#tinyozlion pgw

[tinyozlion]

Zechs Marquise / Milliardo Peacecraft:  A Heel Turn for the Greater Good

Zechs Merquise is the main character of Gundam Wing. 

Ah, you thought it was Heero, or maybe Relena, didn’t you? Well, judging by the first act of the series, this is clearly not the case!  

Zechs is the very first character we’re introduced to. He’s mysterious, handsome, ultra-competent. He shows concern for civilian safety and the safety of his men. He takes personal risks, fights on the front lines. He demonstrates right away that he has a strong ethical code that places great importance on the moral conduct of soldiers. His subordinates look up to him, his superiors value and respect him. We get all of this in act one of episode one.

Absolute hero material, so far! Hard to see why he's being framed like antagonist. Whatever, I'm sure he'll be on the winning team in no time! Just like Quattro Vegeta, or whatever.

By episode three, we’re introduced to the Tallgeese, a mobile suit that matches all the criteria for being the Big Damn Hero Machine that a protagonist would use: it’s ancient, it’s got a history, it’s the progenitor suit, it’s got no bells or whistles, it demands great strength and skill from the pilot but offers unmatched performance to those who can overcome its challenges. It’s the perfect suit for Zechs, and obviously the next step in his hero’s journey! This is the part of the story where he can finally meet the terrifying, so-far unbeatable enemy on equal footing. 

...But of course, OZ is also introduced in episode 3. So now we know that Zechs works for some faceless, secret military organization– but that’s fine, right? It’s the Alliance military that’s the Big Bad Guy, and Zechs seems to be part of some elite special unit that’s only for brave, self-sacrificing soldiers! OZ hasn’t done anything really bad yet, while on the other hand, the Gundam pilots have been a bunch of mercilessly violent loose cannons who’ll kill anyone who gets in their way.

In episode four, we meet Noin, an immediately likable and equally skilled OZ officer who has a deep personal connection with Zechs. Already this is a power couple we can get behind. We watch as Noin suffers a humiliating defeat and a barrage of misogyny from a Gundam pilot, who kills a bunch of young recruits in their sleep. Definitely not a good look for the Gundam Team! while Zechs and Noin (and Treize, in a more literal sense) come out of this episode smelling like roses. 

Just look at them! They’re going to make such a great team. I hope they give those homicidal Gundam kids what for!

It’s only when episode five rolls around that we finally see what OZ is really about: assassinations, covert schemes, foul play, political manipulation, and the ruthless accumulation of power. Uh oh! 

But surely, Lady Une is the real baddy here, and Treize is no more than a shadowy puppet master whose true motives remain mysterious. Zechs and Noin are still such obvious Good Guy candidates, they really ought to be the main protagonists of this show by now! The big scary OZ that the Colony rebels warned us about seems a far cry from the OZ we’ve seen so far. Even after the point where OZ becomes the new uncontested Bad Guy, Zechs and co. keep their noses pretty clean.

And then! Then Zechs reveals his tragic past, his double-identity, his secret Count of Monte Cristo/ Man in the Iron Mask plot to avenge the ruin of the Sanc Kingdom and the deaths of his family, the noble house of Peacecraft! How romantic, how dashing! His quest continues to best the Gundams, but this takes on the hue of personal enlightenment; Zechs wants to defeat the Gundam pilots to prove he is capable of being a “True Soldier”, worthy of the power he’s been given, worthy of what has been sacrificed to his cause. 

Boy, that’s some hero behavior! And it gets even better: Zechs and Noin leave OZ to begin championing the Sanc Kingdom and its policies of Total Pacifism. No one can say Zechs isn’t one of the good guys now, right? He even dresses up all spiffy in white and becomes an ambassador to promote peace in the colonies! 

–Or rather, he tries to. 

Because despite having gained a reporte with a few of the Gundam pilots, he still hasn’t managed to ally with them. They still view him as an enemy, no matter how hard or how desperately he tries to convince them that he’s turned over a new leaf. 

He can’t beat them, and he can’t join them. Why?

Pictured: the saddest boys in the universe.

The second act of Gundam Wing is a crucible where every character is forced to re-evaluate their place in the ongoing conflict. You can see and feel his frustration building as the future spirals out of control. 

What is the purpose of Zechs Merquise, or of Milliardo Peacecraft?

He has refused to be OZ’s mascot, the Lightning Count. He’s not capable of bringing peace to the colonies by himself. He can’t join the Gundams in their fight against OZ. He can’t even protect the Sanc Kingdom, because the very act of fighting in its name is used as an excuse to wipe it out. 

He bids a heartfelt adieu to his Big Damn Hero Machine, the Tallgeese, and finds himself in possession of its polar opposite: the Epyon, a machine made to scour its pilot and the world of hypocrisy. 

Finally, Zechs has his answer– the reason why his purpose eludes him, why all his best intentions go astray, why the harder he tries to align his moral compass to the Gundam pilots or embrace his pacifistic inheritance, the more lost he becomes: He is not the hero. 

He has been trying and failing to be a hero since episode one because this isn’t a story about noble, heroic, chivalrous warriors doing battle in order to gain personal clarity and strength.

It’s not about man-vs-man conflict resolving in a test of skill. If it were, Zechs would have been victorious and completed his hero’s journey by now, and the show would be over. 

But that was never the role he was meant to play. That’s not what the stage requires. The third act begins as he accepts a new mantle, and becomes the villain history needs in that moment to bring everything together.

“Zechs considers this place his grave. [...]He intends to pay for the sin of purging humanity, all by himself.”

–Not to purge humanity of “violent earthlings”, as his White Fang propaganda speech stated, but to purge the current generation of the means to wage mechanized warfare, and of the desire for combat and retribution itself, in order to finally bring the cycle of war between the earth and space to an end. 

…But of course, nothing ever really ends, does it? History dances forward, with or without you, and all the sacrifices and fail-safes in the world will not stop new challenges from arising. 

Nevertheless, if it is possible to choose, by means of noble principle, to be a villain for the sake of the greater good, in the full assurance of one’s own destruction and revilement, then surely that is also in some winding, definitionally tragic way, a path to heroism– and if this is so, then Zechs is strong (and disillusioned) enough to take it. 

I do not think that the series supports the idea that his actions or their consequences are justified– only that they achieve their immediate purpose: setting the stage for peace. For now.

...And Now, An Important Note on Gundam Meta:

Zechs is what is referred to in the parlance of the Gundam fandom as a “Char Archetype”, or “Char Clone”-- a term I think is of debatable accuracy. For a longer discussion on Char Aznable and his role in MS Gundam, please see the entry: The Char Aznable Problem.  But I want to make it clear that knowing about Char’s backstory IS NOT a necessary prerequisite to understanding Zechs’s story. 

Zechs and Char share a lot of DNA as characters, that’s unavoidable– a masked man in red who poses a threat to the main Gundam pilot is a staple of the genre; he’s deliberately an homage to Char, as much an expected feature of a Gundam series as... well, Gundams. That much is not in question. 

However: Char’s motivations only make sense in the context of the original Gundam series; if you try to apply the same logic within the structure of Gundam Wing, it becomes gibberish. But the gibberish is by design– If you don’t understand the context behind Zech’s late-series genocidal spiel on why “earthlings are the ultimate threat to peace so we must destroy earth, the source of all conflict yadda-yadda blah-blah”, then… yeah, you’re up to speed. No one else listening to White Fang’s broadcast understood it either. It’s MEANT to sound like the ramblings of an extremist madman who poses a catastrophic and unavoidable threat to both Earth AND the Space Colonies he claims to represent. That’s the basic nature of his Ozymandius Gambit: invent something scary enough that everyone has to band together to fight it.

So you don’t need to know about Char to understand Zechs– but knowing about Char does make Zech’s role (and Treize’s role!) in Gundam Wing that much more interesting.

Zechs is not a Char Clone, he is a conversation with the idea of Char, taking a theme and transposing it into a new composition.

--Anyway, it’s a little unfair to try and force a comparison between Zechs and Char, when Char had MS Gundam, Zeta Gundam, and Char’s Counterattack to do everything he did, and Zechs only had Wing. 

Now, I’m not a mathematician or anything, but I’d say that makes Zechs roughly…

Three times faster.

#milliardo peacecraft #zechs merquise #gundam wing #gundam wing meta #gundam meta #character analysis #parsing post #tinyozlion pgw

[tinyozlion]

Heero Yuy: Does Not And Has Never Known What Is Going On

Pilot Spice Rating:  | 🌶🌶🌶🌶🌶|

I need everyone here to understand one extremely important thing: Heero Yuy does not think.

Heero Yuy reacts. He reacts instantly to stimuli because he is not thinking. This leads a lot of people to believe he’s some kind of savant, but in fact he is purposefully, intentionally, not having thoughts. He does not calculate his actions based on any consequences beyond the necessary outcome. Sometimes, this gets him into trouble. But mostly, it keeps him alive. 

And let’s be clear: it's not because he can't think ahead. Not thinking about things is his primary self-defense mechanism; this is a deeply traumatized child soldier, who lives in perpetual hyper-awareness of his own expendability. He is never thinking about tomorrow, because he might be dead before then. 

So why does he know how to do so many things? He really doesn’t. If it looks like he knows what he’s doing, it’s because he’s failing so nonchalantly that it looks like confidence. People are constantly doing the work for him by assuming he’s ultra-competent at everything he does. Heero is a cipher that everyone projects their ideas and feelings onto.

He was trained at a young age to assimilate himself into new environments through observation and imitation– which he’s very good at, so he doesn’t HAVE to know things. If he needs to learn something new, he can pick it up fast on the fly, or just make whatever it is work by brute force. 

If you see a nail and you don’t have a hammer: get creative.

Okay, but how come he always seems to know exactly what’s going on? He has a smart guy in his ear telling him what to do. Later, he has an insidious AI program in his ear telling him what to do. And the rest of the time he is literally winging it (pun intended) and hoping things will turn out okay if he just keeps at it long enough. 

Really, Heero doesn’t need to know what’s going on, and he only needs to be good at ONE thing, which is his solution to everything: keep going.  

When he doesn’t have a clear mission objective, he is following his motto: “do what your heart tells you” / “act on your emotions”-- which is way, way less whimsical and than it sounds (see this entry in the Dictionary section). It’s an extension of the Unthinking: You encounter a problem, you find a solution. Does this feel right? If yes, proceed. If no, then don’t. Was it the wrong solution? Well, that’s a new problem.

If you’re Heero’s problem, you have a very limited window of opportunity to change his mind about it. If you’re Relena, you get another chance. If you’re Marshal Noventa, you don’t. If you’re a fellow Gundam pilot, you might be able to hold him off long enough for the problem to become a different problem. 

Heero was built from the ground up several times by the people who found him and turned him into what he is: a weapon that you aim and fire. That’s how he thinks of himself, as a machine with a single purpose that you input instructions into, and when he stops working at peak performance, he’ll die and be replaced. 

But the people who were there for his “training” know that there was a human boy underneath that they buried to make their perfect soldier. Sometimes, you can still see him through the cracks.

There are only a few times in canon when we see Heero laugh or smile; I found it a very interesting case study to track when and where he does so. In chronological order, the first time is in a flashback from Endless Waltz; it’s a very memorable scene, because it’s the most innocent and carefree we ever see him, but the thing he was doing directly before flopping onto the grass and laughing wholesomely was planting explosives in a military base. The outcome of this scene is a defining tragedy of his life, which we know was the cause of his needing to be “retrained”.

The other few times he laughs are sometime after this incident, when he first arrives on Earth.

In episode one, we get to see him smile and laugh. The smile is one of simple relief, because he’s completed his objective– but what he actually considers that objective to be is a bit complicated. The simplest answer is that he’s successfully made it from the Colonies to Earth, so he can start his mission as a resistance fighter, but the more relevant answer is that arriving on Earth has the potential to be his FINAL mission as the person who stole the Gundam in order to interrupt Operation Meteor. The smile is either because he’s made it past the first difficult step of his journey, or because this is where his journey can finally end. 

In this same episode, he laughs after making his first kill; hapless OZ pilots who had no idea what they were up against. Later on, he laughs because he completes a mission after repairing his Wing Gundam with the cannibalized parts of Duo’s Gundam, Deathscythe. Another time, he smiles with an aloof assurance that he does not need to participate in the frivolities of civilian life, as if he’s confirming to himself that he is not like the people he is infiltrating. He’s a robot, disguised as one of them. He doesn’t need to worry about understanding them, or sympathizing with them, or trying to form emotional connections that he isn’t capable of making. He smiles when he cuts down what he thinks is an OZ carrier leaving New Edwards Base.

These are all times when Heero feels like he’s gotten away with something; when he’s pulled off something sneaky and gotten away scot free. It’s a cathartic release of excitement that's a touch mischievous; the surviving traces of his adolescence bubbling up and escaping containment.

Heero doesn’t laugh again after his first failed mission at New Edwards. Even when he cracks a joke, even when he's relaxed, his face remains frozen. There's only one more time when he smiles: when he’s sure he’s on his last mission, the one he won’t come back from, and he knows he has someone he wants to protect. 

It is such a simple, kind, naive thing that lets Heero unlock the capacity to feel; he’s never had someone be on his side before. Just… decide that they care about him, for no reason in particular– indeed, after he’d given them ample reason NOT to. It’s not perfect, not a clean process, not all at once. He gets feelings back one at a time, in broken pieces that are sharp and don’t make sense at first. A girl who he thought he would have to kill decided that she would trust him absolutely and have his back no matter what, and that made everything uncertain. 

It’s more complicated to live with danger when there’s something to live for, when someone insists that you’re worth saving. It means you have to think about the future sometimes, and that means dealing with consequences, and disappointment, and worry, and pain. It means having to develop a sense of compassion, without which it would be so easy to just turn off, and listen to the comforting absolutes of a machine that tells you how to win and who to kill. 

Having something, someone, to lose is frightening– but it gives you a fixed point in the sky to follow, so when you’re facing down ultimatums, and sacrifices, and uncertainty, “winning” becomes less important than keeping who you care about safe.

It makes your heart a much better compass to follow. 

#gundam wing #Heero Yuy #GW Character Analysis #WingWatcher's Toolkit #parsing post #tinyozlion pgw

[tinyozlion]

“And Its Name is επυον”: Where Did Epyon Come From, Literally and Figuratively?

On the pillars before the Oracle of Delphi, the navel of the ancient world, an inscription carved read: “know thyself”. 

Inside the Oracle’s inner sanctum sat the Pythia, bent over smoking fissures in the temple floor, breathing the sacred poison that would let Apollo in. It is a dreadful ecstasy– dangerous, body-wracking; gaining knowledge of the future shortens hers. 

Far in the future, a man exiled to a gilded oubliette speculates his own worth and relevance to history, surrounded by ghosts, becoming a ghost himself. Alone with his doubt, he looks for the god in the machine, seeking answers: “Why do we fight? For what should I fight?”

But the god he built is silent.

The world of automated warfare becomes increasingly bleak and devoid of reason. He is terrified that the pilots who so inspired him will lose their purpose just as he has, and join him in miserable freefall. 

