POST-TIMESKIP PERSONALITY

[adai]

In order to understand Rossiu's personality as it is now, one must look at who Rossiu was. In Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann there is a seven year timeskip after the initial war with the beastmen. Rossiu is taken from the end of the anime, after this timeskip. Prior to the timeskip, Rossiu was a young boy from an impoverished underground village that could only support a maximum of fifty people. The leader of the village would force everyone to draw straws whenever that maximum was exceeded, and those with the markings on their straws would go to the surface, supposedly where the "gods" lived. The "gods" in question were gunmen, mecha capable of being piloted and battled, but no one in the village knew that. Two orphans were chosen to be exiled when Rossiu is introduced, and Rossiu reveals that he's not only not okay with the lottery, but he's not really interested in keeping his mouth shut once he learns the truth about the gunmen. He goes to the surface with the two exiled children and joins the main characters.

As a child, Rossiu was very serious, often to the point of seeming stoic in comparison to the more vibrant, emotive characters that surrounded him. He was thoughtful and cautious, not falling for the tricks and traps the others did (or at least, not falling easily). He could certainly be naive and didn't know much about the world above ground, but he was more than willing to learn and change his world views with the knowledge he gained. Ultimately, he was a good guy who fought to overthrow the beastmen in order to let humans live on the surface along with the rest of the party. He never once stopped to question why the beastmen felt the need to keep them trapped underground.

Rossiu discovered (along with the main characters, Simon and Nia), that the beastmen were under orders from Lordgenome, a man who had lived for a thousand years and who knew about what would happen if humans populated the surface. He warned them that the moon would bring about their destruction once the number of humans on the surface exceeded one million, then allowed himself to die.

Those dying words are ultimately the driving force behind Rossiu's actions in the second half of the series, after the timeskip. As an adult, Rossiu is similar in some aspects; he's still stoic and doesn't emote very often, but unlike the child Rossiu, adult Rossiu has adopted a new mantra that seems to clash horribly against the idealistic boy: "the ends justify the means." Rossiu's actions in the second half of the series are not the actions of an idealistic person, nor are they the actions of a good person. He willingly throws his friend Simon to the wolves in order to get control of the government, he has an unfair trial set up for Simon and then decides that Simon will be executed for his crimes (those "crimes" being defending the city and accidentally destroying a good portion of it), and he finds a way to use technology to "wake" Lordgenome to get more information about the coming crisis. His actions are not that of a good person, but Rossiu has his reasons. He believes everything that Lordgenome said about the moon falling and killing everyone on earth, even though the majority of people who were aware of Lordgenome's dying words have dismissed them as lunacy.

Rossiu is the poster boy for "good intentions, bad execution". Everything he did was not to claim power and rule over humanity or anything of the sort; it was done in order to prevent everyone from dying. Simon was a necessary casualty in his mind. That doesn't mean that Rossiu never felt guilt for his actions. Quite the opposite, actually; Kinon points out that Rossiu was crying after the trial where he sentenced Simon to death and that he's been feeling guilty about all of his actions. He's not only capable of feeling guilt, but he's overwhelmed by it. In fact, he attempts to kill himself in a misguided attempt to make up for all the harm he caused while trying to save as many people as possible. Simon and Kinon manage to convince him not to harm himself and he recovers well enough to continue to lead humanity while Simon and the others go to challenge the Anti-Spirals.

Appearances are very important to Rossiu, though in particular how he appears to others. Even though he was sorry for his actions and loathed the things he felt he had to do, Rossiu never once appeared to be upset or bothered by anything he was doing. His expressions are naturally severe and he never really looks happy, but he never looks openly upset about the things he's doing either. Part of this is an ability to act like everything is okay even when it really isn't and part of this is again, through necessity. Rossiu is willing to do anything if he deems it necessary, no matter how much he might hate himself for his actions later. Appearing stoic and unfeeling were beneficial in getting people to listen to him and do what he wanted despite his young age, but that also comes with a major drawback: Rossiu isn't the sort to express his emotions very well in body language. If he trusts someone enough he can speak about his emotions, but for the most part he keeps them bottled up and they don't show on his face. This makes relating to him rather difficult if one doesn't know him very well.

