[Demi.]

Originally Posted by Top Sergeant

I love Raphtalia. How they portrayed her story and bacjground was sorrowful but beautifully done. I especially appreciated how she recovered the remains of her friend and took them out of that horrible dungeon.

I mean, that is part of this episode. I think it conveys what type of character Raphtalia is pretty well. She's very strong, determined and smiles in the face of adversity. Kick her down, she'll rise back to the top. She values her friends more than anything else, but revenge does not change what already happened. Raphtalia hates Idol with all of her being, but killing him wasn't the best solution if you consider her character.

However I hated what the writers did to her in this episode. "I have killed someone" Wait a minute, what the heck has she been doing for a dozen episodes? Killing things!

Surely there is a difference between killing mindless monsters and killing actual people?

With all the ambushes and attacks by human men at arms recently at least a few had to have gotten slain. And even in the end the writers had to whitewash Raphtalia by having Idol alive and have a monster finally kill him. It is beyond reasonable credulity for Raphtalia, who has been trained to be a warrior by harsh methods, forced to overcome her distaste for blood, who has repeatedly taken lives, to not strike down a person that she knows, not guesses but absolutely knows with every fiber of her soul, is a man who is an absolute mortal threat to Naofumi, Melty and herself; in fact she absolutely knows Idol would gleefully torture them all.

In the LN and manga, he dies the same way as the anime. She did try to kill him in those instances but he fell through the window and was thought to be dead.

I'll repeat again. Anime Raphtalia has not taken a human life. It even shows her using the blunt side of her sword on many altercations with soldiers.

However, she did consider taking Idol's life, but Naofumi's speech gave her time to rethink her decision and calm down. Because she would be killing him out of anger in cold blood(he was disarmed and begging for his life) Raphtalia's intention was to make him pay for his crimes by being turned into a higher authority. It's something Melty could have likely helped with. It may be idealistic on her part, but it fits her character in the anime.

Then the writers gave her the line "I won't be like you". Argh, no, Raphtalia, even if you cut his head off and roll his corpse into a ditch you could never be like him, someone who kills for sadistic pleasure. There is no possibility of any equivalency there and to even suggest it is ridiculous.

I think she said that because to kill him at that very moment would be to kill a defenseless person. He's a massive POS but it doesn't mean Raphtalia needs to stoop to murdering him. I definitely wouldn't blame her if she did, but it's not the only solution to the problem.