Out of this wild abyss Treize builds the Epyon. Not for himself–  he will never pilot it. There is almost nothing of Treize in this suit, not that we can recognize from its exterior. It is not the heroic Tallgeese with its Attic crest– it is something clawed, stygian, one of the bat-winged Erinyes with a torch and whip. 

Epyon is not a weapon; it is a punishment. It is retribution for a world that has forgotten its humanity, its rites, its propriety. For its pilot, it is a scourge– the cracking whips of the Furies in their brain, driving them into a frenzy. Madness. Holy poison, to let the future in. 

Its name, επυον, is meant to mean "Next", or “After”. 

To guide the future, you must shorten yours. 

You must not be a victor, when you pilot this suit. 

Where did Epyon come from, in the mind of its creator? Everything we see of Treize forms a cohesive aesthetic: Roses, swords, romanticized old-world decadence, heroic motifs, gold, blue, white, red. Where did this thorny, tyrian-purple chimera live in him? Shouldn’t we have seen it lurking somewhere? Or does it seem to come out of nowhere precisely because he designed it to be his antithesis? 

Whether or not “Frozen Teardrop”, the novelized sequel to Gundam Wing, can be considered canon is a source of contention amongst many fans, but looking at it purely as a way to judge script-writer Katsuyuki Sumizawa’s intentions when he wrote the series, I find many parts of it to be informative. 

To paraphrase the fan-translation, it states that Treize found blue and white to be emblematic of heroism, colors associated with victory, and so their complementary opposites, black and red, could be seen as the colors of the defeated, associated with loss. For Treize, defeat and loss are tied inexorably to his vision of the future: “it was the defeated who changed the era and began the next”, as it says in the novel. 

Epyon is meant to negate the ideal of the conquering hero, the counter for a world beset by victorious cowards who command legions of dolls to do their killing and dying for them. As Treize designed it, Epyon has no projectile weapons; it is a suit purely for one-on-one combat, a suit that demands you risk everything when you fight.

No surprise then, that he gives it to the first Gundam pilot he meets– remarkably, the one whose self detonation caused everyone in his orbit to question their involvement in the war-- though one gets the feeling that any of the pilots would do. Treize hopes that Heero will use the Epyon to navigate the chaos to find the true purpose he is fighting for, and determine what course the future will take. 

But Heero has never been concerned with this sort of navel-gazing, and has no interest in discovering whether or not battle itself has a grander purpose or ultimate meaning. He fights the enemy in front of him and will continue to do so until either his life, or the supply of enemies, runs out. Heero does not overthink the future; he does not dwell on consequences. Treize does nothing BUT overthink the future and consider the fractal spread of consequences. They are mutually incomprehensible to each other, but perhaps not at cross purposes. 

Heero enters the cockpit convinced that he is expendable and redundant, that his only goal is to survive. When he returns from his test flight in Epyon, he can barely stand or speak. From that point on, he thinks about the future, about who and what will be important for what comes after the fighting has ended.

Eventually, the Epyon passes to the only person more disillusioned and estranged from his sense of purpose than Treize is– to Zechs, where it seems it was always meant to go.

• How And When Was Epyon Built?

Whew! Now that the metaphysical stuff is out of the way, let’s talk about the physical development of Epyon, and how that must have come about.

As we know, after his confinement by Romefeller, Treize, lurking around with the lights out and questioning his place in the universe, uses his now copious free time to build this gundanium dominatrix using only his laptop and the power of depression.

Now, even if we are to accept that Treize is a programming and engineering savant on top of all his other accomplishments, it would still be beyond even His Excellency’s considerable talents to pull an entire Gundam out of a hat in the basement of an abandoned Disney castle. 

Where did he get the gundanium? The crew? The construction equipment? Isn’t he under house arrest? Why would Romefeller leave him unsupervised to build a demon robot that predicts the future? 

These questions have been annoying the fandom since 1995. But, if you look carefully (VERY carefully, one might even say obsessively), it's possible to find the connective threads that make Epyon’s construction less of a magic trick. 

--Let’s go through the list of these unclarified canonical whoopsie-daisies in order of most to least glaring!:

If Treize is being kept in confinement in the Romefeller headquarters, why is he allowed to design and build a mobile suit?

*:･ﾟ✧ Our princess is in another castle! *:･ﾟ✧

The mansion that Treize goes into during episode 27 is NOT the castle that we see him in during episode 34. This switcheroo would probably have happened sometime in the MIDDLE of episode 27– which I guess might as well be the case, since episode 27 is a dreamlike, nonlinear stroll through Treize’s spiraling existential crisis.

Between Treize being confined in the Romefeller headquarters and developing the Epyon, Treize is in fact liberated by the Treize Faction and moved to the blue-roofed castle in the middle of the forest near the Luxembourg Base, which is where the faction has made their headquarters.

Presumably the crew and equipment needed to actually manufacture a new mobile suit were available at the base.

Treize’s confinement at this point is largely self-imposed; he could rally the factions loyal to him and make a move on Romefeller (as he does later), but he doesn’t believe he has the ability or the right to do so. Instead, he builds Epyon, and just kind of winds it up and lets it loose on the world to see if anything interesting happens.

And it does! The interesting very much happens.

Where did Treize get the gundanium alloy to build a Gundam?

The shipment of gundanium that Heero destroys in episode 4 was being transported on an OZ carrier, and it had to have been going somewhere. This gundanium was ordered WAY before Zechs’s gundam rebuilding project, so its purpose is left unidentified– someone in OZ clearly wanted to experiment with this new material for developing mobile suits. 

Adding to that, the gundanium that Zechs had access to when he was rebuilding the Wing Gundam had to come from somewhere, and that somewhere was probably the very deep pockets of a guy who likes to keep his best friends happy.

Regardless if any given shipment of gundanium made it home in one piece, what it means is that OZ has a way of obtaining gundanium, and if OZ has it, then Treize has it.

How would Treize know how to build a Gundam?

During the process of rebuilding the Wing Gundam from the ground up, Zechs and his engineers would probably have kept extensive records and made new Gundam blueprints that Treize would know about. Also by this point in the series, several Gundams and their pilots have been captured, and the Gundam’s engineers forced to build Vayeate and Mercurius for Lady Une. OZ would therefore have all the data they need to build a fresh Gundam, and once again: if OZ has it, then Treize has it.

Okay, but how would Treize know enough about the ZERO system to be able to reverse engineer it?

As mentioned in the entry about the ZERO system, the AI of the Taurus mobile suits eventually becomes the Mobile Doll AI. This is a predictive battle algorithm OZ already had in the works long before the Wing ZERO was discovered. 

Additionally, Treize is likely to have had access to the data being recorded by Trant while his team was researching the ZERO system, even if he was getting it covertly via a Treize Faction infiltrator, or a member of OZ who was still loyal to him. 

How does Treize know so much about designing mobile suits and their cockpit systems?

One has to remember that Treize was the instructor at Lake Victoria Base (the same position Noin holds when we first meet her in the series), responsible for training OZ’s elite pilots, and (according to “Frozen Teardrop”) involved with crucial tactical developments and improvements to OZ’s lineup. 

Yes, he’s a fancy-pants aristocrat, but you can’t say he doesn’t know his way around a mobile suit. He’s best friends with Zechs, after all– nerds of a feather flock together.

But how would he know to program the security system to accept Heero Yuy?

Well, ever since he was captured and hospitalized Heero’s biometric data would have been on file with the Alliance military, and therefore available to OZ, and therefore (again) available to Treize– so by now His Excellency will have certainly been made aware that Heero’s bones run on a third-party Adobe Photoshop plug-in.

But who cares about that crusty old data? All of the Gundam pilots have been accounted for and fingerprinted and scanned and microchipped up in Fortress Barge! They could probably 3D print Heero Yuy out of PLA and sell action figures if they wanted.

As to why Treize picked Heero specifically, I have two theories:

The first is that he simply programmed the computer to accept any and all Gundam pilots that might want to drop in for tea and assassination (and probably Zechs too, just in case he was in town).

The second is that Dorothy’s presence in the Sanc Kingdom means that Treize has a little bird keeping him informed about everything happening there, including that both Heero and Quatre are attending the Peacecraft’s School for Wayward Radical Pacifists. 

True, Dorothy is technically there to be her grandfather Duke Dremail’s little bird informant, but Dorothy’s loyalties are her own, and she very much likes and respects her cousin Treize. She’s probably beaming news of the Gundam pilots directly to him on their shared eyebrow-frequency the whole time she’s there.

Eyebrow-to-eyebrow communication.

As one final note– I’m aware that the more recent manga adaptation, “Glory of Losers”, contains its own version of events that attempts to reconcile the building of Epyon with other events in the series. However, while I appreciate that they made an attempt to resolve the big, lingering Epyon Questions, I find that like most of their retconned material involving Treize, I… 

I don’t like it. 

Or to put it less personally, I think it creates an even more dubious timeline of events that is somehow less credible than the original. In this version, Treize begins the planning and construction of both Epyon and Tallgeese at the beginning of the series, before the original Tallgeese has even been brought into play and LONG before the ZERO system is introduced– somehow with the foreknowledge that these suits will be vital for the development of the new era. 

I think this is a contrived way of making Treize into an omniscient puppet master who was retroactively steering everything in the correct direction from the very beginning, and was therefore always right and always assured of his role in the future– and I think that does his character an incredible disservice. In a story about the deep significance of changing people’s hearts and minds, the fact that Treize is retroactively scrubbed of his flaws and morally questionable decisions runs counter to the central thesis of Gundam Wing, and what has made it such a memorable story. 

“Glory of Losers” is a beautiful manga and I do think it does an incredible job of presenting the rather garbled narrative of the series in a new light, with some truly masterful tweaks that add depth to the characters and story. But it’s also guilty of some egregious changes to canon that serve no purpose other than to reconcile the main series with the events of “Frozen Teardrop”, and as an excuse to redesign all the mobile suits to be cooler and sell more model kits.

…On the other hand, in this version of the story, Treize was already familiar with Tallgeese from his earliest days in OZ. 

This is obviously another very unnecessary and suspiciously convenient retcon that I feel is in dubious taste– HOWEVER: it does mean that Howard gets to meet young whippersnapper Treize Khushrenada, who just so happened to be the one to ask him to paint it white because he thinks one day he’d like to pilot a Big Damn Hero Machine himself, and he wants it to be a more "elegant color." 

And that is the funniest shit I can possibly imagine. So I’ll give it that.

I'd like it to be at least 20% more elegant

#Epyon #Gundam #gundam wing #treize khushrenada #parsing post #wing watcher's toolkit #tinyozlion pgw #Heero Yuy #Zechs Merquise #HOWARD

[tinyozlion]

The Char Aznable Problem 

Here’s a take for the MS Gundam fans in the audience: Using the Zechs-as-Char analogy will actually hinder you in understanding the finale of Gundam Wing.

I know there are unavoidable reasons for the comparison! Zechs is a deliberate homage, that's not in question. But I’d like to argue that taking Zechs’s actions on their own terms is the only reasonable way to evaluate them. Understanding Char’s Counterattack will certainly make Zechs’s performance more nuanced and recognizable, but expecting him to be the same person with the same copy-pasted goals is to miss the purpose of his character. 

Neither of their goals make sense outside of their respective settings and character arcs, in the same way that MS Gundam and Gundam Wing are related thematically but are both telling very different kinds of stories in different ways.

Zechs doesn’t do a heel-turn and become a Char just because the hand of the franchise swooped in and forced him to; he does a heel turn and puts on a Char Costume (…mask?) because he is playing the villain, and the villain he is playing is Char. 

Why? Because Char from Char’s Counterattack has no place in the universe of Gundam Wing. Standing up and saying Char Stuff™ in After Colony 195 makes you sound like you got the space madness. 

White Fang Milliardo shows up out of nowhere with this new kind of racism he just invented and delivers a treatise about how humans from Space have become biologically superior to humans from Earth within a couple generations... in a setting where Newtypes aren’t a thing. There is no established precedent in AC 195 for declaring that space colonists are a super-evolved utopian master race OTHER than to blatantly manufacture conflict.

 And like... ding ding ding, that’s the point. 

Char from Char’s Counterattack is a complex, disillusioned, flawed man who is trying to make the earth uninhabitable for complex, flawed reasons that he genuinely plans on carrying out.  

Milliardo is a complex, disillusioned, flawed man pretending very hard to want to make the earth uninhabitable because it’s an Ozymandias Gambit intended to galvanize all remaining forces to take part in a war that will ultimately burn through all of their military resources.

 Char from Char’s Counterattack exists in a timeline where the earth is a polluted wasteland, and the space colonies are pristine, self-sustaining eutopias with ten billion people living in them. 

Gundam Wing is a timeline where the earth is pristine, and the space colonies are oppressed dystopian slums with marginal populations still largely dependent on earth’s resources. Staging the KPG 2.0 in this context would be a death sentence for the colonies as well as the people on earth.

Char believes it’s his destiny to punish the people of earth for their selfishness and their inability to change or allow future generations to evolve. Milliardo believes the only thing he’s good for is to rid the world of people like himself, SO that the future generation has a chance to change for the better.

I’ve found that the more I know about MS Gundam, the deeper an appreciation I have for what Wing chose to adapt and where it diverged; I think that some of Wing’s greatest achievements are born from the moments it purposefully broke from its predecessor, and some of its greatest flaws come from when it chose to adapt things that just don't make sense outside of their original context-- I don't necessarily think that Milliardo pretending to be Char is one of those moments.

On the whole, what Wing feels like to me is a poignant echo of the Universal Century, as if we are seeing the reflections, the shared rhythms, of people and struggles across time and reality. Zechs is like a variation of the Char leitmotif transposed into a new composition.

…And anyway, Zechs isn’t even the Char Clone of Gundam Wing. Zechs AND Treize are the Char Clone of Gundam Wing. 

The Red Comet is an ace pilot simultaneously admired and hated for his abilities and the respect he commands as a soldier. He has the luxury of being chivalrous on the battlefield because no one can compete with him, and because his ultimate goals differ from those of the ruthless organization that holds his reigns. He has the burden of a spotless reputation hiding a dark, secret purpose. He eventually turns coat and becomes Quattro, a mentor figure to the talented pilots who idolize him and walk the same path he does. The complexities of war erode his confidence and understanding of what is right, of what is actually worth fighting for in a world where the grind of battle never stops, and the same points have to be made over, and over, and over again, paid for in the blood of young people– people just like him, who he encouraged to fight, who had bright futures ahead of them– each and every time.

The glorious Neo Zeon leader is a wheeling and dealing homme-fatale who can play the game of politics, who knows how to put on an inspiring show for the adoring masses, all while getting what he wants through deceit, charm, treachery, abuse of his charisma, even his sensuality. He is willing to do anything for what he views as the best future for humanity– particularly for the humans he thinks are worthy of that better future, all while knowing he is not one of the chosen ones. He will always carry a seed of self-loathing and insecurity with him. He knows that the version of him that people idolize is only a mirage, but he is willing to use that mirage to steer the future where he believes it should go, sacrificing whoever he needs to for an end that justifies any means.

Zechs is the ace pilot. Treize is the glorious leader. They’re both variations on theme of Char.

