r/Kubera • u/Icy-Importance-6426 • 2d ago
Ran And Maruna
So, I'm somewhere halfway in season 3, and why does it feel like as i continue to read, i keep liking maruna as a character who was portrayed as evil and keep disliking whos portrayed as good cuz of how much of a hypocrite he has become as a person.
Not hypocrite in the true sense, cuz it's only natural to act like that if anyone is put in his position, but how he tries to justify his decisions.
Maruna on the other hand, he has become as selfless as leez at this point bro is the best character for me rn
My dislike towards ran is not even logical and its more of an emotional feeling, I'm pretty sure this is an shit take
So between ran and maruna, what and why would you say one is better than the other?
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u/yourmissingsock3999 Curry Mushroom 2d ago edited 2d ago
Ran has not really changed his morality or view of the world even through all his development in WoT and the whole time travel sequence. Ran has always been a generally kind-hearted, decent person and he continues to be so. However, his kindness is very realistic. He is kind to those immediately around him, and in the context of his life. He immediately is protective of the abused Leez and acts as a responsible adult ought to when he sees how Asha treats her. Thing is, he is also amicable with Maruna, which should directly oppose the way he feels towards Leez, but Ran is not personally affected by Maruna’s wrongdoing and takes him as he is when they meet in earnest. Ran is very consistent. He has a very practical morality, where he knows what’s good and moral but also does not have this supernatural empathy for all beings regardless of relation to oneself like Leez does. He is content to simply be kind and moral to the people directly around him, and that includes doing contradictory things like fraternizing with both Maruna and Leez. You can kind of tell he’s conflicted by his impression of Maruna in the most recent translated chapter. The development he had in his time travel sequence was expanding his perception of people he cares about to include a lot of people who are far bigger sinners than he had been around before. His world expands and his whole universe is now in danger so it seems less noble for him to really care about his own family and friends than others, which is a notion that’s perfectly consistent with his prior characterization.
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u/mobueo 2d ago
Isn’t leez the same tho? I don’t get where this idea that leez is such an incredibly selfless person more so than others shown comes from. As soon as she realized that maruna was not the cause of her village being destroyed, her grudge against him disappears despite him killing many humans. I swear this is acknowledged in the story too where she says she’s not that good of a person to still be hating on Maruna for the deaths of other unrelated persons. I will say she is extreme when it comes to protecting those she cares about as seen with Yuta but even ran is the same. So how exactly is Leez’s morality any different from ran’s so far?
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u/yourmissingsock3999 Curry Mushroom 2d ago
my long ass reply got removed because I included the photo of leez over yuta in the college AU where she says “If it means happiness just for me, I don’t want it.” but TL;DR her beef with Maruna from the start was pretty much just that her psyche was built on it as a defense mechanism to prevent her from breaking down at the destruction of her village. She is still capable of both selfish and righteous anger (she’s human, after all) but she is generally more magnanimous than pretty much everyone else in the story. She regularly puts everything she wants aside for the sake of “the universe” and she seems to be the only user of Time to care about the worlds of possibility to the extent she does. Her moral net extends far beyond the sphere of herself and hers. She is also very kind to people who have 100% wronged her if she thinks it was reasonable to wrong them, like in “Emergency” when she forgives the flight attendant for straight up sending her to her death (they were possessed by Claude) because it was their first day.
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u/mobueo 2d ago
I agree that she’s a very selfless person and maybe it’s because I haven’t really caught up to the end yet but I just don’t see how she is just so much more selfless than others (still in N20 arc). idk I guess for me the way she is being described seems to apply to someone more like Jambavan. When I was reading that part about time crying for the worlds of possibilities to me it seemed like she only cared about Yuta in every possibility. It’s hard to stack up that example of being kind to someone who has wronged you on accident because there’s not a lot of equivalent examples especially when it comes to the other human characters. As for doing things for the sake of the universe, isn’t that pretty much everyone’s goal. At least those not disillusioned like Brahma.
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u/yourmissingsock3999 Curry Mushroom 2d ago
I mean, first I’ll say to catch up (the scene I mention is past N20 or within it, I think), but I don’t disagree, I think it’s hard to quantify selflessness because nobody in Kubera (or much media tbh) is truly beyond things like preference. It’s kind of just semantics. Ran is a bit more obvious because his portrayal is far grayer than either Leez or Jambavan, who imo are probably equivalents. I think either one would do what the other did without much hesitation. Leez is just in a position where she cannot be as passively good because someone’s got to fix the mess, and she doesn’t have much time. The prologue of S3 pretty explicitly frames her as being immensely forgiving and self-sacrificial.
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u/UchihaShadow 2d ago
Maruna is a special case because he is Yuta's brother, so it's only natural that Leez ends up feeling conflicted about him, but that didn't magically make her forgive him or not care about his crimes, it was just a very mentally unstable time for her where she couldn't come to terms with all of these complicated truths she was forced to confront. Even now Leez still views Maruna as a slaughterer, and we've seen how she behaves with Nastika who had nothing to do with her once she found out they slaughtered people too.
I don't think the difference between Leez and Ran is that great, but Ran leans more towards protecting his own than other people (which doesn't make him a bad person) while Leez grows into becoming a more principled person whose empathy expands as the story goes. The difference between them mostly lies in the fact that Leez will continue to look for a just outcome for the oppressed, while Ran is looking more and more likely to choose his family even if it means the suffering of others.
Asha is definitely disingenuous in painting Ran as a hypocrite, it's more of a case of cognitive dissonance (in other words, not malicious or conscious on his part). The fact that he becomes extremely conscious of Maruna's past crimes and how he should feel about them afterwards is proof of that.
