SPOILER Fruma character rating/ranking bc I was bored and yes

... they are practically siblings in the nature of their relationship, if not just close friends. Same with Sui and the rest of the Leaves. Very family-unit feel.

 

While that is true, I've rated her higher because of her complex morality. The Queen is fundamentally the root of not only Gikyo's personality and wrongdoings, but of the entirety of the problems in Fruma. However, she doesn't act out of evil, she tries to make Fruma a good place, however she tries to without succeeding, being inevitably blinded by her nature of being the embodiment of war. At the same time, her intentions regarding the War of the Realms are better than both Orphion's and Saphanis', she wants to bring balance, to make the beauty of the world shine, to do good, in a way, yet again she is limited by her nature. (I feel like her additional titles we see in WTP really do a good job summarizing her character, especially 'Destruction Unwilling'). Also just for comparison I rated her lower than Two because despite all of this the Queen still actively makes Fruma a totalitarist regime, while Two, having basically the same morality, is more 'passive' and at times I feel she doesn't even think all of the Queen's measures in Fruma are necessary.

Gikyo on the other hand never acts for something you could call 'good'. One could bring up similar points as for the Queen, that they're limited because of their troubled past, but 1) unlike the Queen, again, Gikyo doesn't act for a greater morally admirable objective and 2) as Deusphage pointed out, while the changeling program played a huge part in shaping their personality, they chose to be as evil and sadistic as they are.

Majin is a scumbag for all of the reasons you listed and maybe even more, however I feel like he is not as evil as Gikyo. The Highlands are populous, the effects of his actions are probably, in a sense, amplified by that, in contrast to the small Mistwoods population. Majin truly is the stereotypical asshole and egoistical politician and yes that makes him evil, however Gikyo has something more because of their outright and boundless sadism. Compare True Colours with Overture to Despair. in the former quest, Gikyo kills Mora cold-blooded and in front of his sister, implies that they cared more about the enjoyment of a slow and agonizing kill than the information they were supposed to get out of him, and clearly says they appreciated torturing Rex and Zeph. In the latter quest, while Majin also mocks Rex and Zeph, he's much more tame towards them, doesn't seem to be interested in torture, and we learn that the information that was supposed to be extracted out of them was already known. All of this isn't good of course, but compared to what Gikyo did... (also actually already in True Colours they say that Majin told them to stop torturing Rex and Zeph at least)
For sure, to me, Gikyo is the one who comes out as more evil and intimidating

 

Highland being sucessful was the work of those before him NOT Majin himself. He only handed sliver plate of already managed Highland, he even make it WORSE by literally taking the people ability to give input. The reason he is not that bad to people of Highland because it literally does not require him to put into the work to manage Highland. Highland already good by the time he arrive unlike Zhiraok who have to put up the work to rebuild Auburn's infrastructure. Majin is a manifestation of mispotential. YES he capable doing so much more but his life never demand as such, this reflect upon his blessing. His blessing is cosmic magic yet literally NOTHING in Fruma demand him to actually use it until the story of the game. He literally become more of a threat to Fruma if he actually use it which is why the Queen told him to not use his blessing. So in essence, he might as well not has any blessing.

Another thing, if we saying Gikyo being sadism. This sadism likely born from their frustation against human treatment toward changeing. What does Majin has for excuse to tormet a girl in his university and perfectly fine with wiping out a blloodline with smile on his face upon being approve of? Literally family feud. If Majin has a chance, he probably would fucking do worse to Nasin than what Gikyo did to the Leaves if he actually has a go by the queen. EVEN THEN Majin told Gikyo to stop torture Rex and Zeph because they were keeping them instead of handing Rex to Majin so Majin could bring her to Highland to keep her house happy. So literally EVEN THEN, Majin stopping torture only for his benefit and he probably would have left Zeph there to be torture if it was not for Rex.

Gikyo can be view as a victim of the system but Majin? Majin is the product of the system that will ensure the system stay that way and stay ignorant to the suffering like those that turn Gikyo who they are.

 

YES Jiro DID have a good jusification for his protrait and that is because he in fact got replaced by changeling in echo of change and you can see the different between his intital protrait and his changeling protrait. SO YES Jiro has a role in the story as a minor character who set up the foreshadowing of Changeling of the mistwood. SO YES he has a reason to exist and not having his trait being put on Yulie because then if Yulie taken that role, it would be weird if Yuman and Yusano did not make a big deal about their big brother being fucking killed in the alley. Jiro is there so someone could be replace by changeling without the effect of his death trying to take attention in the plot later on in which there already is a lot that need attention.

 

No no wait when I talked about Highlands being populous I wasn't attributing a merit to Majin, rather the opposite, because the fact that he rules over a populous district naturally make his wrongdoings affect more people

The rest of your points are very fair tbf. However I still think Gikyo is the one presented with a higher immediate emotional impact; in True Colours I felt disgust towards them in a way that Majin never did. But yeah it's also fair for it to be an 'immediate' thing and the situation is deeper when you think about it

 

Wait actually?

 

Jiro before Echo of Change


"Jiro" after Echo of Change

 

Nah man, he was just walking through Mistwoods and found an out-of-place Canned Abis plant!

 

Oh wow
I kind of figured he was the one who sold the Steel Feathers out in Echoes of Change, but I guess it'd make more sense if a changeling did that. Let's add this to the list of "plot points likely to be resolved in the Wastelands".

 

Right after EoC I was wondering if it was Mora till he got captured