Stop, stop. Firstly, I don’t really understand what exactly will ruin Vanessa’s life, sex with an older man? It would even be interesting to watch. I still don’t see any arguments in favor of leaving everything as it is, folding my paws and ending up living with an asshole who strokes his daughter’s hand while hitting on her mother. As for Vanessa, neither you nor I have a good picture of what kind of person this is and what his motives are. It's simply not in the text of the season, so naturally my assessment is based on its manipulation.
Separately, I will note that you instantly gave the label to Brenda, probably because her husband cheated on her and she acutely perceives reminders of this.
Is this assessment, like, better than Bella's assessment of Holgerson? Ok then.
The fact that he is her boyfriend's father and they share the same social circle that will definitely be affected by this news. The fact that this news will embarrass her in front of her and Mario's friends, her classmates, her father, her sister. These are the obvious consequences that immediately come to mind. But who cares that she slept with the father of her boyfriend, right? She should just cut off all her old contacts, move to a different city and start a new life. Anyway she will be fine. Easy-peasy.
I've already given you the argument. Amber is a mature, educated woman who is also a psychologist. She can handle this asshole who it's not even safe to say actually lusts after her. And we never saw him hitting on her.
I didn't gave Brenda any labels, Bella gave her labels. She said Brenda would be easy to manipulate, she said Brenda was innocent.
You are shifting focus from their perspective that I gave in the paragraph you quoted to our perspective. It doesn't matter what picture of Vanessa you created in your head at the end of the game, this was originally about how Nika and Bella see her before Nika meets her and why exactly he decided to abandon the plan with her. We can't judge the characters' actions by bringing in their defense information they didn't know or consider when they committed their act. Follow the internal game logic. By doing the opposite, you create a false picture of their motives and the reasoning they make up for themselves at a particular moment.
Why do I need another argument for myself?
This is something like a game of deep psychology, if I understand correctly. Then everything is much simpler - I don’t like arrogant people who pose an existential threat.
Let's assume the situation. You want to take some action, for example, climb the career ladder. Someone else is standing in your way, well, competition for a place. You know that your opponent is cheating and decide to set him up or simply tell management about exactly how he does it so that the place becomes yours.
But you have never seen this person before and here is your first meeting. On what basis might your opinion change (or, conversely, remain the same)?
I suspect you'll apply the same rules I apply to Vanessa. And you will absolutely not care about the shape of her ass or the presence/absence of heterochromia.
So my opinion is based on a couple of scenes at the end of the season and I didn't like it at all. In a short dialogue while changing clothes, she literally tries to get into the protagonist’s head, which would also cause antipathy in me.
I wouldn't apply the same rules to Vanessa simply because I (as Nika) don't know she's cheating. In the example also you (as a player) can't know she was cheating when you decided to set her up. You didn't play the game backwards, from chapter 5 to chapter 1.
Vanessa wasn't even cheating in the first place when Nika and Bella came up with their plan. She was probably sitting in Starbucks, drinking her cappuccino when some blonde approached her and offered to become her friend with malicious intentions. She didn't invite Bella, she didn't even care at all about her and Nika.
Your entire argument comes down to her being an arrogant manipulator with unknown intentions. Meanwhile, we have two arrogant manipulators with known, obvious evil intentions who see her as the same easy victim as Brenda (don't forget about their perspective).
So my opinion is based on the whole season and I didn't like them at all. (actually, no. I liked them!) During the whole game they literally use a woman who was innocent from their pov and tried to make her sleep with the guy. (I liked it too!) But of course she was even worse because she was trying to get into the mc's head (duh!).
In the context of the dialogues written by the author, Nika’s reluctance to continue what she had planned with Vanessa was dictated, in my opinion, by something else. Getting used to Bella's company.
But you can interpret this differently. Only in my opinion this is obvious.
Everything here is so simple that it’s strange to discuss it in a serious conversation. He simply has more screen time in the season (probably this has something to do with the fact that Nika is the protagonist).
Everything is indeed simple. All three of them are manipulators.
But this is interesting, by the way.
I can give you an example of an anti-hero driven by logic and skill, whose actions are reasonable and deliberate, whose goal is likely to be largely justified. The so-called "ambiguous" anti-heroes.
Good Philadelphian Clyde Shelton.
Remember who it is? I strongly doubt that you will be able to justify his actions from the point of view of law and logic (although it depends on whose), but hardly from the point of view of morality.
What's the point of your example? An antihero describes the general characterization of a character and their role in a story, not their personality. They don't necessarily have to be reasonable or emotional. They're all different. Antiheroes are not created to try to justify them.
As for Nika and Bella, they are classic 100% antiheroes.
The point is that I don't need to justify anyone. I can either understand and accept the action/character or I can’t. There is no additional subtext here, I don’t like those people who deliberately do crap knowing what it will lead to.
You sure don't.
Anyway...
You're talking about justice for Nika and Bella with absolutely no regard for the people who get screwed by them. You could have just said, "Fuck the Holgersons, fuck Brenda, fuck Vanessa. I just like Bella and I like Nika." Instead you're practicing some pointless mental gymnastics calling it "flexible morality". Even a flexible morality should have some rules attached to it, some order that applies to all characters. Including Bella and Nika. But all your flexibility is focused only on getteing their asses out of the hit.