Char’s story takes place over the course of his lifetime, spanning multiple series-- Zechs/Milliardo simply doesn’t have time to be everything Char was in the time frame of Wing. Instead his influence is played by two people, representing different eras of his life, existing simultaneously and in coordinated opposition to each other.

Nobody can really be Char except Char, and Char can't really be substituted for Zechs or Treize within their own universe. Even clones grow up differently when they're raised in different environments.

#gundam wing #milliardo peacecraft #zechs merquise #char aznable #treize khushrenada #gundam wing meta #gundam meta #parsing post #tinyozlion pgw

[tinyozlion]

--The Gundam Wing Drinking Game! (*you don’t actually have to drink)--

Happy Eve War Armistice Day, everyone! As we all gather around the warmth of a flickering screen with friends, family, or discord buddies to celebrate the beginning of True Peace between Earth and the Space Colonies-- WHICH WILL SURELY LAST FOREVER-- why not play a little festive anime parlor game? This can be played with beverages, snacks, points, or the penalty/reward system of your choice!

THE CLASSICS— take ONE any time:

1) Someone shouts: "IT’S A GUNDAM!" or "THAT’S A GUNDAM!" 2) Magical Gundam Transformation Sequence 3) The BFG: the buster rifle beam canon does what it does best. 4) Relena Yells At The Clouds 5) "Omae o korosu!": Heero threatens to kill someone and then doesn’t. 6) THAT'S SO FETCH: Duo calls himself the God of Death or says one of his catchphrases. 7) BOOBY TRAPPED: Heavyarms fires its chest missiles. 8) SAFETY FIRST: Quatre wears his goggles. 9) GO-GO-GADGET: Wufei uses the dragon claw extendo-arm.

THE SPECIALS— take TWO whenever the following occurs: 1) A fruit or vegetable is given meaningful screen time. 2) Episode title is the opposite of what occurs in the episode. 3) VA Hall of Shame: a voice actor fumbles a line or really chews the scenery. 4) This Is Big Nose: An impossibly silly military call sign is used. 5) Someone with Special Eyebrows conveys normal information in a straightforward way. 6) FOUND FAMILY: The Maganac Corps shows up to save the day. 7) Bee-bee-bee-bee-bee-bee-bee!

SING ALONG AT HOME— you MUST CHANT whenever:

1) KAIJU SHOT! KAIJU SHOT! a mobile suit looms into view of a window and horrified onlookers. 2) CRAB! CRAB! CRAB! CRAB! any time you see a MS Cancer or its aquatic friend group. 3) CLOWN! CLOWN! CLOWN! CLOWN! any time you see a clown. 4) HEEEEEEROOOOOO: you know what to do. *Stackable with article 1 section 4. 5) PUSH THE BUTTON FRANK: an ominous button is pressed to devastating effect.

POUR ONE OUT— take TWO and go "Oooooo, YIKES!" whenever one of the following occurs:

1) Someone REALLY should have locked their mobile suit hatch. 2) One Day From Retirement: a hapless schmuck gets got immediately after giving the all clear. 3) A gross failure to correctly estimate the impact tolerance of gundanium alloy despite all documented evidence. 4) Heero takes it on the dome or otherwise hits the ground at speed. 5) Duo gets used as a punching bag. 6) The Bright Noah Special: someone gets slapped or hit in the face. 7) Brutality: A mobile suit makes direct lethal contact with a human target. 8) Red Card: a fencing move does damage to a person or their equipment. 9) The Can Opener: Something gets split in half by a beam or heat weapon. 10) Fuck This Thing In Particular: A mobile suit (or other vessel) self detonates-- *stackable with article 3 section 5. 11) Up-Skirt Shot: A mobile suit or its pilot gets an unflattering camera angle.

HALL OF FAME— FIRST ONE TO SPOT one of these gets a freebie:

1) BRAND NAME: shout the Improbable Brand Name™ featured on background signage or product. 2) QUICK CHANGE: A character somehow gets into or out of a space suit off screen with no indication how. 3) GOOD BOY ALERT: There's an animal on screen (end credits don't count). 4) THE FUTURE IS NOW: State of the Art 90's Tech in use. 5) IMPORTANT PERSON SITTING AT A DESK ON THE LEFT SIDE OF A ROOM WITH A LARGE WINDOW BEHIND THEM: An important person sits at a desk on the left side of an empty room with a large window behind them.

EXTRA CREDIT: SLAP THE TABLE and call "DID YOU KNOW" to win a chance to make the FRIEND OF YOUR CHOICE take a penalty-- IF:

1) You can correctly identify one of the main voice actors in a bit role. 2) You spot an easter egg or reference to something from Universal Century. 3) Space Physics Don't Work That Way: you can explain why physics don’t work that way in space. 4) Actually Physics DO Work That Way: you can explain the science or theories behind an element of space tech, tactics, or engineering. 5) You can name a real-world location used on a map or background shot.

Happy holidays, enjoy responsibly, and have fun! -Wesley, and to a lesser extent, Tinylion

#gundam wing #endless waltz #gundam wing drinking game #fandom fun #tinyozlion pgw #unparsable

[tinyozlion]

“True Friends” - Understanding Mr. Treize and the Contradictions of OZ

“Treize himself has a tremendous disdain for any tactic that allows for excess casualties. Ignoble behavior on the battlefield sullies any victory, and civilian death makes a mockery of what a True Soldier fights and dies for. For Treize, there is nothing more hateful than removing the human component from battle, or the cowardly avoidance of responsibility for human death.”

Gosh! What a great quote! I wonder who said that? Oh right, that was me! I did. I wrote that in the entry about “True Soldiers: Aesthetics, Honor, and Chivalry”.   

Let’s examine that a little more, shall we? 

“His Excellency doesn’t want battles that involve civilians.”

Everyone who knows Treize best, his “True Friends”, who grew up with him, who were trained by him, who understand him, all seem to agree: His Excellency wouldn’t stand for needless casualties. OZ may be ruthlessly pragmatic and underhanded, but that couldn’t be Treize’s fault– no, it’s always Lady Une! It’s his fanatically devoted colonel who always chooses the path of greatest violence, heedless of any collateral damage– she’s the one to blame! Treize would never give an order that risked civilian lives.

…Right?

…Right?

Surely he would stop her, admonish her, make her face serious consequences for the atrocities she was willing to commit. He’d leave no room for doubt that she had failed him and disappointed him.

...Right?

Yeah, that’s right, a firm slap on the wrist oughta do it. Tell her to try a little harder next time to understand the value of human life. Just do better! It’s alright to use mobile suits to attack a school, but we’re going to put a stop to it because I’ve changed my mind about killing a teenage girl, as a personal favor to a friend. 

–Friends of His Excellency would certainly like to believe that he would never knowingly sacrifice civilians, but he sure doesn’t seem to mind benefiting from someone else doing it for him.

How well do Treize’s friends really understand him, when they seem unaware of how wide a margin of error he finds acceptable in pursuing his ideals? 

Well, ideals are fine and all, but war is war, and some amount of pragmatism is necessary to stay on top. Treize isn’t the one calling all the shots (yet), and the organization he reports to expects results. You have to break a few eggs to make an omelet, right? That’s why it pays to have a Chief Omelet Maker working for you, so she can break all the eggs, and murder school children, and threaten nuclear assault, and you can come away still smelling like roses. 

…But what sort of effect does that have on her? 

It’s better for a ruler to be feared than loved; being hated is the perfect motivation to stay strong; fighting will never disappear from the world, so the strong should rule it for the sake of damage control; God was too lenient when he gave mankind the free will to rebel; people find comfort in being controlled by the powerful. 

--These are some of Treize’s stated ideals. 

So Lady Une devotes herself to fulfilling those ideals unflinchingly, no matter how much blood ends up on her hands. Better her hands than His. OZ has to be the strongest. OZ has to win. OZ must be victorious at any cost. Damn the Colonies, damn the politician’s daughter who made herself a liability, damn the wounded soldiers left behind at New Edwards Base– she’s going to make OZ so absolutely unfuckwithable that their enemies shit themselves at the mention of its name, and she’ll do it herself if no one else will. Because THAT is what His Excellency wants. She understands him. 

...So why does he keep telling her– ever so gently, ever so gracefully, that she’s wrong? If making sure the strongest rule and the weak obey isn’t what pleases him, then what will? 

Killing is simple– anyone is capable of killing anyone, so you mustn't abuse that capability. The Earth is fragile and infinitely beautiful. Human life is fragile and infinitely beautiful. One must always take responsibility for the fates of those who fight for you, and honor the sacrifice of those who die. Tragedy in war is inevitable. 

--These are some of Treize’s stated ideals. 

So Lady Une devotes herself to fulfilling those ideals with grace and empathy, to bring an end to needless bloodshed. The world needs a strong, compassionate leader, who is capable of loving humanity and guiding them to a peaceful future, where loss and war are tragedies of the past. Order and peace can be maintained without sacrifice, by using technical advancements to replace soldiers on the battlefield and keep them out of harm’s way. That is what His Excellency wants. She understands him.

...So why does he tell her– so sadly, plaintively, that she is wrong? That he is not who she thinks he is, that the future she has so carefully laid out for him is a fantasy of her own making? Why does he plead with her to come back to him, as the person he once knew so fondly?

Civility and honorable conduct on the battlefield is worth more than victory. To fight for something one believes in with perfect clarity is the purest endeavor of mankind. The tragedy of loss is what gives a battle meaning. Honoring the sacrifice of those who have died for your cause means being willing to die for it yourself. To fight, to lose, to die for a noble cause is to move the hearts of all humanity, to touch immortality. 

--These are some of Treize’s stated ideals. 

And so she does– she sacrifices herself to save the Gundam pilots and turn the tides in outer space, rejecting Romefeller, rejecting the Mobile Dolls. At last, she understands him. 

…But didn’t she always?

Except perhaps in the case of using Mobile Dolls to replace soldiers (an idea that was easily manipulated by its inventors to fit into her worldview at the time), her understanding of Treize’s ideals wasn’t ever wrong, just fragmented. She focused on a single facet at a time, each time excluding the contradictions of the other sides– light bouncing off a solid plane without revealing the rest of the prism’s convoluted geometry. 

She isn’t mistakenly interpreting him– HE is a mess, and she is representing him accurately, one dimension at a time. 

What is more significant is that he finally understands this about her.

Treize is mortified to realize what sort of effect he has been having on someone he cares about, during a period where he is questioning the validity of his own beliefs and significance. He may mistakenly believe that he is responsible for having fragmented Lady Une’s personality– which is not how the condition she has operates– but he is not mistaken in taking responsibility for her distress, and the danger he has put her in.

Losing her, or believing that he has lost her, is devastating. Rather than moving him to action, it moves him to inaction; aware that he has come to represent ideals that are too easily manipulated by people who he fundamentally disagrees with, that the idea of him is too powerful to be used responsibly by the current rulers, he withdraws. 

Treize cannot switch off the magnetic field of his charisma or its continuous pull on the soldiers who take inspiration from him, but he refuses to willingly lend himself to a cause that he finds irresponsible. In fact, he refuses to join any cause until one presents itself that he can have complete faith in– and complete control over. 

The people whom Treize considers his True Friends are the ones who “understand” him– this includes his enemies, the ones who oppose him but nevertheless espouse values that he can respect. In fact, ANY strongly held ideal, even ones in opposition to him, and ANY display of courage, is more admirable in Treize’s estimation than lip service to his own ideals or those of his organization. The “fighting spirit” that is of paramount value in his worldview is not limited to combatants– he expresses immense respect for Relena Peacecraft, more so even than his respect for the Gundam pilots, who he comes to idolize. What matters is the strength of conviction. What matters is courage.

He respects and admires Lady Une, even when her errors in judgment have megaton consequences, because she is so singularly and ferociously dedicated to her goals. He tolerates the violence and inhumane actions of the Specials and OZ soldiers because they are fanatically ambitious and ready to die for their ideals. As long as the ultraviolence isn’t cowardly or self-serving, then Treize can and will overlook the body count– noble sacrifices, all. He’ll memorize their names later on today.

Treize’s ideals are flawed and contradictory. There is a tipping point in the series where he gains enough self-awareness to recognize this fact. This does not stop him from believing in his ideals– he can’t simply turn away completely from what he values and loves about humanity and its “fighting spirit”– but it does allow him to appreciate those who see his hypocrisy for what it is, and who despise him for it. 

“You’re only capable of looking down on others; you’re only fighting to satisfy your ego. How many people have died because of you?”

The fact that Treize has memorized the names of all 99 thousand people who have died for him does not do anything to improve Wufei’s opinion. For Treize, that number is a sacred personal burden; to Wufei, it is evidence of offensive, monstrous egotism. 

Wufei, of all the Gundam pilots, is best acquainted with how wide the margin of error is in Treize’s ideal of chivalry. Nataku herself, the namesake for Wufei’s gundam, fell neatly into that margin and died in it. Long before they met and dueled, Wufei knew of Treize as the OZ official jointly responsible for an attack on his Colony. While General Septem of the Alliance (then in control) would have murdered everyone on the Colony indiscriminately with biological weapons, Treize’s solution was more sporting: OZ sent in Mobile Suit troops to directly eliminate the rebel element, who were armed with nothing but a single decrepit prototype Leo and an unfinished Gundam with no ammo-- a much more chivalrous way of sterilizing a Colony, allowing the largely unarmed group of dissidents to die fighting rather than be killed with the push of a button.

Would the deaths of the Long Clan have been meaningful sacrifices in Treize’s eyes? Was exterminating civilians for the sake of convenience a noble cause to fight for?

One could argue that the existence of the then-in-development Gundam was enough of a threat to justify an attack, but at the time the idea of gundanium mobile suits was no more than a rumor. Could Treize, back on Earth, have reasonably predicted its invention? 

Not if we are to believe his own words, which clearly indicate that the Gundam’s existence was unknown to him until reported after the attack.  

For those who fall outside of his cult of personality it is easier to see past the charisma to the reality: no matter what his soldiers think of him, Treize is not a god. He is only a man, and no one person has the right to decree some deaths necessary to the future. 

–And Treize, for his part, would agree. He is a single individual, whose ideals people put too much faith in without fully realizing the essence of what they mean. But the belief people place in him gives Treize a level of power that must be acknowledged and used responsibly, and to the best of his ability, he tries to use it for the good of Earth and humankind. 

As a symbol, he is far more influential than he could ever be as a man, and his awareness of that fact leads him to choose the path of martyrdom, knowing that his very existence is a threat to peace. The only way he can neutralize his own power as a military icon is to join the sacrifices to the cause. And what more iconic way to do that than with a duel?

Treize may have resigned himself to being an anachronism and a dreamer, but if he is going to die for the sake of the future, he will at least go out according to his ideals: gracefully, nobly, at the hands of an enemy he respects. 

For personal and aesthetic reasons, Milliardo is Treize’s hopeful first choice as a dueling partner, but Milliardo had his own role to play in their final performance, which prevented him from participating in a duel for their mutual actualization. So Wufei is the right choice; Wufei both understands him and has a justified reason to want him dead. Besides, it’s an elegant, symmetrical solution– the continuation of a duel that he predicted they would be destined to finish in mobile suits.

