Or something like that. What I dont get is that I dont think he does swim against the current. In fact, he swims with it, using the very tools of manipulation and deceit that the rest of them did.
Agreed, haha but I guess that's the thing about hypocrisy, you yourself are usually the last one to realize your worldview carries with it a double standard. I will say I think when talks about "the stream" he's referring more to the class divisions and biases than he is to the tools used by those individual classes. Let's face it, the Hokuten, Nanten, Shrine Knights, along with the Death Corps and all the other "freedom fighters" and radicals trying to escape oppression from higher classes use manipulation, the only difference in Delita's case is that he used it successfully. Ultimately I think "swimming against the stream" means he had bigger plans than being a token charity case for some noble family, or even a powerful leader in the church; he had his sights set on the greatest prize there was in Ivalice (debatable, of course, but in his eyes the greatest).