie discourse is so aggravating is because people simultaneously downplay and infantilize other villains, especially Taranza. People are hypocrites. I bet people wouldn't give a crap if Taranza or Magolor were to turn Meta Knight into a robot.
I get why the colonization and capitalism themes for both Susie and Planet Robobot as a whole can strike a nerve to some people and elicit discomfort, but I don't really think that warrants a massive and unfair discrepancy to how she gets treated compared to the others.
While I can get why those themes can make some people not like her as much as others, I don't think it makes it fair to treat her like an unforgivable demon because her villainy happens to be more real.
Just because the others are less real doesn't mean they're innocent.
The double standards suck.
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