--And what effect does that have on Wufei? Perhaps expectedly, a fracturing one. 

It shouldn’t be surprising that Treize’s ideals resonate so powerfully with someone who was raised in a warrior culture, especially someone who only knows how to express his beliefs and sense his self worth through combat.

Wufei, too, lives with contradictions that he cannot fully unify. 

Treize Khushrenada cannot live in the world he wishes to see realized. 

 If he were to win the war against White Fang, the cycle of oppression and resentment would continue. Even if he were to immediately relinquish his power to Relena and demilitarize the Earth Sphere, the end result would lead to more conflict; his refusal to take control of the Colonies would be seen as capitulation, and a betrayal of those who fought for him against the threat of annihilation from space. Even the considerable power of his charisma would evaporate overnight if he were to appear to be turning his back on the soldiers whose fanatic loyalty had allowed the unified mobilization of Earth’s military forces under his banner. But, as a general leading from the front lines in a noble defense of Earth, dying gloriously in battle for the sake of peace lends all that charisma to the future he fought for. 

--The message left to the surviving soldiers is not: “His Excellency led us into battle and then abandoned us when he won”, but instead: “this is the peace His Excellency died protecting.” 

Indeed, after his death, Treize’s name IS used in an attempt to lend legitimacy to the argument that soldiers have been devalued in a time of peace, and that continuous war to determine the strongest victor to lead humanity is his true legacy. But it doesn’t stick– the would-be dictator who tries to use Treize’s name in service of his military takeover is killed by a nameless soldier, whose change of heart is motivated by the memory of what Treize actually died for. 

--It is not a victor who moved the hearts of the people, but a glorious loser.

#Gundam Wing #Treize Khushrenada #Lady Une #Chang Wufei #Endless Waltz #gundam wingtionary #wing watcher's toolkit #tinyozlion pgw #parsing post

[tinyozlion]

“True Soldiers”-- Aesthetics, Elegance, and Chivalry

What it means to be a soldier, and what fighting means to humanity, are questions that dominate the characters of Treize Khushrenada, Zechs Merquise, and Dorothy Catalonia– the Romefeller Eyebrow Brigade, if you will. (Zechs is an honorary Eyebrow. He was socialized an Eyebrow).

“True Soldier” is the term we’ll use here, though the idea it embodies has a lot of synonyms in the series that are all used interchangeably (much like “peace” / “true peace” / “pacifism”). "Soldier" is actually a bit misleading, because in this context it does not come with any of the associations of service, or being part of a unit, or being aligned with a military organization in general. A "True Soldier" is the same as a “warrior”, a “fighter”, or sometimes just "soldier". If the characters are waxing particularly Eyebrow-y, you might even get “knight” or “hero”. Even though the series still uses "soldier" in its usual definition (i.e. a person serving in an army), it’s usually pretty obvious when a character is talking about True Soldiers™ in a meaningful, Gundam-specific way.

Really, it is Treize for whom the questions about the meaning of fighting and humanity are paramount– both Zechs and Dorothy, who grew up with him as friend / family, are drawn into his ideology by the gravity of his personal charisma. The pull of Treize’s ideology is so powerful, in fact, that Zechs spends a significant amount of time trying to escape from its orbit, and repeatedly fails.

For Zechs, the essence of being a “True Soldier” is to fight for a personal, often intangible victory: to test one’s own limits, to honor a worthy opponent, to find meaning in struggle, and ascension in victory. He fights to test himself, but also, significantly, to achieve his personal aim of avenging his family and fallen country. Whether he wishes to fight as Treize’s chivalrous knight to attain personal clarity, or to fight earnestly in the defense of what is in need of protection, is a duality that he struggles to reconcile. But his perception of what makes a True Soldier remains: someone who fights for a meaningful cause. Or aretḗ, if you will (and you will, because that’s the best definition for what both Zechs and Treize consider “honor”, or “nobility”.)

Treize takes this a step further: for him, a True Soldier not only fights for something beautiful, whether to better themselves or for a selfless cause, a True Soldier puts their life on the line to give meaning to that conflict. The more one is willing to risk in battle, the purer and more noble the fight is, the more potent the sacrifice. In that sense, to lose the fight is to have the greater victory of experiencing martyrdom. He does not glory in death, but he finds immense, incalculable value in the deaths of those who die fighting. To Treize, dying for something noble is akin to apotheosis.

Compare this to Wufei’s conviction that only the strong can or SHOULD fight, that losing is a sign of weakness and weakness is a sign of inferiority. The weak gain nothing from fighting, because they will only die. For Treize, there is power and dignity in losing a hard-fought battle for something one believes in. For Wufei, losing is a disgrace that bars you from the right to take up arms and fight. It’s easy to see why Wufei and Treize see one another as their rightful nemesis, stuck in each other’s orbit.

Dorothy, meanwhile, cares much less about avoiding casualties or fighting with civility; to her, ALL death is a glorious sacrifice, part of a means to an end. ALL fighting is equally fascinating, equally awe-inspiring. People who profess to hate war, yet fight against it? Exquisite! Divine! Relena is just a delicious vector of contradictions that causes people to fight and die for her, despite hoping for an end to death and fighting! What priceless drama war provides. Man is a fighting animal and it is only through conflict that we find meaning. War is disgusting. Man is disgusting for loving war. The two deserve each other, they will go down in flames together, locked in passionate embrace. How absurd, how obscene, how beautiful.

It is worth noting that the one time Dorothy balks is when Zechs aims to annihilate Treize with the Libra cannon, eschewing noble combat in favor of brutal overkill– a move that was necessary to prove his dedication to the role of Earth’s villain, who would not be swayed by previous personal attachments. It is a move so counter to everything Dorothy believes in that her otherwise iron resolve cracks. To her, Treize represents the ultimate ideal of nobility in fighting, and also the perpetuation of fighting– destroying a beautiful, doomed knight with the mere push of a button? The same gutless, impersonal tactic that Mobile Dolls embody? Even for the sake of Zech’s war to end all wars, she cannot abide this.

In Treize’s ideology, war is merely the condition that allows humankind to express their natural desire to fight. But Treize himself has a tremendous disdain for any tactic that allows for excess casualties. Ignoble behavior on the battlefield sullies any victory, and civilian death makes a mockery of what a True Soldier fights and dies for. For Treize, there is nothing more hateful than removing the human component from battle, or the cowardly avoidance of responsibility for human death. How many people have died for him? He’ll tell you the exact number. He’ll also tell you that none of them died in vain. Because if there is no sacrifice in a war, no willing risk of human life on both sides, then it is a meaningless slaughter; it allows for no end state, no ideals, only murder and subjugation by those unwilling to risk their own lives. “Wars with no civility only give rise to massacres.”

…And, well, that’s stupid, isn’t it? The absolute assurance that only willing participants will be at risk, the guarantee of zero unintended casualties, and total adherence to civility in a fight, are the traits of a duel. And for Treize and (for a time) Zechs, wars ARE duels, or they ought to be. But that’s not how wars operate, and they never have.

Countries pitting armies against each other for sport and glory leads to trench warfare and mustard gas, not knights saluting each other across a pristine field. And whether knights as a rule ever did battle this way in the first place is pretty dubious. Knights were knights because they could afford to be in the literal sense: they had money for armor, for destriers, and time to spare on training rather than farming. In Europe, knighthood and chivalry are joined at the etymological hip: they both stem from the state of being a nobleman in the military who fights on a horse, while the so-called "chivalric code" is a much later invention. Chivalry as a code of honor is inextricably bound to the ideals of medieval Christianity and romanticization of the Crusades. Just like any Golden Age, the romantic Age of Chivalry can’t be found anywhere in history except “back in the day”-- but an age of knights and paladins certainly did exist, and I challenge you to look at any account of the Crusades and come away with the idea that they were cleanly, noble, justified affairs. Literally the first entry of the Crusades is a civilian massacre.

If a mounted knight did maintain a policy of eschewing personal combat with a weaker, unarmored opponent, it would be because there would be very little need to do otherwise. A lone peasant infantryman doesn’t present a significant threat to heavy cavalry– in medieval terms, those are tanks. Would “chivalry” in this context just be the ability to afford discretion on the battlefield? And would that chivalry make much difference to the total body count of a war? Wars, even preceding the modern concept of Total War, do not typically go out of their way to tread lightly on civilians. Indeed, historically civilians were by far the most typical people involved in wars. The professional full-time military is typically credited as being the invention of the Roman Empire, which again, could afford to devote a huge populace of able-bodied men in their prime to something other than agriculture and labor. (…And if you bring up the Spartans, I swear to god, I will put a curse on your house. Of course the highest of the elite aristocracy can devote themselves to full-time combat training when more than half the population of their city-state consists of slaves forced to take care of every other activity needed to sustain society). Wars tend to come to a natural conclusion when one side stops having enough civilians to throw in the meat grinder and still have a country left over afterwards, so finding cost-effective ways to wipe out civilians and soldiers is usually a primary objective of the people funding and providing the impetus for wars (less so for those making money off of the continuous demand for weapons– i.e. Romefeller). Efficiency makes wars end faster! And efficiency is a great excuse for justifying massacres; it is WAY less conducive to justifying civility.

Hawkeye: War isn't Hell. War is war, and Hell is Hell. And of the two, war is a lot worse. Father Mulcahy: How do you figure, Hawkeye? Hawkeye: Easy, Father. Tell me, who goes to Hell? Father Mulcahy: Sinners, I believe. Hawkeye: Exactly. There are no innocent bystanders in Hell. War is chock full of them - little kids, cripples, old ladies. In fact, except for some of the brass, almost everybody involved is an innocent bystander. --M*A*S*H, 1972

“There’s no formality when it comes to killing men. If there were, it would be in the form of a game where people’s lives are toyed with. In war, a frenzied death is the most honest way.”

Relena does not see war through the rose-colored glasses of the Eyebrow Brigade. What do “chivalry” and “honor” even mean in a war? An individual can maintain a code of honor– but unless you somehow ensure that everyone involved, from general to recruit, is fighting for the same reason, using the same rules, in the same manner, an army can’t. Unenforceable moral aesthetics applied to the actions of armies are a farce that puts a pretty bow on state-sanctioned murder. It’s propaganda.

But if you’re fighting a losing battle that you believe in, you don’t have the luxury of chivalrous conduct– you can still have a conscience, but you don’t take time out to make sure you and your opponent are evenly matched and emotionally on the same page before engaging. If you’re protecting something, or resisting oppression, you fight messy and kill when you need to and die in whatever ugly position you land in, because you have no other choice.

That’s how the Gundam pilots fight. It’s desperate, and brutal, and inglorious every step of the way. Whether they win or lose they keep fighting, because that’s what they have to do to be the catalyst of change. They put everything on the line: their lives, their dignity, their reputations, their identities, and when they fight, they lose over, and over, and over again.

--And the Eyebrow Brigade is OBSESSED with them for it.

The Gundam self-detonation is a shot heard round the world. It isn’t as if the members of OZ have never seen people sacrifice themselves before– Zechs has several martyrs on his conscience already. But there is nothing to soften the impact of seeing the enemy war machine open up and reveal a child as its pilot, and then watch him unhesitatingly press a switch to self-detonate. They backed their enemy into a corner and gave him an unthinkable ultimatum, and instead of choosing, he rejected the dichotomy entirely and took himself out of the equation. Without blinking. They watch a 15 year old die rather than acquiesce to atrocities, and everything they’ve done in the war to that point is lit up in the unforgiving floodlights of that act. Even if they still half-heartedly believed in the “liberation” OZ had given the Earth Sphere, was it worth this? If this was the opposition, who were they?

If a True Soldier is someone who puts everything on the line for their purpose, who sacrifices themselves to give meaning to their fight - then they’re looking at him. What’s left of him.

Zechs’ fight with the Gundams changes his perspective so thoroughly that he throws away his entire military career. It’s not just his job– it’s the career he compromised his Peacecraft identity for, the career that offered him security as a political exile, as well as fame and self-actualization. He wants so badly to achieve that state of clarity the Gundam pilots have that he rebuilds Heero’s Gundam just so they can continue the fight, so Zechs can learn what makes a Gundam pilot tick. He tries to force himself to fight without civility, to try and escape his own dependence on aesthetic combat. The irony is not lost on him that he is staging combat in order to do away with the formalities of staged combat– but he’s still unable to avoid it.

Noin, being the smart cookie of the couple, already gets why people who fight for something tangible have clarity. SHE has that clarity– she fights for Zechs, and for Relena. She knows that Zechs is perfectly capable of that clarity himself, because there are things and people dear to him that absolutely need protecting! But she also knows Zechs well enough to know he has to realize that for himself. No amount of persuasion can get Zechs to change direction once he’s committed– only blunt force. (The people who know him best seem to all understand that, except for Relena, because Relena is a chip off the same stubborn-ass Peacecraft block.) His fight with the Gundam pilots shatters Zechs’ confidence so profoundly that eventually, he’s forced to take off the rose-colored glasses he’s been wearing ever since he and Treize became friends. He is suddenly aware of how shallow his honor is as a “knight” fighting for nothing except his own betterment, a puppet of an organization with no guiding principles.

Treize’s change of mind takes longer; it’s a slow erosion, not a shattering. His ideals are so intrinsic to his sense of self that changing requires him to kill his ego and voluntarily exile himself from the world stage. The bravery, the tenacity and selflessness of the Gundam pilots is such a perfect demonstration of his ideals that it begs the question: Why is HE fighting? What was it he had wanted to create with the Specials? Knights on the battlefield who could operate according to their will, yes– but with no clear objective to fight for besides being the best? Was eradicating the Alliance– so offensive to him when it was in power– worth his involvement, when its successor had run out of patience for him, and all his inconvenient ideals about civility and sacrifice in war? The Gundams, and their proponent for peace in the Sanc Kingdom, are the ones truly fighting for what is beautiful and good, and therefore truly living. And what has he done? What is he doing? It’s impossible for him to lend his support or his influence to the organization that backed him in his rise to power. To do so any longer would be to betray his most fundamental beliefs– unacceptable, even when cannot live according to those beliefs himself. Treize struggles to find his own purpose in a new world of dehumanized warfare, and his isolation and turmoil do not end until Zechs presents him with the opportunity, at long last, to fight for his ideals– and die to give them meaning.

Zechs and Treize never truly abandon the ideal of the “True Soldier”. Their beliefs evolve, and in Zechs’ case must be disguised, but the belief itself– in that chivalrous, virtuous battle that ennobles humanity– persists in a more self-aware state until the end of the war. It’s the very thing that allows them to commit to sacrificing themselves for the sake of a peaceful future they cannot participate in.

And the Gundam pilots, continuing not to care what kind of soldier they may or may not be, changed the trajectory of their enemies so dramatically that they found themselves traveling in the same direction. In the end, the victory they’ve been looking for is their own redundancy– nothing more and nothing less than the ability to simply stop fighting.

(…Except for Wufei, because he’s… well, it’s complicated. But we'll get to him.)

