Cestvs Series II: Legend of Desperate Struggle - Vol. 5 Ch. 50 - The Unforgivable Man

[MangaDex]

 

[boldmonkey]

See, this shit's the reason why I can't sympathize with Cestvs. He's a slave with no rights whatsoever, and while one second he cries about the indignity he has to go through, the next he rejects freedom with some retarded argument like this. Nero even offered to free him from slavery, and he said no. Well, he can stay in shackles willingly if he wants to, but it doesn't make him brave, admirable or anything, it just makes him a plain hypocritical idiot. Slavery is not a test of character. He's remained a slave by his own volition and derives some kind of sick self-satisfaction out of it, why should I care whether or not he remains one in the future?
Anyway, who puts only two grunts to guard a homicidal fighter, refrains from punishing him when he kills them, then immediately assigns two other grunts to him like he didn't just murder that exact number literally minutes earlier?

 

[Xazer]

@Boldmonkey
You have to remember first, Cestvs born as baby slave he doesn't understand the concept of freedom because he has never feel the true freedom ever since his first life.
His naivety came from the value of life integrated within his life. For Cestvs a slave life is a part of life he only known. Freedom life is strange things never Cestv walked upon before and there are none will welcome him if Cestv decide to go free.
The only important people he have are his master and his fellow slave boxers. Worstly, the only people made contact with him from freedom side has tainted relationship with him now, there is no a comfortable side left for Cestv (seriously, his name so difficult i am glad we only need to written it not phrasing the name) from freedsom side.

 

[VoraciousEater]

I understand Cestvs views freedom at a unique angle because of his upbringing but I wish the author wouldn't frame it as a proud belief to hold, because it makes you unsympathetic when Cestvs says dumb things with such dramatic paneling

 

[InedibleSpook]

@boldmonkey The guy who offered Cestvs freedom (Nero) did so in order to shackle him to himself and only wanted Cestvs to do what he, Nero, wanted him to do. You could argue that Cestvs could make him a better person but as far as what we've seen he couldn't. Plus you are baffled why he didn't take a proposal from a fucking criminal sentenced to death who just killed two men and tried to manipulate Cestvs through pity right besides their fresh corpses? Even Cestvs caught onto his bullshit, unlike you.

@Xazer You are wrong since there's at least Roxanne.

 

[boldmonkey]

@InedibleSpook
My fault for not being very clear: I didn't mean that Cestvs should've cooperated with Red Beard, whose plan was extremely stupid, but rather I was talking about the reasoning Cestvs gave regarding how a slave should "earn" their freedom. Funny thing about the two dead legionnaires though, is that neither Cestvs nor their commander seemed particularly fazed by the murders themselves. I wouldn't care about the lives of a couple of legionnaires either: the Roman legions raped, pillaged and enslaved systematically. Hell, by Cestvs' reasoning, a guy like Spartacus would be an immoral coward, since he "fought for the sake of running away" and thereby "belittled himself."
Red Beard is appalling, but not for murdering Roman soldiers. He's appalling for swearing to murder Cestvs for no good reason (nothing Cestvs could've done would've changed the outcome of that escape attempt), and possibly for other more heinous crimes he's been implied to have committed in the past.

 

[InedibleSpook]

@boldmonkey Well, I see your point, and while Cestvs's preachings might get annoying, he isn't exactly wrong about how the only thing he really knows is boxing (though now he should proudly consider himself an experienced digger too) so him wanting to accomplish something significant with what he can do is understandable. That and he was a slave since he was a baby, so I don't think the author wants you to 100% support Cestvs's ideas. Plus he already saw one small slave uprising and didn't like the results, so that proved to him that his way of earning freedom is better too.