I'd kinda like to apologize for my previous post in this thread. It was really fangirl-y. My only excuse is that I had just read Tokyo Babylon and X, and was riding high on pure fangirl joy.
I don't think Seishirou has ever been evil in a CLAMP manga! His behaviour has always been subject to circumstances....Sakurazukamori, vampire hunter...
I think it all depends on his life in all the mangas...on how he's brought up. If brought up to think power is good, that's what he'll think. If taught that emotions are weakness, then he'll be emotionally stunted.
But never evil. He didn't hurt Syaoran until he got in his way, ne? He doesn't hurt people just for fun....definitely not in Tsubasa, at least.
It's taken me a while to respond to this, but I thought I would now.
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CLAMP's view of morality has always been very individualistic; what's 'good' and 'bad' depends greatly on what the exact situation at hand is. Yes, I believe that X/TB Sei-chan was emotionally scarred and traumatized from his childhood. In TB/X, he was raised to be a sociopathic murderer from birth, and he became a sociopathic murderer. His mother was also a sociopathic murderer who had him kill her when he was fifteen. And CLAMP takes this into consideration. I think he loved Subaru, or, at the very least, what he felt for Subaru was the closest he could ever get to love. Seishirou was extremely obsessed with owning Subaru. Their mutual love/obsession is actually the scariest, most powerful obsession I've ever read of in any anime/manga, much less seen in real life. That obsession, according to CLAMP, is why Seishirou had Subaru kill him; so that Subaru would always belong to him and only him, because of the connection that would created between them by the murder. But CLAMP makes a very big point in X that everybody, no matter what they have been through or what they have done, has the capability and right to love somebody else. (For those of us who have read X, the point isn't just made in Seishirou/Subaru relationship, but also in the Nataku/Karen relationship.) When Seishirou tells Subaru that he is incapable of love or of any emotion whatsoever, we are not really supposed to believe him. CLAMP clearly believes that NO ONE is incapable of love or emotion.
I see Seishirou as CLAMP's testing of their own philosophy. CLAMP has many times espoused (I love using that word) the belief that everybody has the equal right to determine the course of their own life; you should choose your own path, and follow that path no matter what anybody else says/feels. You can see this again and again in Tokyo Babylon, X, and most recently in xxxHOLiC. Seishirou does exactly that. He says that, if every choice is equally valid, then death is just as valid as life. Does he fit in CLAMP's philosophy? Yes. Is he evil? Yes, I think so. Does CLAMP see him as such? I believe so. But neither they nor I believe evil is inherent; evil, just like good, is all about choices.
Given that, Seishirou's actions in TB/X are still not excusable. Seishirou knows full well that his actions are wrong. He tells Subaru when they first meet that his (Seishirou's) heart is the exact inverse of Subaru's, who is pure and kind. He tells Hokuto when he kills her that he does not deserve her trust. Clearly he does not consider himself innocent or blameless in what he does. He is under no illusions about himself. He just doesn't care. He was taught to kill, true, but even when he has a choice of killing or not, he chooses to kill. Only once (in TB/X) does he choose not to kill: Subaru.
I personally think that in Tsubasa he will, in a sense, end up as evil; at worst, he will be a stumbling stone. I don't think he has any connection to Fei Wong Reed. At most, his connection to Yuuko is that he sold her his eye. He's just out to find Subaru; that is his only desire and goal, his obsession. Whether he's out to kill Subaru or marry him and have lots of smex is still up in the air. (Personally, I vote for the second option.) But in all fairness to Sei-chan, Syaoran is also out only for his mission. I think that that's Sei-chan's purpose in Tsubasa; to serve as a counterpoint to Syaoran, and have us ask ourselves exactly how different Syaoran actually is from Seishirou. (One of the scariest threads of thoughts I've ever had is what exactly Syaoran would do if he had choose between Sakura or his other traveling companions. He clearly would die for Sakura, but would he completely abandon Fai and Kurogane for her sake? Probably. But I'm getting off topic.)