#parsing post #gundam wing #treize khushrenada #zechs merquise #tinyozlion pgw #Wing Watcher's Toolkit #Gundam Wingtionary

[tinyozlion]

“The Soul of Outer Space”: Quatre and the question of Newtypes in GW

Newtypes are a concept from the Mobile Suit Gundam series; the term refers to a generation of people who were born during the age of space habitation who have developed certain telepathic, telekinetic, empathic, and even precognitive abilities to widely varying individual degrees. They are considered a new phase of human evolution, better adapted to life in space because of their unique capabilities.

The precise details of what makes a person a Newtype are intentionally left a little mysterious. The most common Newtype characteristic seems to be the ability to sense the “pressure” of other Newtypes, though the exact identity of the other person is typically an unknown factor-- this is evidenced by the fact that whenever someone with Newtype abilities senses another, their first response is usually to try and guess based on vibes who the source of “pressure” might be. People frequently share a similar "feeling" that can be mistaken for someone else, particularly if they have personal traits or life circumstances in common. 

Newtypes can usually detect powerful emotions and subconscious intent from anyone in proximity, regardless if those people are fellow Newtypes or not. Some especially powerful Newtypes develop the dangerous ability to invade or even alter the minds of other people, though this is very rare.

Another common ability of Newtypes is an increased awareness of their environment in all directions. In some cases this is accompanied by minor telekinetic properties that allow them to guide or move objects in their surroundings, though this is usually limited to machines designed specifically to respond to brainwaves. This extrasensory capacity makes Newtypes exceptional pilots, able to feel the movements of their craft as if it were an extension of themselves and easily navigate through space.

However, what is of greatest importance about Newtypes is their ability to immediately understand and empathize with other Newtypes simply by making a mental connection with them. Communicating on a wavelength of pure emotion and thought creates an intimate and deeply personal connection between Newtypes without their needing to speak or even meet one another. 

 Newtypes connect to each other via their emotions, their memories, their minds, their selfhood– things that together one might describe as the soul of a person. When a Newtype dies, they leave behind an impression of this soul that can continue to be accessed by other Newtypes.

…So why the hell does anyone care about their psychic powers? Newtypes can literally transcend death--

--at least in a very animistic sense that assumes all things leave behind an impression. But Newtypes in particular seem to leave behind very distinct presences after they die, which can interact with other Newtypes and retain their individual identities for a long time before returning to the universe, presumably at will. 

The idea of oneness and harmony underlies the concept of Newtypes and their role in the world: they can instinctively understand with each other because they are not different entities in the grand scheme of things; they persist after death because all things persist after death; they can connect seamlessly with their environment because they are not separate from their environment; they can grasp the future because all time exists simultaneously.

 This ties in with the idea of a greater cosmic collectivism, or a pervasive animism in the universe that retrieves and emits the energy of life in perpetuity. It is not a force that is necessarily guided by some greater will, but is simply a natural principle, responsible for guiding people inexorably towards a more harmonious future if they are willing to stay in tune with it– and, being a part of nature, this guidance is lost when nature is not respected. This goes hand in hand with the idea that whenever things have been thrown off balance, because of greed or pollution or strife, humanity will be doomed to suffer. 

It’s a concept that’s found across lots of Japanese media, to say nothing of the religions and philosophies across the world that feature similar concepts. It’s perhaps not the first thing that people think of when they think of the Gundam franchise, but Tomino’s creation wouldn’t be what it is without this incorporation of hope and spirituality at its heart.

This is why Newtypes are lauded as the “next phase” of human evolution– not because they have “superpowers”, but because they have the ability to transcend the human instinct towards violence and competition by virtue of their capacity to understand and empathize instantly with each other. 

Newtypes are adapted to living in the stars, free from the “pull of gravity” which represents the limited and violent instincts of earth-bound mankind; attuned to a greater universal spirit, they are the harbingers of a peaceful utopia for future generations.

–At least, that is the hope for them according to the doctrine of those desiring independence for the emigrants in space.

The tragedy of Newtypes is that they are a generation of young people, uniquely endowed for exploring the potentials of space in total harmony with each other– and they have almost without exception been co-opted by competing military factions eager to exploit their latent talents as superior mobile suit pilots. Their abilities are forced out of them in combat; they are manipulated from infancy, brainwashed and conditioned to be easier to control by their handlers; their brains are studied and crudely adapted to create artificial Newtypes in labs whose sole purpose is to become elite soldiers. Even when they are not being actively abused by a military authority, Newtypes are still most frequently encouraged to use their potential in service of war before any other path they might choose. 

What to do about the generational divide between Newtypes and “Oldtypes” within the bleak reality of a wartorn era where talented young people are forced into military pipelines to die for governments that fear them is a central dilemma of the Universal Century timeline, spanning many series.

…But you don’t have to worry about any of that! Because there are no Newtypes in Gundam Wing. 

Oh sure, there are strangely Force-sensitive people like Quatre! But that boy’s just touched is all. And sure, people sometimes have mysterious premonitions that turn out to be correct even when all evidence points to the contrary, but that’s just a wacky coincidence! Do mobile suits sometimes start moving on their own because they “sensed” the will of their pilots? Don’t be silly– machines just do weird shit sometimes! Don’t worry about it. In this timeline, if you want to see the future and have a mental breakdown because people are feeling too loud, you gotta do it the old fashioned way by plugging into the ZERO system, or trying some of Howard’s special strain.

There are no Newtypes in Gundam Wing– that is to say, there are clearly some gifted individuals who have a set of undefined empathic and psychic abilities, but those people aren’t called “Newtypes”. They’re not called anything, because they’re not a thing, there is no in-universe explanation for them. We know Quatre has “the shine”, but other than him, we have no strong evidence that there is a new breed of space psychics emerging in the Colonies that will lead humanity to the next phase of its evolution (whatever that means).  

EXCEPT: along comes the White Fang, and its self-appointed representative of the Colonies, Milliardo Peacecraft, spouting some extremist fringe theory about how people born in space are inherently superior to people born on Earth because they’ve transcended their inner chimp and are destined to carry on the species when the old breed of earthlings die out. 

…If this sounds like some radical Zeon-pilled podcast nonsense, that’s because it is. There is NO established basis for these claims in AC 195. It is pure manufactured conspiracy theory horseshit. It’s a scare tactic, designed to sound like the deranged manifesto of an absolute maniac who NO ONE agrees with, and NO ONE wants in charge of a planetfucker-class space battleship pointed at earth. And that’s the point. 

For more on this topic, see the entry on The Char Aznable Problem.

…But hold on, what IS up with Quatre then? Are there empathic space psychics or not? There’s obviously at least one, but does that mean there are others? 

Maybe. There’s definitely SOMETHING going on that’s making people just a little bit special, a little bit faster and more durable with better reaction times, who are extra in tune with their surroundings, or have a heightened ability to sense the emotional states of other people. It’s not limited to people from space either– Zechs seems to have inherited a suite of enhanced reflexes, and increased physical endurance that allows him to fuck around with G-forces that ought to turn his brain into soup; meanwhile Relena got all of the personal charisma and the ability to sense people’s intentions that her brother lacks. 

But way more significantly, the most perceptive characters seem to have a kind of future compass pulling them in the direction of a particular future that they sense is “correct”. While it’d be tricky to prove that this is distinct from regular old fashioned intuition, what IS certain is that this intuition plays a significant role in the universe of Gundam Wing.

This strong intuitive pull towards connectedness and (just wild beat?) communication does seem to suggest that there could be a distant, animistic cosmic force at play that the more empathically gifted characters can sense to varying degrees, just like there is in the universe of Mobile Suit Gundam.

That would mean Quatre isn’t the only one of… whatever he is, it's MOST of the cast! Again, what exactly constitutes a Newtype is mysterious; it’s more than a set of abilities, it’s the attunement to a collective human spirit and the universe. The Newtype-equivalents in Gundam Wing may be what they are simply because they have an awareness of it. 

So what’s “the soul of outer space” that Quatre talks about? Well, that distant, cosmic force that’s drawing people together and towards greater harmony, I’d say!

And the person who finds themselves acting as an inciting catalyst for a cascade of events drawing everyone forward would be at the center– the heart, one might say– of all those connected destinies converging in space.

…Or maybe that’s just the open puncture wound talking.

Quatre, sweetie, you’ve lost a lot of blood, let’s get you to bed.

#gundam wing #gundam wing meta #gundam meta #newtypes #quatre winner #parsing post #gundam wingtionary #tinyozlion pgw

[tinyozlion]

“Honor, Justice, Strength, Integrity” - Why Wufei’s 'Honor' is Different

Here’s an analogy: 

Someone stands up proudly in the debate club. They say “Today I’m going to be arguing strenuously for a topic I know almost nothing about and can barely articulate my stance on, but I’m going to opine about it at length and with great authority.”  

And you’re like: …Why?

Do you enjoy being humiliated? Do you like losing? Is this something you do often?

Why? Why stand up at all when you have absolutely no chance of making your point?

This is how Wufei feels about fighting. Wufei, after all, IS a debate kid. 

People who have no way of defending their argument should stay seated. They shouldn’t be here in the first place. If you’re too weak to win, you’re only a detriment to your own cause; when you’re weak, you make your cause look weak, when you lose, your cause loses.

So sit down. You’re in the way. You’re embarrassing yourself.

--If most of us look in our hearts and think of something that we would, honestly, truly, stand up and throw a punch / take a punch for, our ability to WIN the fight isn’t necessarily part of our criteria for doing it. If you gotta punch a bully, you gotta punch a bully. We view that as having integrity. 

Wufei would not agree– if you punch the bully and the bully wipes the floor with you, does it mean anything to anyone but you? And does your feeling of validation make it worthwhile to participate in a conflict that hands your enemy an easy victory? The bully is still Evil, he wouldn’t say otherwise. But you didn’t change that by getting your ass kicked;  the bully lives to bully another day. 

Why throw your life away for something you can't change? If the only thing you can do for you cause is die for it, then you need to get your priorities in order-- you should get better at fighting so you can WIN for what you believe in, or get out of the way of those who can, so you don't become a liability.

If a cause is worth fighting for, then as its champion you'd better commit to being strong enough not only to achieve victory, but to defend and enforce it– or don't you believe in your stance firmly enough to follow it through? If you can't bring yourself to implement it without hesitation, then your cause is not a worthy one. If you don't fully believe in the cause you're fighting for, then indecision will make you weak, and you will fail.

And it will be right that you fail. Because fighting without a unity of both commitment and moral authority is how you lose your way. It’s how unnecessary conflict and Evil are born: from the disorder left in the wake of those who fight without understanding of what they're trying to achieve or lack the resolve to implement it without compromise. To him, that internal unity of purpose is the measure of integrity. Never go to war without it.

“Honor” for Wufei is different from the “aretḗ” of Zechs and Treize. For Wufei, honor is a score you’re keeping with yourself and your family and your clan and your ancestors and your dead wife who’s spirit you idolize. It’s not glory, it’s not chivalry– honor is your reputation. It’s a designation of value assigned by your community; it keeps you accountable to them. If you are humiliated in battle, it disgraces you AND your community, and it is therefore their right to ostracize you. Honor is something you can lose-- not just by failing to meet your personal standards, but by by failure in general.

A circumstantial loss is one you can strengthen yourself against and bounce back from-- but a true defeat, one that ends with you knowing you've been bested by a far superior opponent? That is a failure. A deep and bruising mark of dishonor that makes you unfit to wield a weapon.

There’s an interesting, if perhaps cynical, description of “honor culture” that identifies it as a response to living in impoverished, tenuous, often remote conditions where there is minimal or no law enforcement. Your mileage may vary on that assessment, but one thing’s for sure, Wufei’s colony, the A0206 colony of the L5 cluster, fits all of those criteria. 

The Long clan’s reputation for great strength led them to be exiled by an insecure government to a decrepit, 200 year old relic of a colony teetering on the brink of extinction at the very edge of civilization. They have no money and few resources, their population is dwindling, the life support systems grow more tenuous by the year. The Alliance / OZ think of the people still living in L5 as vermin skittering around space trash. The Barton Foundation’s original plan for Operation Meteor designated A0206 as the colony destined for earth drop.  Both Earth and Space seem in agreement that his home is scrap metal waiting to be disposed of. The only resources of value Wufei's clan have are the few young people like him who are capable of fighting, and their honor as a people. (…And one Gundam with no ammunition.)

The Long Clan is depicted as being very strict, proud, and extremely conservative. They adhere to a Confucian tradition that values obedience to social hierarchies, and the acceptance of one’s social role within that hierarchy. It is understood that those with superior standing should maintain virtuous and moral conduct, and that those who are subordinate should obey them as long as this remains true. Civil order and peace is the expected result of maintaining this propriety. It is also expected that people strive for perfection and harmony in every aspect of life, with the understanding that perfection is a state that can be achieved. It’s very likely that the strict adherence to these very traditional precepts is what helps A0206’s small, endangered population maintain cohesion in the face of constant peril, and it would explain why these traditions have close to a religious significance for those living there, including Wufei. 

The hierarchies of this system are fundamentally patriarchal. Meilan is considered the “strongest in her clan”, but this seems to be something of a ceremonial designation, as she is repeatedly told not to fight in real battles on account of being a woman. In fact, it she seems to be the only woman with a visible presence in the colony. It’s possible that women are a rarity in the declining state of A0206, thus giving her increased value and status and making the rest of the clan overprotective of her-- but whatever the case, she must take on the spiritual mantle of Nataku to transcend her status as a woman and fight.

This is partly why Meilan finds Wufei so deeply infuriating when they first meet: she and Wufei are the strongest and perhaps ONLY members of their generation who are able to fight, and he (the one allowed and expected to fight by virtue of being male) refused to do so. Wufei did not see the point in fighting for a subjective concept– “Justice” lacks an absolute, universal definition, and therefore could not be defended.

--Like I said before: debate kid. 

Besides being an infuriating nerd, Wufei risks his whole clan’s reputation by refusing to commit to the fight against the Evil. (…Also, they were about to be exterminated by the Alliance, so choosing to let everyone die rather than be rhetorically incorrect was a bit of a dick move– as his mentor Doctor O astutely observed). When Meilan shames him, it is specifically for being a failure as her husband, as well as for shirking his duties as the most capable member of the Long clan. For both of them, propriety is of key importance.

But unlike Wufei, Meilan has no trouble reconciling her conviction to fight with her sense of justice. To her, it’s obvious that the universality of justice is infinitely less important than making one’s own idea of justice a reality. 

She isn’t having any of that what-about-ism bullshit– she is unhesitatingly ready to fight for what she understands to be true: that those who kill indiscriminately and oppress others for gain are Evil, and must be stopped so they cannot continue to do harm. And she fights also because… that is their way. The last and most enduring thing her people have is their identity, as ones who fight to uphold justice.

Ultimately, Meilan is killed while protecting the colony and Wufei. She is strong enough to win, but not strong enough to survive the victory. Their colony, their clan, and one the last few beautiful things they have managed to cultivate in spite of dereliction– their field of flowers, are safe for another day. If she hadn’t leapt to their defense first, Wufei would not have followed in the Gundam, and the population of the colony would likely have been killed en-masse by the Alliance, or decimated by OZ. She was directly responsible for their survival. Evil did not win, and yet, she died. She was strong, and yet she died. She was weak, and yet she was Justice embodied.  Such a contradiction meant the universe had gone insane. It lost its way, it stood in need of correction.

