User blog:NerdWithAKeyboard/PE Proposal - VIRM (Archived)


 * Original by DeltaHorizon020: https://villains.fandom.com/f/p/3179493162221867218/r/3179589320835375179

Alright, this is my first proposal for the discussion tab even if I already did this before with Ayush Patil and Xie'Jing. But I'll try to EP some people if they fit the criteria or not. Anyways, let's start with one of the villain that I discussed in TV Tropes and it's from one of the popular anime of 2018 and it's called Darling In The FranXX... The candidate in question? Named Papa/VIRM. A user of TVT, Sanfranman91 helped me with my EP and this is also the one that I'm going to post in here. Without further ado, here's my first EP:

What's the Work
Darling In The Franxx is a 2018 science fantasy romance anime with mecha elements. The story is set in a distant future in a world ruined by war and magma extraction. In this grim setting, humanity lives in mobile fort cities called "Plantations." Managed by a mysterious organization called APE, these plantations are often targeted by creatures called Klaxosaurs. To defend the plantations, APE made the Parasites, children who live inside the Plantations and don't know the outside world is, and send them out to fight against the Klaxosaurs by piloting robot called FranXX. For the Parasites, their only purpose is to fight so piloting FranXX proves their very existence.

The story mostly focuses on the Plantation 13 and one of its Parasites, Hiro, who used to be known as a prodigy for fighting against the Klaxosaurs. A certain event causes him unable to piloting FranXX, and he thought that his existence was unnecessary. However, one day, a mysterious girl with horns on her head known as "Zero Two" appears before him.

Alright, I mentioned in the brief summary that the Plantations and the children were led by a mysterious organization called APE and its leader is referred by children as Papa, the candidate that I'll bring to you all today.

Who is Papa, and What Has He Done?
Papa is the leader of the mysterious organization known as APE and is the figure who controls the children in the Plantations. However, Papa has an interesting twist: he is a member and a leader of an ancient Hive-Mind known as VIRM. Before Papa came to control the children, he used to go to other planets as VIRM's leader and tried to force living creatures in said planets to be assimilated. If they refuse, he and the VIRM will eradicate all life on their world. This brutality was shown in flashbacks when the Klaxo-Sapiens (the Klaxosaurs' progenitors) civilization was devastated by a war against the VIRM. As a result of the war, the Klaxo-Sapiens retreated to the depths of the Earth, where they either converted themselves into "magma" (a fictional energy a la oil, NOT actual magma) or mutated themselves into becoming bio-mechanical weapons (Klaxosaurs).

As the time went by, VIRM disguised themselves as a cult known as APE that claimed to be the savior of humanity to subjugate mankind. To this end, they invented a technology based on magma to promote immortality. Because of the overwhelming demand for immortality, the humans exhausted magma on Earth. The extraction of the magma turned the planet into a barren wasteland and made humanity a target for the Klaxosaurs. And this is where Papa/VIRM step up claiming to be the saviors of humanity by designing the technology for the FranXX and the Plantations to assimilate humanity and to combat the Klaxosaurs.

As Papa, he's a bit extreme to say at least. In public, he presents himself as a benevolent leader of the cult and is worshipped like a living God by the Parasites. If a Parasites rebels against him or underperforms, however, there will be a severe punishment like a memory wipe or "pruning", being forcibly placed into cryo-storage.

Episode 13 reveals the former happened to Hiro as a result of Papa's iron-fist control over the parasites. In a nutshell, Hiro rebelled against APE when he found a young Zero Two (a human/Klaxo-Sapien hybrid) being horrifically tortured and experimented on. He broke her out of the facility and attempted to escape to the outside world, where he fell in love with her and promised to marry her after their escape. Unfortunately, Papa orders his troops to capture them and has his team forcefully erase their memories after their capture. He went from bad to worse in Episode 15 where he orders the Plantation 13 and the other squads to fight against a giant Klaxosaurus in order to overtake an area known as Gran Crevasse. Now, this may not seem so bad at first. However, the way that Papa counterattacking the Klaxosaur is horrible because he ordered Squad 26 to act as suicide bombers and detonate most of the plantations to stop the Klaxosaurs attacks.

In Episode 18, it's revealed that Papa ordered his scientists to erase Mitsuru and Kokoro's (Hiro's friends and the series' BetaCouple) memories after The Nines's (Papa's special squad) leader Nine Alpha reported that Mitsuru and Kokoro were getting married. Then, in Episode 20, Papa reveals his true identity to the rest of the APE members before absorbing their consciousness after the Klaxosaur Princess (the leader of the Klaxosaurs) gets the Star Entity, a weapon that could destroy the VIRM. Papa then decides to destroy the Earth because of the Klaxosaurs' and the Parasites' refusal to be assimilated, before the VIRM attempts to infect the Apus. This kills the Klaxosaur Princess and forces Zero Two to sacrifice her soul to save Hiro and force Papa to retreat. This leaves Zero Two's body as an Empty Shell and drives Hiro into space to save her.

In the final battle, Hiro and Zero Two's soul merge together as Strelizia True Apus and tries to stop the VIRM and its fleets once and for all with a Klaxosaur bomb that could destroy their forces in one fell swoop. Unfortunately, after Strelizia's arm breaks off in the ensuing fight, Hiro and Zero Two crash the Strelizia into the bomb to set it off and die in the blast. While the VIRM planet gets destroyed, however, Papa and the Vice Chairman survive and get away with everything. We last see Papa mocking the souls the Official Couple broke out for returning to their bodies and threatening VIRM's return when humanity evolves to their peak. Fortunately, however, both Hiro and Zero Two are reincarnated. So... hooray, I guess?

How Does He Hold Up to the Series' Heinous Standard?
Baseline standard? Papa/VIRM obliterates it with flying colors. From mass genocide of an entire species, plantation explosion to countering with Klaxosaurs, brainwashing, forcing some species to assimilate with it and so on, so there's no issue here. However, the main problem is his mitigating factors that I'm about to address.

Freudian Excuse/Mitigating Factors
Alright, here's the tricky part of Papa/VIRM being qualifying for this criteria. The main issue relies on the Well-Intentioned Extremist argument that VIRM/Papa had and the Hive-Mind nature that surrounds them.

Okay, so Papa/VIRM believed that many people need to assimilate with them because they pitied the other species commits something such as war, crime etc. However, I'm not sure if I buy the WIE argument. The main issue is that VIRM forced the entire species to assimilate with them otherwise the planet will be destroyed. The fact that they wanted to destroy the Earth because the Klaxosaurs leader took one of their weapons to destroy the Klaxosaurs for good out of spite, only further undermines any potential WIE that they had IMO. So, at the end of the day, I think the argument about Papa being a WIE is invalid...At least in my opinion.

Also, let's talk about the Hive Mind mentality that the VIRM had: I felt that they both had the same thinking and treated as an individual rather than a group like in Naraku's case. Because I feel that both Papa and the second in command, who are essentially VIRM in disguise, have the same thoughts and feelings. So at the end of the day, I'm torn on this one.

Final Verdict
He's the one I'm on the fence on. On the one hand, you can say yes due to VIRM's extremely petty motives and the brutality they unleashed on both Klaxo-Sapiens and humanity alike. On the other hand, you could say No due to the various mitigating factors that they had. Until then, thoughts?