Originally posted by: xat
Interesting how people go about defining what the "typical person" would be like. You can't justify a common mentality so simply. I'd say that pre-GSD, Kira was about as human as... well, myself for one. You're given two points of views, one person may handle the same situation differently, but it doesn't make them ... for lack of better word, atypical. I'm not sure what kind of normal society (this can vary in itself) some live in, but typical nature can be derived from the kind of atmosphere someone is brought up in.
Dare I say, Kira is just as guilty of playing the berserker role as Shinn pre-GSD. When Tolle was killed, Kira's (and even Athrun's) mentality mirrored Shinn's own: kill the enemy for satisfaction. The difference now is that you have someone who has had time to reflect on such cases; I believe Kira strikes a point of wisdom inbetween GS and GSD, whereas Shinn has yet to even stride for any such pinnacle (or realize that he may have to for that matter).
As for who is the better pilot, I certainly don't doubt Shinn's skill. He's probably hit the apex of his performance, although I'm quite interested in how he'd compare to Athrun. Athrun? Yea, well we've already seen that he's about as capable as the benchmark; when he and Kira go at it, they're in a state of brinkmanship and in one instance hit stalemate, which is rather scary. Kira still seems to be the only one who could, uh, pop his seed (eheh) at will, under little pressure and such. The others will pop under pressure or out of extreme emotional cycling. Kira was wrecked in this episode, but I don't believe it justifies the overall level of skill. Perhaps this time Shinn may have been better due to his exploiting Kira's weakness--though it is one that Kira could probably override easily; the desire not to kill costs him pretty badly. Kira factors out enormous target vs. several segmented subsystems for the sake of his opponents and his conscience. We've already seen that he'll still make exceptions in certain situations though (saving Shinn vs. allowing Stellar's rampage to continue)... I think Kira is exceedingly better, although he did get pummeled due to his weakness.
I wouldn't mind seeing Cagalli go at it again, wasn't she able to berserk during the last episodes of GS? A yellow seed? They didn't show enough of that ;-;!
On a lighter note I really like Haro^2 & Tori^2 :-)
^ [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-tongue.gif[/img]~~~~~