Wufei does not handle contradictions well. His ideology consists of absolutes and has no room for failure or extenuation. When the weak fight, they die, or they get in the way, so they shouldn’t fight. But Meilan– Nataku, was strong, and so, her spirit must live on in the Gundam, undying. It is her strength, her justice, which carries HIM to victory by lending him the strength of the mobile suit she died protecting. He must believe this, not only to honor her memory, but to preserve the structure of his ideology. 

When he encounters women in combat who remind him of her, he reacts with outbursts of sublimated anger and grief that is redirected into misogynistic vitriol. Women who fight will die, don’t they understand? They continue to pick up arms and fight anyway, even when they’re weak, even when they cannot possibly win. They’ll foolishly rush ahead because they believe in what they fight for, and it will kill them. But he will not be the reason for it. He will make them understand that they are weak, so they will stop fighting.

--But they don’t. And he has no idea how to deal with it. Just as he has no idea how to deal with his own defeat, until once again, a woman finds it worthwhile to help him regain his conviction and sense of justice, by demonstrating her own. 

He is a trad-i-tional boy, living in a trad-i-tional world.  

<-Back! —————————- Onward!->

#parsing post #gundam wing #tinyozlion pgw #Wing Watcher's Toolkit #Gundam Wingtionary

[tinyozlion]

Howard: Wastin’ Away Again in Margaritaville, Some People Claim a Mobile Suit Is to Blame 

In light of the recent passing of Jimmy Buffett, let us pay our respects by talking about Howard:

The man, the myth, the fashion icon; part of the first generation of mobile suit engineers, designer of the Tallgeese and the Peacemillion, rocket scientist, honorary member of the Five Doctors Polycule, weed guy to Duo and OZ’s best, a man so thoroughly chill he brought Island Time (and his sunglasses) with him into space. 

Howard is one of those brilliant people who was in the unenviable position of working in a field where their discoveries and advancements are often co-opted for use by militaries looking for any kind of technological or strategic edge– that’s most fields, by the way. The entertainment industry gets scooped by the military. Even paleontology¹ sometimes gets scooped by the military. But Howard is an aerospace engineer and robotics expert, and those lend themselves to being exploited more than most, particularly because they often rely on the kind of big-budget funding that only the military industrial complex can provide.

“Mobile Suits are nearly as old as the colonies themselves. When man took his first steps into space and started building new structures in the heavens, it was clear that new tools would be needed to perform the construction. Mobile Suits evolved from early motorized spacesuits and spacecraft manipulator arms. [...]Whether humanoid or pod-shaped, early mobile suits were any mechanized craft or suit that had the ability to perform complex manipulations. While Mobile Suits were originally intended for use in space, it was soon discovered that their versatility was easily adapted for terrestrial use as well. The new Earth-bound MS became more humanoid in shape, as ‘legs’ allowed the large machines to become truly all-terrain.” –Mobile Suit Gundam Wing Technical Manual

(I was so excited when I noticed these guys. There they are! The original MS! Of the get-your-hands-off-her-you-bitch Xenomorph-punching variety!)

Mobile Suits weren’t always war machines; they had a perfectly respectable start as construction exo-suits designed for Colony building and other elements of space infrastructure. Plenty of engineers and scientists who would have been involved in developing Colony tech and space exploration would also probably have been involved with Mobile Suit design; when those projects came under Alliance control, those same engineers would find themselves making weapons, and whatever other notable human advancements they might have been working on– interstellar travel, Mars terraforming, nanotech etc., would be shelved for the foreseeable future.

But that wouldn’t necessarily be huge bummer news for people like Howard or the Gundam scientists– working for an unscrupulous organization might go against their conscience, but who doesn’t love a cool robot? Howard, like many people in the After Colony timeline and our own, is a Mobile Suit nerd who is just as fascinated by the idea of a big damn hero machine with a beam sword and rockets as the rest of us. 

That’s just the duality of Man, man. 

Luckily for everyone, once OZ started mass production of Mobile Suits, Howard and the five Gundam scientists who had been working on the Tallgeese project all took their ball and went home. The others left for the Colonies to start building OZ’s worst nightmare, gundanium Mobile Suits that would outclass anything that had been built on earth; Howard, on the other hand, took the route of passive resistance. VERY passive resistance.

…Well, he’d LIKE it to be this relaxed all the time, but Howard nevertheless finds himself helping wayward Gundam pilots and rehabilitating ex-OZ aces whenever they drop by, using his crane-operating salvage ship as an unofficial mobile base for the resistance. Later, Peacemillion serves the same function in space, eventually housing ALL the Gundams and their allies in their fight against White Fang. 

So Howard ends up being pretty busy for a retired guy who just wants to crack open a cold one with the boys and watch the sunset off shore of Key West. But who better to remind a crew of hyper-vigilant, stressed out pilots to chill out once and a while?

Take it from a man in a hot pink Hawaiian shirt: slow down and get some rest. Remember, if you don't schedule time for maintenance, your equipment (or your body) will schedule it for you.

_ ______________________ _

1) Hadrosaur dental batteries are apparently so weird and unique that they have material science applications that the DoD was interested in. I’m going out on a limb here because this is apparently unpublished stuff as of writing this, but HEY it’s an opportunity to plug The Skeleton Crew– who do NOT typically talk about the military industrial complex, but are in fact very cool professional paleontologists who make excellent dinosaur content videos. And now, back to the giant robots. 2) If you’re reading this, you’re a NERD.

#gundam wing #tallgeese #Mobile Suits #HOWARD #parsing post #tinyozlion pgw

[tinyozlion]

Wait, How Many Wing Zeroes ARE There?!

“Three Wings for the Elven kings under the sky Seven for the Dwarf lords in their halls of stone...”

So, by the end of the series it seems like there must be a Gundam 01 parked conveniently wherever you need one. This isn’t a huge mystery or anything, it’s just a bit confusing because Gundam 01 has been updated, reconstructed, and rebuilt about a dozen times by just about everyone. 

The first Gundam 01 is what Heero comes to Earth in-- I'm going to refer to it as the "Wing Gundam".  (Back in the Colonies, the Doctors Five have made plans for an updated Wing Gundam that is bigger, badder, and more space-worthy; but that Gundam hasn’t been built yet, and the AI system that will be installed in its cockpit hasn’t been implemented *).

Heero uses the Wing Gundam until episode 10, whereupon he hits the switch that shoots it directly into God's grundle. 

Zechs, being the die-hard Mobile Suit nerd he is, sweeps up all the pieces, orders a bunch of extra Gundanium, and rebuilds it specifically with the intention of giving it back to Heero, who he senses is still alive.

The idea of giving the enemy death machine back to the enemy pilot understandably causes Romefeller’s monocle to pop out into its tea, and they tell Treize to make his boyfriend blow up the rebuilt Wing Gundam. Treize *wink* definitely *wink* tells him to do that right away *wink*. 

(Zechs is a political exile with a military salary; he does not have the kind of pocket change you need to buy two Gundam’s worth of Gundanium, express delivered from Outer Space. Do you know who DOES have generational wealth to throw around? Treize Khushrenada, a man who does not skimp when it comes to getting his friends everything they want.)

"The word better be 'flawless'."

Zechs blows up a Wing Gundam, but it’s not the real Wing Gundam, it’s a fake made from the spare parts of his Tallgeese MS, the rest of the supply of Gundanium, and 18,000 Gunpla kits he bought on Ebay. No one is really convinced by this performance: his reputation as a Mobile Suit nerd is too well cemented at this point. In any case, events unfold and Heero and Trowa take the reconstructed Wing Gundam. 

THIS IS WHERE A SWITCHEROO HAPPENS. The Gundam pilots attempt to head to space, which goes poorly for everyone. Heero dumps the Wing Gundam in a lake and goes to space without it. 

MEANWHILE: Quatre, who was forced to detonate the Sandrock Gundam and is having a bit of a rough time, finds the Doctors’ blueprints for the shiny, updated Wing Gundam, which is called the Wing Zero– because it has the ZERO system programmed into its cockpit.  

So now there is the Wing Zero in space, and the original/reconstructed Wing Gundam back on earth, chilling with the fishes. In fact, if everything else is too confusing, just remember: Wing Gundam stays on Earth. 

Stuff happens in space and Zero is left behind while the boys return to Earth. OZ now has the abandoned Wing Zero, which it plans to blow up. Zechs manifests out of the woodwork because once again he is a nerd who cannot let a good Mobile Suit go to waste. He changes out the Tallgeese (RIP) for the Wing Zero, and thoroughly enjoys having a shiny new Gundam to play with. 

Meanwhile, back on Earth, power team Sally-Noin recovers the original/reconstructed Wing Gundam from the soup, and gives it back to Heero. Unfortunately at this point, Wing Gundam is a little the worse for wear and underpowered for the waves and waves of VirgoMDs being sent its way. The tough old bird eventually meets its match and goes down under fire, but not before one Treize Khushrenada phones in to its pilot and tells him to meet him for a brunch-and-joint-suicide date over at the abandoned Disney Castle. 

Original Wing Gundam is toast, Heero gets the Gundam Epyon from Treize, and Zechs conveniently heads to Earth in the Wing Zero. 

Heero and Zechs fight, their Gundams (both running on the ZERO system) refuse to hurt each other because they’ve… never felt this way about another Mobile Suit before… is this what humans call… love? Zechs and Heero do not understand their Suits' beautiful relationship and refuse to let love bloom on the battlefield. 

Oh it's like THAT huh?

Heero gives Epyon to Zechs, and takes back Wing Zero, which he prefers piloting because it doesn’t have Treize-cooties on it, even if he has to re-adjust the seat because Zechs is taller than him. 

Heero stays in the Wing Zero for the remainder of the series– BUT! The wreckage of the Wing Gundam is still on the battlefield, where it is retrieved by OZ / the Treize Faction. The now twice-rebuilt Wing Gundam is patched up once again by nerds after Zechs’ own heart, who do it seemingly for the love of the game and the professional pride of a Gunpla enthusiast. 

Wing Gundam is left in the hangar with the keys in the ignition… awaiting the call of DESTINY. Destiny comes in the form of Lady Une, who, sensing Treize trying to die heroically in space, rushes to save him in what is truly the last flight of the Wing Gundam: taking the hit meant for TallgeeseII (itself rebuilt from the remains of the Tallgeese) and staying intact just enough to keep its pilot safe.

…Do you think Wing Gundam still had some of the old Tallgeese parts left in it? Do you think they remember each other? Am I getting emotional thinking about a Mobile Suit enemies-to-lovers arc? Do Epyon and Zero work out their differences before the end? These are questions I cannot answer; we must all decide for ourselves if the robots can kiss.

–OH! And you may be asking: Where does that sickass Gundam from Endless Waltz come from??  The one with the ACTUAL WINGS and robo-feathers and stuff! Don’t worry about it, it’s the same Wing Zero, everyone got a cool aesthetic redesign for the movie**.

____

*) …This actually depends on whether or not you take the events of Frozen Teardrop to be canonical. If you do, then the ZERO system predates the Gundams by a whole generation, and it’s based on the digitized clone of a Norwegian Forest Cat named ‘Sam’ who belongs to the Peacecraft family and was uploaded to a prototype MS by a young Doctor J and I am not joking. That is the original granddaddy of the ZERO system. It’s a digital cat-based user interface that lives in a Mobile Suit tamagotchi and communicates with the pilot by meowing. Is this insane? Undoubtedly. Do I love Sam very much? Yes sir I do. He’s a cat with a job. He’s the very best Meowble Suit combat AI, yes he is, yes he is. **) And THIS depends on whether or not you take the Glory of Losers rewrites as canon! Because in that version, the whole lineage of both the Tallgeese and Wing Gundams is slightly different, and the fancy robo wings are actually from the Tallgeese!

#I've peaked with 'Meowble Suit' I will never top this #gundam wing #Sam the Cat with a Job #wing watcher's toolkit #parsing post #tinyozlion pgw #Tinylion

[tinyozlion]

“Little Prince” / “Prince of the Stars” - Literature References in GW

I am so delighted to report that the phrase Relena uses in episode 2-- "Does that mean Heero is a... Little Prince?" (or "Star Prince" in Japanese)-- is exactly what it seems to be:

It’s a reference to "The Little Prince", by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.

More specifically, it’s from one of the backstories in “Episode Zero”– giving you yet another reason to read this important supplementary manga! It’s also featured in the new manga adaptation of GW, “Glory Of Losers”, which is excellent.

--Saint-Exupéry was himself an aristocrat by birth, and a notable pilot. He flew both as a pioneer of international postal flights, and as a fighter for the liberation of occupied France in WWII. He was shot down on a reconnaissance mission, flying his P-38 Lightning over the Mediterranean, and disappeared without confirmation of a wreck or his death. He was presumed missing in action until in the final years of the 20th century, when a silver bracelet with his identifiers was discovered off the coast of Marseilles . 

Fun fact: if you read “The Little Prince” with Gundam Wing in mind, you will experience Several emotions!

--Once upon a time, Relena Darlain encountered a lovely, somber young man who came from the sky and rescued her from danger. She did not trust him, because he had come in a Mobile Suit, a machine of war and death. He called her “princess”, almost without thinking, as if it were the natural thing to call her– this was terribly confusing, for she was certain she was not a princess of any kind. Thinking the young man was simply being whimsical, she asked whether that made him a knight, or a dragon? He looked distant for a moment, as if conflicted by something weighing heavily upon him, but then gave a response suiting the theme of the moment, saying “I’m a prince from the stars”.   The somber young man was indeed a little prince, who you might imagine came from a very small kingdom– home to a beautiful rose that was as fearless as she was helpless, with only little thorns to protect her that would not even deter a hungry sheep. He had run away from the responsibilities of this kingdom, and now could not return. When he’d first come to earth, he met a fox, who told him the only way to truly understand things was to tame them, and that one was responsible forever for the things that one tamed. The fox had said only that which was intangible really mattered. This had made him appreciate and love his rose even more, though she was far beyond his reach now, and the intangible goals he sought would only take him farther away. Years later, the girl Relena Darlain met another somber young man who had fallen from the sky as a shooting star– he was fierce and wild and not at all like the little prince she had met when she was a child. But he had come from the stars all the same, and something about him reminded her of that first encounter, and of the children's book of the same name. They were both hurt, and lost, and very alone. She said this thought aloud to herself dreamily, because at that moment she was still a child, though she wouldn’t be for very much longer. 

  —

–The title of the Japanese translation of Le Petit Prince is “Hoshi no ouji sama”-- the subtitles for this in the anime read “Star Prince”, which is correct for Japan, and in the dub it is “Little Prince”, which is correct for the English title. This is a lovely bit of translation synchrony that doesn’t help one single bit in understanding what Relena means when she says this! But that is why we have Episode Zero, and if you really need proof that this is indeed a reference to the childrens’ book, I believe Sumisawa brings it up explicitly in Frozen Teardrop.

