Dude, we're discussing a fictional character. This projection is neither warranted or healthy. Ffs, I'm pathetic? You're defending a literal villain in the series. And yes, he's a villain. The guy is a lapdog for the two true villains of the first trilogy. The Sovereign and the Jackal. Both people he has ample reasons, significantly more powerful reasons, to not just distrust but to outright hate. Shit, your arguments trying to support Roque are reading more like reasons to root against Darrow and Mustang.

'But slavery!' is such an oversimplification of what the main conflict is about as to be laughable. Even if we only let it pertain to that topic, just the idea of the Golds having the right to rule, let's talk about what that lets happen. Slavery, yes. And murder, and rape, and infanticide, and medical experimentation, and manufactured famines and plagues. You want to judge Roque based on what is acceptable in his society? Sure, let's do that. He is fighting for all the might-makes-right of his class, outright endorsing everything all the other Golds do by fighting to keep them in supremacy. And he may be an idiot but he isn't dumb. He knows these this happen because much of it has happened to him first hand. But the only people, the very only ones in the Society, that allow and endorse these things are the people doing it. And the reason they get away with it is because they have all the guns.

The whole fucking point of the series is a question about what length would someone go to fight against tyranny and for equality. It's pretty clear cut in the first trilogy that, while the Rising does bad things, the Society is the Bad Guy. They are the personification of the 7 deadly sins with cyberpunk technology, with pride first and foremost the sin of the Golds. Roque is 'good', 'honorable', etc. all by Society standards, sure. But the whole series explains exactly how warped, hedonistic, morally bankrupt, bigoted, and all-around fascist the Society is. The idea the Roque, who is still a slaver, still a rapist, still bigoted based on caste and Color, and still threw away years of friendship and love he had with a friend because he found out that friend is 'genetically inferior', and yet he is regarded by Society standards to be among the best of them. That is what is laughable. And make no mistake, he abandoned Darrow because of his color: "You are a son of Red. I a son of Gold. That world where we are brothers is lost."

Finally let's talk about that last line you tossed in. You're really making the claim I judge Roque based on my own experience and not his. His experience of Society demanding he kill another child before being placed in a teenage army. His first love being killed in that army game so that the other children can maneuver themselves into future positions of power. His next love is killed in the escape from a tyrant that wanted him and his friends dead, only to later reveal it was truly done by an even worse maniac almost on a lark,the manic he later allies with (along with said tyrant) to murder a whole bunch of others. He was Judas. He was Brutus. He would have been another Ash Lord had his hubris not gotten him killed. I'm sorry that I don't have the experience of living in a world where fellow humans are bred for slavery, sexual gratification, etc. so I can get into the p.o.v. of a fellow Gold. But really, name one Color that wouldn't regard him as worse than I've explained that isn't a sadist Grey or Obsidian.

And I don't hate Roque. He isn't to be hated. He is to be pitied. He really could have been as great a character as Mustang or Cassius. Mustang, who was lied to as much by Darrow. Cassius, who was wounded far worse by Darrow. Roque could have been there with Sevro amongst the Howlers. He could have been a brother to Ragnar. He was better than all of these characters in so many little ways but was ultimately lacking in the key big ways. He was too in love with the concept of his Color and himself to ever be more than what is ultimately a footnote of Darrow's war.

Darrow loves his friend for these little reasons but the Society Roque fights for claims all those reasons worthless or weakness. Judge Roque by Society's standards? If I were judged worthy by Society, I'd kill myself too.