[Tong]

Originally Posted by Marvelous Cnidarian

Second, I've read a little of the LN. I'll try to say what I want to say without spoiling it and getting this post deleted. Beatrix in the LN is a charismatic leader who views authoritarian state control as the most efficient means of surviving a very, very bad situation. She's not a complete monster and is always trying to justify her actions, just like real evil people did. In a way, she's not totally wrong. Desertions really hurt the DDR, especially ones involving TSFs, which are in very short supply. Furthermore, she hates Axmann, because he's off the wall evil, rather than being pragmatic and is absolutely horrified when she finds out Schmidt's plan. She was believable in the extent of her evilness, and her and her men carried a certain degree of guilt around their necks. I could get into the small glimmers of good she does, like not purging someone when she was ordered to, rescuing someone else from Axmann, or saving everyone's butts at certain points in the storyline, but they verge too much on spoiler material. Additionally, if you take into account that she's the main love interest and heroine of the prequel story, it becomes clear that she's more of a tragic character than the hatesink the anime wants. Most of the scenes the anime has to trump up her vileness are anime original scenes anyways. Don't misinterpret me, she's still very bad, is still defending a horrific regime and serving in a terrible organization, and still does terrible things, especially towards the finale when she grows increasingly desperate, but she isn't the smirking stasi sadist the anime portrays.

So basically, communist Meiya?