Trust is a bit of an odd thing with Rossiu. It's obvious that he trusts the entirety of Team Gurren to have his back, but once he's in a position of power he has the gunmen they used taken away and supposedly destroyed and puts them all in positions of power that he can easily take over if need be. Simon is the only one he seems to trust a bit out of the main characters, but he's quick to throw Simon under a bus once the populous turns against Simon after the destruction of the city. As Rossiu said, someone needed to take the blame, and allowing Simon to take it would give him all the power he needed to properly look after the people. Part of this is over-confidence in his own abilities and part of it is a lack of trust for anyone else. It's obvious that Rossiu does trust those he works with, but even so he ordered them all to leave the room when he first activated the Lordgenome program. This isn't to say that Rossiu purposefully doesn't feel he can trust anyone, it's more of a subconscious thing. He trusts himself first and foremost and if he can avoid relying on others, he will. He would prefer to shoulder the work himself and deal with everything on his own.

Rossiu is ultimately faced with the same decision the village elder was faced with. What does he do with the people he can't save? Rossiu's decision is exactly the same; he leaves them to fend for themselves, essentially condemning them to die. In this case the Anti-Spirals' weapon - the moon - would fall and sear off the face of the earth, including the underground cities that humans lived in only seven years ago. Rossiu was able to save some people by escaping into space on a massive gunman Lordgenome had left behind, but he walked right into a trap. This is also an important part of Rossiu's personality; unlike when he was a child, Rossiu get so worked up by things that he doesn't consider all angles of his plan. Admittedly as a child he never was under this amount of stress, but he would have wondered if going into space would be a good idea when the weapon was out there. As an adult, he never even considered it, he just loaded the gunmen with humans and animals and took off. Ultimately Simon was able to stop the weapon and save everyone, which eased Rossiu's guilt, but he's still upset by his own decisions.

At the very end of the series, Rossiu is shown to be in charge of the government even after all his numerous screw-ups. This is very important in how people perceive Rossiu. Going back to his obsession with how people see him, people trust Rossiu enough to allow him to continue leading even after this entire mess with the Anti-Spirals. Granted, a good part of this was never broadcast to the public, but even the people who knew all about Rossiu's betrayal of Simon and his actions afterwards trust him enough to lead. Either they're all extremely stupid or Rossiu actually has some serious leadership potential. While it would be easy to write off everyone in Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann as extremely stupid, we're going to assume that Rossiu is actually capable of being a decent leader when he's not under the stress of trying to keep a million people alive. Of course, he's still young and doesn't have much experience, so right now expecting him to lead anyone would probably result in a good amount of casualties and a lot of guilt.

While he means well, Rossiu's actions paint him in a completely different light. Rossiu is a character that most people hate completely, but that's the mark of a well-written character. He did what he could to save as many people as possible and ultimately failed spectacularly. Good thing Simon was there to fix everything and didn't actually get executed or Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann would have had a very different ending. Rossiu doesn't really know what to do with his face a lot of the time and he has some difficulties trusting people after everything he's been through, but he's ultimately a good guy at heart who still carries the weight of his past deeds on his shoulders. Still, as Simon said, he's going to grit his teeth and bear the weight because giving up simply isn't an option.

✔ Leadership. While his actions weren't the best, Rossiu was capable of being a commanding presence and getting others to do exactly what he wanted.
✔ Responsible. He doesn't attempt to blame others for what he's done and shoulders the blame he rightfully deserves.
✔ Good. Ultimately he wants to save as many people as he can.
✔ Intelligent. He's one of the few people the main characters look to explain what's going on.
✔ Willing to change. Rossiu isn't stuck in his ways and once he realizes he's in the wrong, he's willing to admit his mistakes and listen to others to figure out how to change.
✘ Expressing himself. Rossiu doesn't seem to know what to do with his face most of the time and has difficulty confiding in people.
✘ Trust issues. He doesn't trust others very easily.
✘ Workaholic. Every time he's shown in canon, he's working. He prefers to take responsibility for everything and handle it all himself.
✘ Doesn't think things through. His plans could have ended better had he actually stopped and wondered what would happen if he went through with them.
✘ Terrible decisions. Admittedly he didn't really have much of a choice sometimes, but it seems like every decision Rossiu made ended in the worst possible way.