Gundam Wing is chock FULL of references to western lit and film– Wizard of OZ, White Fang, Lawrence of Arabia, Roman Holiday; “Darlain” is close enough to “Darling” that I suspect it’s a Peter Pan reference, and even Lady Une’s name is likely a reference to My Fair Lady, due to a very early scrapped idea for her character where she was a sort of clumsy, provincial girl that Treize was teaching to be “elegant”-- an element that stayed on in the series, albeit in a MUCH different context from Henry Higgins / Eliza Doolittle, thank god.

“Come on Gundam, move your bloomin’ arse!”

#parsing post #Gundam Wing #Milliardo Peacecraft #Relena Peacecraft #Heero Yuy #Wing Watcher's Toolkit #Gundam Wingtionary #tinyozlion pgw

[tinyozlion]

TinyOZlion's GW Episode Guide for People Who Aren't Gundam People: Episode 01 - “The Shooting Star She Saw”

ᕕ( ᐛ)ᕗ OH boy oh BOY! It's time for PGW's first episode analysis! Let’s get started!

First let me pop in my 20 year old VHS tapes! ...Wait, I can’t. I don’t have a VCR player anymore, huh. Well, okay, let me just pop in these 20 year old DVDs! ...Nope, I can’t, computers stopped having disc drives in them. So... I guess. Uh.

Okay. Listen. Hear me out: I’ve bought this entire series on TWO redundant formats already. I’ve bought every manga. I’ve bought posters. I’ve bought model kits, I’ve bought figurines, I’ve bought toys. 

I HAVE PAID MY DUES TO YOU, BANDAI! NO MORE!!

–80 minutes and 2 seeders later– 

Wow, so this is the Blu-Ray edition huh? Let’s check it out, how different could it bbbvvhOLY SHIT

It’s so…… crisp.

This feels intimate. I shouldn’t be seeing the Gundams like this. They’re… they’re so… clean.  I don’t recognize any of these people without the artifacting, the scan lines, the VHS blur.

I can see all the cel jitter??

No… NO! This is wrong. This is DISRESPECTFUL.

God never intended 90’s anime to be viewed at 1080p! It wasn’t DRAWN in 1080p!

And yet… the color quality…  that seductive line definition … 

Fine, The Crispness, you win. I’ll watch my anime in high definition, but I WILL NEVER FORGET MY ROOTS!!!!!!

...Actually fuck that, this is gorgeous and I’m never going back. If I ever have a few hundred bucks burning a hole in my pocket I guess I’ll just buy it AGAIN. To be responsible.

OKAY. Now we can start.

Note!: While this Episode Analysis is sort of 1/2 walkthrough for new viewers and 1/2 refresher + commentary for returning Wing fans, what it ISN'T intended to be is a full episode summary (for really good episode summaries, you can go here!) However, I am going to be going over this particular episode with a fine tooth comb, because episode 01 is by far the worst offender of the series. It’s got it all: bizarrely worded dialogue, mistranslations, delivering a bunch of new information to us by taking it out of the fridge and pouring it directly down the back of our shirts...  Later in the series I will be grouping episodes together to cover more ground, but this one is a doozy, so it’s getting its own solo entry. Get ready: The pacing of this first episode is BONKERS. Things are going to move very fast, and a lot of new concepts are going to be dropped in quick succession.

*Ahem*

With high expectations human beings leave earth to begin a new life in Space Colonies. HOWEVER– (the way Optimus-Narrator says “However” lives in my brain as a permanent sound bite) the United Earth Sphere Alliance gains great military powers, and soon seizes control of one colony after another– in the name of “justice” and “peace”. The year is After Colony 195– Operation Meteor: in a move to counter the Alliance’s tyranny, rebel citizens of certain colonies scheme to bring new arsenals to the Earth, disguising them as shooting stars. HOWEVER– the Alliance headquarters catches on to this operation... 

This intro is actually very succinct, clear, and to the point– IF you already know what to expect from this genre. (In my section on the history of Gundam in Japan and North America, I talked about how Wing's opening exposition was written based on the assumption that everybody watching would already be familiar with the basics of the Gundam franchise, so all that needed to be explained for Wing was what was departing from the original.)

--The main takeaway from the exposition is that A) There are Space Colonies, B) The earth is oppressing them via its military, using big robots to terrorize the small squishy people living in the space hamster wheels; and C) during something called “Operation Meteor”, an unspecified resistance group from the colonies sent secret weapons to earth. 

Earth Big Military Bad, Space Colonies Oppressed, Space Colonies Send Five Mystery Weapons To Earth To Do Something About It.  Okay we’re all caught up. 

--Oh, what are the big robots? They haven’t been introduced yet– presumably because every single person watching this Gundam show already knows what Mobile Suits are, and knows that a Gundam is a big, special Mobile Suit, right? Unless you’re me, and nine years old, and watching it for the first time in America in the year 2000 AD. So just in case you're me from then and I'm me from now, let me clarify: the big robots are called “Mobile Suits” and this is a show about them. They aren’t Transformers, they need a person inside to make them go.

Let’s meet some of them, shall we?

--In this really very pretty opening sequence, we are shown the five mysterious capsules shooting down to the big blue marble that is earth. Fun science note: compare these to the Apollo command modules, and other vehicles designed for reentry! 

--We cut to an Alliance surveillance satellite. The crew has picked up the Secret Colony Weapon Gashapons on their radar, but have no idea what they are. It’s probably just space debris, but just in case it’s Something Bad, they decide to let the closest available military person know about it, so someone with guns can deal with it. 

--It is indeed Something Bad, and the military person they tell about it already KNOWS it’s bad, because he’s a main character and his name is Zechs Merquise. He’s the handsome fellow wearing a strange helmet/mask.

He is immediately dismissive of the Alliance satellite crew, because to him it’s obvious that space debris wouldn’t “ride the wave course to earth”. I have tried my best to identify what a “wave course” is, to no avail. I’m assuming that here it means a standard or safe path for reentry vehicles to take. 

(EDIT: It turns out "wave riding" is a thing from Zeta Gundam! It is indeed a procedure mobile suits use to "surf" with a heat-shielded device for safe atmospheric reentry! Now we know!)

--As alluded to by the Narrator, the Alliance (or at least, this particular and very significant group of people currently associated with the Alliance) does in fact know something about Operation Meteor (or “M”). They being to close the gap on the one capsule out of five that they can catch up with. 

–And here’s our first round of confusing dialogue! Goodie!: 

Zechs: “One would do just dandy. A hired front line soldier mustn’t rush to battle.” Soft-Spoken Zechs Groupie Who Doesn’t Get A Name So I Will Call Him “Milo”:  “That’s quite the bold statement, sir.” Zechs, chuckling: “I told you. I am a True Soldier.”  

–Now, what the fuck does any of that entail. Allow me to explain:

Firstly: Zechs indicates that catching up with only one capsule is fine (or “dandy”), because Zechs suspects this encounter will lead to combat of some sort, so even if it WAS possible to catch up with more than one capsule, it would be risky to engage multiple targets of unknown abilities. “A hired soldier” would be especially unwise to do so, because they’re not fighting for anything particularly meaningful– they’re just there to do a job, and why be in a hurry to die for your salary? 

--This is our first introduction to Zech’s ethos on fighting and what it means to be a soldier, or “True Soldier”. This is also our first introduction to one of Gundam Wing’s Big Important Vocabulary Terms! Which you can find explained in detail in the Dictionary Section.

Unfortunately for us, “Soldier” and “True Soldier” will sometimes be used interchangeably, but they mean very different things. 

Zechs is a man deeply concerned with chivalry, honor, and purpose– the morality and aesthetics of combat. A “soldier” might be someone paid to fight, enlisted with no particular goals, or deployed on a mission that doesn’t involve them– but a “TRUE Soldier” is someone fighting to prove something, to advance their goals, to test their own limits in battle with a worthy opponent, to discover something about themselves in the process of fighting. 

Soldier-I’ve-Named-Milo gives him a Look™ and says “that’s bold of you sir” because Zechs is most certainly not a hired soldier-- as we'll soon learn, he's OZ's ace pilot (more on OZ later), known for his exceptionally fast reflexes and high speed MS combat, which has earned him the moniker "Lighting Count". So while he isn't actually the type to jump into things before understanding what’s going on-- unlike some other people we're about to meet in this episode-- not rushing in combat isn't really what he's famous for.

Also, he’s being kind of a prick! Calling everyone else hired guns and then doubling down by reminding them that HE is a True Soldier?? Yikes!

...Or at least, that’s how the scene reads in English.

First-Episode-Zechs is really laying it on thick for us. And if you’ll take a quick peek behind the curtain with me: Zechs isn’t written this way past this episode. Or really, past this HALF of the episode.

But, if one is looking for an in-character explanation for this dialogue as it stands, it’s possible that First-Episode-Zechs is a glimpse into what a cocksure ace pilot raised on Treize’s idealism (more on that later) is like, right at the peak of his so-far spotless career, and in the last moments he’ll be able to afford this kind of unbridled arrogance before the world conspires to humble him. 

Honestly, that would be in keeping with the way ALL the characters are depicted in these early episodes: each naive or overconfident in their own way, not yet having been forced to challenge their ideals.

–But! this might also just be one of many localization fumbles. A fan translation of this scene indicates that what Zechs might actually be trying to say here is more like:

“No need to chase after more work than we signed up for, we’re all just grunts on the front lines together after all”

and Soldier-I’ve-Named-Milo is therefore responding to him more like:

“That’s a bit cheeky of you to say, Mr. Best-Friends-With-The-Colonel Ace Pilot The Lighting Count Merquise.” 

(...I’ve lamented this before but it’s DAMN HARD to find alternate translations of GW's script, and I'm limited by being a feeble monolingual English speaker. If you’re reading this and have more expertise than I do on this matter and want to share your insights / sources, please know that I'd sign over my soul to see them.)

–On a side note, I love how super crunchy Zechs’ voice is in this first episode. As one astute comment I read once suggested: you can tell Brian Drummond was coming down from playing Vegeta. He still had some of that ol’ Saiyan phlegm in him.

– And now for a brief interlude from our scifi high-politicking to witness some relatable familial drama!

I appreciate this contrast! The important takeaway from this scene is that Relena is the daughter of Vice Foreign Minister Darlian, an important dignitary who mediates between the Earth Sphere Alliance and the Space Colonies. They’re on their way home from one of his frequent business trips to space. 

A vague spoiler, but I find it bittersweet how Zechs is unaware that Relena is on the shuttle about to be caught in the crossfire, and by showing up, he is saving her life.

OMG IT’S HAPPENING. IT’S HERE. IT’S TIME TO TALK ABOUT THE “BATTLE SEED”:

Zechs: “So that’s their little battle seed, all ready to sprout into new battles.” Soldier-I’ve-Named-Milo: “Ha. Operation M.” 

--I get the feeling that Milo is used to Zechs-isms by now and is just like “Oh lieutenant, you kidder,” whenever he says some wild allegorical shit he just made up. 

Anyway, here’s the thing about “battle seed”– this is obviously an idiom that we've done poor service to. But in the original, it’s apparently “Battle EGG”, or perhaps, “EGG OF WAR”. Does that help? No? Well that’s all I’ve got for you. Sorry.

Soldier-I’ve-Named-Milo: “It moves just like a bird…”

Aw, Soldier-I’ve-Named-Milo, you’re so cute when you talk about the enemy death machine. Of course it moves like a bird, it hatched out of a Battle Egg! 

Soldier-I’ve-Named-Milo: “Let’s wake him up with our machine gun!” Zechs: “No. No machine gun for him– Shoot him down!” Otto: “But, Lt. Zechs…!” Zechs: “We were told the purpose of this operation was to bring in the weapon, but it’s not the weapon, (the real target) is the fighter pilot inside!”

Now, I know “don’t shoot him with the gun, shoot him DOWN with the gun” sounds stupid, but really he’s just saying “No warning shots.” 

Whatever kind of new technology they’re up against, strafing it with a machine gun would be like hitting it with spitballs. What they need to do is get the enemy craft out of the air and capture the pilot, and the carrier ship’s machine guns just aren’t going to cut it. --Which is why Zechs is about to hop out and try and fuck it up with a Mobile Suit.

Fucking things up with a Mobile Suit is what Zechses like best. 

--It is worth noting that Zechs immediately clocked the pilot as the most dangerous and valuable part of the enemy operation (because of course! Pilots are warriors, and warriors have honor, and a warrior’s honor is proof of humanity’s worth). Mind you, this is moments BEFORE they see the actual Gundam, but nevertheless, this is a significant value statement that will be important throughout the series: It’s the people that matter. It’s always the people that matter. The weapons are secondary. Even if superior technology grants someone an edge in battle, a weak person behind the controls will always betray themselves.

This is partly why Zechs doesn’t use the Aries MS that’s designed for flight, despite this being aerial combat; he goes in his preferred Leo suit, which is your bog-standard humanoid canon fodder Mobile Suit used as ground troops. This seems like a suboptimal choice, but Zechs lives by the idea that a good pilot can overcome the limitations of their machine. 

And this is put to the test literally the instant he drops. 

–The unfortunate aspect of this scene happening in Episode 01 is that the viewer will have no context yet for exactly how absolutely, impossibly, ludicrously impressive this stunt is. Zechs not only isn’t dead after this, but he manages to fuck up a Gundam using a Leo, which is testament to exactly how much of badass this guy is. 

Oh hey speaking of which check it out, it’s a Gundam. 

–Two of Zech’s backup squad are instantly blown away in one shot from the Wing Gundam. This is barely commented on, and I think that’s one of the bigger mistakes of this episode.  Those two guys aren’t named, and Zechs’ only remark is that it's "not too shabby" / "unbelievable". Considering how much the death of his subordinates weighs on him later, this seems remarkably flippant. 

Soldier-I’ve-Named-Milo: “Are you alright?” Zechs: “Yeah. Sorry to worry you. I did everything I could.” 

See? That’s the kind of rapport Zechs and his subordinates usually have; they keep it professional, but the people who work with Zechs respect him immensely, and as their officer he tries to do right by them. 

Zechs: “There’s no bright future for soldiers scurrying for their reward.” 

This is a fancy-pants way of expressing disdain for the Alliance sailors who weren’t involved in the fight, but were more than happy to claim the spoils. In the fan translation of this episode he literally says “tell them the treasure sunk at these coordinates”. To him, these are just pirates after loot, not True Soldiers. 

___

We just talked about Zechs for a long time. Now let’s talk about Heero Yuy.

Unfortunately for our first Gundam pilot, he took a long, precarious, silent shuttle ride all the way to earth only to be discovered immediately by the Alliance military. He fails to shoot down the civilian carrier that's seen him, and then he fails to shoot down the OZ mobile suit carrier ("Wait" I hear you say, "OZ mobile suit carrier? What's OZ? Aren't Zechs & co. from the Alliance?" Aha! Sharp-eared listener, you miss nothing! Have no fear, we will discuss OZ shortly).

Heero barely has time to dry out the wings of his Wing Gundam before he’s blindsided by OZ’s ace pilot and crashing his infinitely valuable Mobile Suit into the ocean. He makes it out alive by the skin of his teeth.

