Quote Originally Posted by Raqrie_Tohka View Post
For real life, what I think is soldiers don't need our pity and empathy for losing nonexistent "purity and innocence". They need our respect and acknowledgement.
I don't feel like it's quite right to bring soldiers in as a comparison to what the Warrior of Light does. It's almost universally accepted that when soldiers kill in the line of duty, they are not murderers. The ultimate culpability lies with the folks who deployed those soldiers; they are the ones that bear the burden of responsibility. Soldiers, as a part of their training, are broken down and built up to be weapons; when a soldier kills, they are the weapon, and the ones giving the orders are the ones pulling the trigger. So, even if you buy into the idea of purity and innocence, that purity and innocence is NOT lost when a soldier kills. (Naturally, there's some grey area; soldiers are expected to balk if their orders are particularly heinous. But that grey area is incredibly subjective.)

The Warrior of Light, however, does not get this pass. While they do cooperate with the Scions, they are their own agent, and are under no obligation to do what they do, in the way that a soldier is obligated to follow their orders. They act because they choose to do so. I don't mean by this to suggest that the WoL is a murderer or an evil person, but they ARE bearing a great deal of responsibility that a rank-and-file soldier wouldn't be expected to bear.

Of course, there are some who would argue that a soldier has both the right and the responsibility to walk away at any time, and therefore DOES bear the full burden of responsibility. It is notable that very few of the people who argue so have ever been soldiers themselves...