Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-67.70.92.41-20151228204640/@comment-27402462-20160224215045

ChishioKunrin , y ou wrote "Gee, which do you think would piss people off more? I don't know how many times I have to say this (I've felt like I've written it a thousand times and then commenters say that I'm claiming the exact opposite).
 * Yang loses and hits Mercury in the leg and walks away, but Mercury is perfectly fine.
 * Yang wins and hits Mercury in the leg, "BREAKING" HIS LEG, causing him to scream out in pain and collapse onto the floor."

In either case, if Yang LOST or Yang WON, Emerald still could have tricked Yang into attacking Mercury and seriously INJURYING HIS LEG. The outcome of the fight does not seem to matter at all when you put it in that perspective. This is my main argument as it could explain why Mercury turned his back if he knew, remembered, or cared for that matter, that the buzzer needed to go off. If this was the case, he wouldn't care if he let his guard down for a second.

You also wrote " Then, as he turns to face Yang,  he's smiling ."

 I've watched the clip. He wasn't smiling when he turned around. All I saw was a look of surprise in his eyes just before Yang attacked.

A Wikia contributor , you wrote  "You are also making assumptions that Mercury did not know Yang's semblance something season two clearly showed him and the entire team tracking down important fighters and discovering their semblances."

The only fighter I recall them studying is Pyra's. You make a good point with Ruby's semblance, but knowing someone's semblance and being able to defend against it are two different things (remember that Ruby was able to get back Mercury on the second try and went after her to ensure she didn't get the chance to interfere with the match). I would guess that if Mercury knew her semblance and really wanted to counter it, he would have killed her before it could activate (he couldn't very well do that in the competition, but outside of it he could if she interfered).

You also wrote "Between permanently crippling a fighter versus and just being a bad sport the former is going to cause many more visceral, and more importantly Grimm attracting, reactions. So for there to be that reaction, Yang would have to attack someone while there aura is gone. That means Mercury cannot win for the plan to be as effective as possible."

You can be a bad sport AND  permanently   cripple a fighter. Like I said in my other replies, it seemed to make more sense to me that Yang would attack after losing, as there is a clear motive: she's mad she lost. In either context of her winning or losing, it's a horrible thing to do. As for the aura, it wouldn't come into play. As far as the audience is concerned, Yang attacked after the match while Mercury was off guard; in their minds, this means he wouldn't be able to use his aura to defend himself and Yang's weapon does not rely on aura to fire (at least I don't think so) so it wouldn't matter if she was out of aura.

If you are going to reply, please read the comment first. I know I already wrote that originally part in a previous comment and I again had to explain it here. I said before I acknowledge the fact that Mercury very well could have thrown the fight; I'm just arguing there is a chance, no matter how small, that he may have  genuinely  lost.