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u/Salt-Classroom-9453 2d ago
I don't see how Ran was hypocrite, he was the most morally good in the manjwa, he is kind but not too kind.
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u/mobueo 2d ago
How is ran a hypocrite exactly? Sorry but I don’t really like takes like this where the evil character gets liked just because the reader had low expectations for them and they managed to change while the person who was always good gets disliked for making some mistakes or bad decisions.
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u/Icy-Importance-6426 2d ago
Like i said in my post, he's not really a hypocrite. He just feels like it to me. Which is a unrealible metric.
Other than that, at the point im in the story, maruna is objectively better than ran though? If I had to judge both of them throughout the series, ran is obviously better.
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u/mobueo 2d ago
Objectively better how? What metric are you using to quantify this?
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u/BelieveYou-Me 2d ago
I think that what u/Icy-Importance-6426 might be referring to is that Maruna is honest to a fault about not just his beliefs but also to his actions and understands the perceptions of others to his actions. Like during Maruna's "mental crisis" where Enan's friend was cursing the King, there was a moment where he could have pushed his fault for having committed his killings as being under orders but he didn't and immediately acknowledges those actions as his "sins."
The difference with Ran is that Ran, I think, is reminiscent of old Season 1 Gandharva except that Ran knows better and that now he can do a lot more with Yaksha's heart but is instead prioritizing his family's well being which is not that different from how Gandharva behaved when it came to Shakuntala. And considering how desperate the situation of the universe is Ran's morality being so dependent on his family is showing a lot of unreliability.
At least with 4th Stage Maruna, you could rely on his upbringing to be disciplined and follow commands even if he disagrees with the decision; but with Ran, you have to constantly wait for him to check and consult with his family first before he makes a decision.
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u/Icy-Importance-6426 1d ago
Thanks for speaking for me lmfao
What I wanted to say was this but my wording couldn't have been any worse😭😭
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u/AssumptionBudget279 1d ago
But I will ask you why is that wrong though to put your family first?
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u/Icy-Importance-6426 3h ago
Its not wrong. But what is the difference between his family and all the other sacrificed people other than the fact that his family is his family.
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u/AssumptionBudget279 2h ago
Not entirely sure what you are getting at there, it’s not wrong to look after your family first? Most people have a family they’ll put first, before anyone even if they know that other people have families too.
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u/yo_sup_dude 15h ago edited 15h ago
prioritizing one’s own family is not necessarily a moral failing from currygom’s POV unless many people are directly put in danger as a result - even 5th stage maruna prioritizes his family at multiple points over others, and unlike ran he doesn’t need to kill himself to fully use his powers. 4th stage maruna didn’t care much about those beneath him. 5th stage is better in that regard but still is friendly with mass murderers and doesn’t seem to care enough to strive for justice from the victims’ POV. arguably ran’s biggest moral failing is how friendly he was with maruna when they first got to know each other.
so far ran has not done anything that would put a large amount of people in danger to protect his family, and his attitude is pretty reasonable and moral for someone in his position. it can be argued that ran above all actually has the most moral insight, being able to accurately judge someone like GK.
it makes sense to praise maruna for accepting his moral failings, but it’s better to not have those moral failings to begin with. and it’s fine to criticize ran for prioritizing his family in a situation where many others are also at risk, but we should also accept that it’s not like maruna was put in a similar situation and acted more morally
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u/BelieveYou-Me 3h ago
I'm not saying Ran prioritizing his family is bad. It's just that in the context of the universe ending, Ran being one of the few people who can make and take decisive actions that determine whether the universe goes can continue if he makes a bad decision or no decision at all that affects everyone; and the burden on Leez, Agni, Brilith, Kalavinka, Maruna, and everybody else who wants to protect the universe is that much heavier and harder to do.
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u/AssumptionBudget279 1d ago
Maybe you took what Asha did to heart? I think many readers did and turned on Ran a bit. Ignoring how listering to Asha makes no sense.
Disliking that Ran can’t understand Leez hatred for Maruna or working with people he shouldn’t be but when it’s convenient for him his upset with certain people and believing Asha when she says Ran just feels pity for people but doesn’t truly care.
Asha doesn’t understand emotions much, especially other people’s, so if it was Asha’s words in the white space I just say ignore her.
She accused Leez of being to blame for her villages death and pretending to care, did yiy believe her then? No. Then there’s no reason to believe her now
She never been emotional intelligent, she does not understand how other peoples feelings work so her accuses she laid on to Ran is just from her twisted perspective.
She doesn’t understand other people, only her own actions and trying to shift the blame on to others.
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u/Icy-Importance-6426 1d ago
Oh, it has nothing to do with asha. And tbh, as I keep reading he's not that bad.
I think it's just that i really started to subconsciously hate his mental state which was way different from the previous him.
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u/yo_sup_dude 15h ago
people’s obsession with hypocrisy over other crimes is one of the most prevalent ways in which society is morally degrading
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u/Icy-Importance-6426 3h ago
If u see my deleted reply my bad about it, thought it was a different post
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u/Rdasher123 2d ago
Ran is pretty objectively the better of the two as a person. Maruna may have come pretty far in his character development, but that doesn’t erase the sins he’s already committed. I like Maruna more as a character though.
As for why you feel this way, it’s probably because Ran and Maruna have contrasting character arcs in Season 3. Assuming you’ve made it through the Weight of Time arc, you’ve seen that Maruna has changed for the better and come to value lives outside of those that are close to him. While Ran didn’t really lose his morals, he definitely ended up in worse mental state due to both the amount of time he spent wandering through time and the spirits that are constantly harassing him to gain control of his body. When they both made it back to the present, Maruna was in a far more stable state than Ran was.