Board Thread:Speculation House/@comment-14138255-20160110165745/@comment-26872876-20160111071333

73.Anon.52 wrote:

Grimmstride wrote:

Urano23 wrote: When did Yang hurt his pride? It's pretty clear he wanted to lose that fight and even if he didn't throw the match, he didn't seem upset at all about losing in the last episode.

The only time he seemed mad for losing was when he attacked Yang and that was a hallucination. This^

The only way that idea really works is if his pride was hurt because he had to intentionally lose. But I don't see Mercury having that problem. Professional pride... have you never done a shoddy job? Even when intentional, it rarely feels good to underachieve. The fact he doesn't show this annoyance outwardly is immaterial, he is a professional killer who was told to do nothing, yet he went to the stadium anyways... the exact same orders we know he was under when he and Emerald killed Tukson.

There's a difference between an intentional shoddy job, and perfectly executing orders. He's an assassin, it isn't like he could kill Yang on the stage. So the idea of faking his loss hurts his pride doesn't come across for me. He voiced he had no problem staying under the radar, smiling while working on his leg. Nothing suggests his pride has been hurt at this point. It's not like his orders were literally, "You're done. Do nothing." It was more like, "Stay out of sight until the plan starts."

Now, I could see him wanting to kill Yang as the plan goes by to show her his real talent. But that feels more like a natural choice of self confident Mercury than, "My pride as a killer has been damaged."

But hey, that's just how I see it.