Not a great first day on the job for our boy Heero! Bad luck meeting Zechs Merquise first thing upon entering earth’s orbit. 

But a surprise encounter with OZ's top pilot notwithstanding, this... probably could have gone better, right? Why would our first introduced Gundam pilot be so cavalier about crashing and burning the second he makes it to his destination? Why would he recklessly reveal his Gundam and pick a fight on a stealth mission? And what’s with this giddy energy he’s got after making a fresh kill? Heero isn't exactly a cheerful guy; he only seems to laugh when he's exhilarated about having gotten away with something. This is one of those times, and it is his very most unhinged cackle. Finally, he gets to DO something. Feels good. Feels right. 

...It’s almost like this boy has zero sense of self preservation and no investment in his future; shooting down enemies for him is a game with no stakes.

–For the returning Wing viewer: if you're familiar the gist of Operation Meteor, remember that it would have been slated to happen directly before the series started; that’s when all the Gundam pilots (at the urging of their Doctors) independently decided to steal their Gundams and ignore the original premise.  So Heero just recently made off like a bandit with the Wing Gundam. He stole that motherfucker right out the display case. His primary objective at the moment isn't primarily to take down OZ and the Alliance (though that's obviously the long-term goal), it's to make sure the Barton Foundation DOESN’T get the Gundam. So really, getting shot down immediately upon arriving on earth isn't the worst thing that could happen. Heero smiles when he finally sees the earth because it means maybe this will be over soon. Mission accomplished. Now all he has to do is die! :)

___

Relena Darlain’s father is a very important, very busy man who never has any time to spare for his daughter, even on her birthday, and in this telenovela of her own life, she’s going to graciously pretend like this doesn’t bother her and make her strong, independent, teenage girl way home on foot, narrating her predicament out loud along the way. She’s the main character, after all, the center of the world. Her troubles are the only troubles that are real.  

*Record scratch*

 Lying there on the beach is someone who is actually in trouble. She’s the only one here. She HAS to help. 

___

–Alright, okay. I see what you did there, Wing.

--The gentleman in Napoleonic cosplay is Treize Khushrenada. He is a Major General (for now) in the Alliance military (for now), and his eyebrows are so big because they are full of secrets.

He and Zechs are best buddies forever and ever, they have matching charm bracelets, and they can finish each other's sandwiches. Whenever these two are on screen together I am going to have to decipher every. single. word. because Treize and Zechs are ALREADY cryptic bastards, and when they're together they talk in friend-speak where only half of what they're communicating actually gets said.

Just this once, as a treat, they are having a fairly intelligible conversation. First one's free.

...But really Treize, taking a call DURING the performance? Bad form old chap, bad form. 

SIDE NOTE: Based on the teeny tiny figures, this could maybe be Petrushka? And I desperately want this to be Petrushka because:   

It means Treize has good taste 

Petrushkranada 

–To put this conversation in perspective: Gundanium is a very sophisticated type of semi-metallic ceramic-like compound that can only be refined correctly in outer space. Think of it as something you’d have to spend all your faculty funding on to buy a gram of for your science department. Suddenly, someone rolls up with a six-story building made out of the stuff. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me” is the only appropriate response.

Treize: "Something like this never would have happened if you and I had been in OZ 15 years ago; that much is for certain."

--If I may humbly direct your attention to my Policy of Ignoring Stupid Shit, this one of the many reasons why we are going to glance at Zechs and Treize's canonical ages, do the math, realize that 15 years ago, Treize and Zechs would have been 9 and 4 years old respectively, and then we are going to gently slide those numbers into the garbage and crank them both up to a respectable adult age in our minds.

--OH RIGHT! OZ!! Remember, we were going to talk about OZ? Well, Treize is going to tell us about it here in a minute, I'm going to tell you about it now, because we need to know what OZ is in brief before we can make sense of this exchange:

OZ is a secret paramilitary organization hiding inside the official Earth Sphere Alliance military. As an organization, it's responsible for a great deal of clandestine political skullduggery and foul play that has left the Colonies and Earth in a state of easily-manipulated perpetual turmoil. OZ has been around for a while-- that's because its even MORE clandestine and sinister parent organization is even older. In its current incarnation, OZ is hiding out inside the elite mobile suit division called the "Specials", which Treize commands. In addition to being the Special's commander, he personally trained many of its top members when he was serving as an instructor at the Lake Victoria Military Academy. Zechs, and a number of other important characters we'll meet, all graduated from this academy under Treize's tutelage, and now serve him as elite mobile suit pilots in the Specials. Which is OZ. Which is the even more shadowy and sinister organization beneath that. It's a turducken of villainy.

What makes the Specials / OZ noteworthy in the ranks of the Alliance is that they are given free reign to act on their own initiative in combat. They don't answer to the Alliance military, they answer to Treize. This pisses a significant number of significant people off.

Treize pisses a significant number of significant people off. He's under the age of 65, which makes him an infant in the ranks of the brass. He's got elusive, powerful aristocratic backing that makes him untouchable. His followers are fanatically, and I mean FANATICALLY loyal to him. And he has the absolute chutzpah to be really good at everything he does. GOD he's the worst. His eyebrows are insured for $10,000.

--When Treize is lamenting that he and Zechs weren't in OZ fifteen years ago, he is referring to a very, very important sequence of events that began around AC 180 (give or take, if you're following my advice about stretching the timeline); events that brought the Earth and the Colonies within an arm's reach of unification and peace, only to be catastrophically and violently ripped apart, to the detriment of both.

(This is a very important date for Zechs, in particular. It's a very important date for the Gundams as well.)

Treize is making the point that if he and Zechs had been in charge back in the day, well, all this revolutionary sentiment wouldn't be necessary. We would have handled that mess far more sensibly, wouldn't we, Bestie?

-- Zechs has already absorbed this subtext and skips ahead to say "Gundams are on earth." Emphasizing that yes, shit really is popping off. The thing we heard scary bedtime stories about is real and it's happening and we get to be the ones to deal with it. Exciting times we're living in.

Treize: "I'm sure you're aware, but this is an important period. Do not do anything to anger the Alliance." Zechs, smirking: "I fully understand."

The Gundams aren't the only scary thing under the Alliance's bed. Lots of volatile elements are about to collide, all at once, very soon. Treize is just giving Zechs a wink and a nudge-- hey, I know you already know that big things are afoot, I trust you not to rock the boat too early.

--Oh! For the record, OZ stands for Organization of the Zodiac. You may have noticed that the two standard Mobile Suits we've been introduced to so far were called "Aries" and "Leo". OZ is inseparable from the history of Mobile Suit development, and all of its MS are therefore constellation-themed. ...But it's also just straight up a reference to "The Wizard of OZ", because OZ's signature mascot is--

--A LIIIIOOON!!!

...Yes! Thank you Tinylion, now we know why you're here. Back in your teapot now, sweetie. There you go.

--It's a lion, and the insignia for the OZ space corps is the Tin Man. The series lead scriptwriter Sumisawa loves him a book & film reference, you will find them all over Wing.

___

–Gosh, Treize is so SASSY in this episode. Look at this delinquent, showing up late for War Class because he was at a concert and on the phone with his boyfriend. Here he is giving lip to his supervisors, answering questions with totally undisguised disdain. He can’t keep getting away with it. He’s a naughty, naughty boy. Someone should teach him a lesson.

–God yes, General Septem. Fuck yes. The best worst voice acting in the show. Iconic. Immortal. Powerful. Showstopping. Brave. Go off, Nappa. 

-VALUABLE KHAMBET RESAWRSEZ

–Treize is sitting at the war table like a fox in a chicken coop, biding his time and thinking: “I don’t owe these complacent, arrogant fools answers for anything. They haven’t left their desks in decades. They’ve never seen the cost of human life first hand. In the depths of their ignorance they think they’re the ones who can steer the course of the future. Hilarious. Thank god for Me.”

__

MEANWHILE: Relena is still on the beach trying to figure out what to do with this sick feral cat she found.

The TNR crew finally shows up with a kitty crate but the cat wakes up and tries to chew its own head off in self-defense. Having failed to die, it bites everyone, hijacks their car, and gets the fuck out of Dodge. 

“Ma’am have you had all your shots?”

Relena is not listening. Relena is introducing herself to the Heero-shaped dust cloud that’s still lingering in the air, because what the fuck else are you gonna do. 

__

Oh hey look it’s more Gundams!

The Gashapons of War have touched down in different parts of the world and set to work wreaking havoc immediately.

Unbeknownst to the Alliance or OZ, any appearance of coordination between the Gundams is an accident– none of them have any idea there are other Gundams besides their own. 

They’re all in the same position as Heero: they refused the original premise of Operation Meteor and now they’re on borrowed time fighting whatever enemies come up on their radar. Each of them thinks they’re in this alone (except for Quatre, who has groupies). 

However, just because the pilots aren’t coordinated doesn’t mean the mysterious people giving them orders are. But we'll learn more about that later.

--- Let's meet the rest of the Gundam boys!

–Duo: LEEEEROOOOY JENKINS we only get old memes in the colonies –Trowa: New phone, new name, new Gundam, who may I ask is calling –Wufei: Stealth missions are for casuals who can’t fight their way out of impossible odds. Skill issue.  –Quatre: I am literally begging you to not fuck around so I don’t have to make you find out.

Speaking of Quatre: Hey! If this were a different series with a mature audience rating, this scene would be unmentionably gruesome! 

___

-Awww, Soldier-I’ve-Named-Milo is bad at math! He’s just like me for real. Anyway, there are (4 + 1 = 5)....Five. Five Gundams total.

-Zechs correctly makes the assessment that the game has just changed, and it’s about to get extremely serious very quickly. 

___

And now, the moment we’ve all been waiting for: 

Spicy feral kitten arrives at Relena’s school. Relena is more confused than ever, but now this is officially a Mystery. She likes mysteries. She likes Mystery Boy. He’s the perfect foil for her, the main character, in this YA novel that she is the protagonist of. 

Feral Mystery Boy suddenly makes it 100% publicly clear that he has no interest in playing nice, or in playing at all. Mystery Boy leans in real close, and says a thing that you might hear from, say, a guy in a black suit you accidentally witnessed murdering someone in a back alley, who then followed you to school.

The telenovela of Relena’s life is hitting its mid-season dark plot-twist, and 

She.

Is

Loving. 

It.

Tune in next week for Episodes 2 - 3! 

~TinyOzLion, out.

#Parsing Post #Gundam Wing #Gundam Wing Meta #Gundam Meta #Gundam Wing Episode Guide #Episode Analysis #tinyozlion pgw

[tinyozlion]

Parsing Gundam Wing: 

A Field Guide to a Classic Anime

So, you’re watching Gundam Wing.

Maybe you’re seeing it for the first time, maybe you’re returning to it as a fan of yore, maybe, like me, you’re trying to introduce it to a friend. Perhaps you are watching the English dub, or with English subtitles– doesn’t matter. There’s only one script for both. You’re trying to make it through the first episode, and oh baby, oh baby– What is this pacing? Who are these people? Why do they talk like that? What the fuck is a battle seed? Yes, the robots are cool, but the rest seems like a cursed soap opera. You are understandably hesitant to continue.

 This is normal. 

Take my hand. Shh, shh, come to my arms. You are safe now. I’m here to help. Welcome, brave explorer, to a classic 90's anime that once took America by storm. It’s very good. No, really, I promise, it’s very good.

Now, I can’t promise that you’ll love it! If the Space Opera And Ethics Course With Hot People and Robot Fights genre isn't for you, that's fine, take some hummus and go in peace my friend.

But the rest of you… we are brothers now.

Gundam Wing was lightning in a bottle when it first came out in North America, but even if that particular explosive debut will never come again, I think there’s still a wealth of enjoyment to be had for new fans– especially if like me you love stories that have a lot of depth, a lot of crunch, a lot of rewatch value, a lot of iterative shipping possibilities.

I realize that we live in an era of total media saturation; the notion of investing time in ANYTHING new these days is a tough sell. There are infinitely many things to watch, read, play, listen to-- so how do you justify getting into something that’s kinda old and a little janky? With some parts that haven’t aged as well as others? Something that maybe takes a bit of extra participation to get into?

...As a spoonful of medicine to help ease the media-fatigue, let me share with you something that I've found true in my life: rough edges invite you to participate in creation.

Stories that invite (or demand, or beg) you to participate in them have their own unique value, completely distinct from the value of those that satisfy you immediately; they will reward you for investing in them your time, your creativity, your curiosity.

And I think this is one of those stories! I genuinely want more people to play in this sandbox with me! So, here I am, making a blog about it.

--This is my guidebook to getting into Gundam Wing. It is intended to be a sort of companion, a primer-- maybe a walkthrough? An invitation? to this complex and juicy series.

This won't be a fan wiki-- those already exist, thank goodness, and people can check those out for themselves-- rather, I'd like to make this a repository of context and insight, and to fill in those troublesome missing pieces in the show that are big stumbling blocks to understanding what's going on!

I want to give you what I didn’t have when I started this series back in anno domini two-thousand-and-naught:

All the damn information.

Naturally, there will be more drawings, memes, crabs, very stupid gifs, and probably some crying throughout. And you have my word that I will try and present this in a comprehensive, inclusive, character-agnostic way.

...That said, I am not stealthy! I cannot possibly disguise the fact that I’ve given exponentially more thought to certain characters than to others. You will almost certainly be able to tell when you’ve encountered my Blorbos, my Special Interests--

(Shh, Tinylion! Back in your teapot!)

--But! Look into my eyes. Here is an Absolute, Unwavering Truth about me:

I love, or at least love something about, Every. Single. Character in Gundam Wing. and I will do my absolute damndest to give them each their due diligence, because they're worth it, and so are you.

Thank you for coming, I hope you enjoy whatever you find here ♥

~ Wesley, and to a lesser extent, TinyLion

#Parsing Post #Gundam Wing #TinyOZlion #tinyozlion pgw

[tinyozlion]

MSG3K 🎵 Mobile Suit Gundam Three Thousand~ 🎶

#Gundam #Zeta Gundam #zz gundam #mst3k #tinyozlion pgw #Robot Roll Call! #unparsable

[tinyozlion]

Hi! really love ur work, i havent rewatched gundam wing in years but ur deep dives have rekindled my interest. what are your overall thoughts on trowa/highlights/understudied aspects of his arc?

i think an understudied aspect of trowa is that he likes lions, and that he is nice to lions. this makes him the best pilot. he is handsome and smells nice. his hilights are that he respects lions, and feeds them also. sometimes he rides on a lions back with one hand. this is a good part of his character. another good part, is that lions trust him, so you know you can always trust him and can hire him for anything and you dont need to check his papers at all, because he has the trust of lions. i think he is better than wufei because wufei yells at hyenas which are from the savannah like lions and i bet he would yell at a lion even if the lion didnt do anything to him thats how mean he is. not like trowa. i wish trowa would ride on my back with one hand. i think if all the gundam pilots would fight, he would win. a lion would definitely fight for him and then no one could beat him. i wish a lion could ride a gundam. i wish trowa would let me ride in the gundam with him. do you think trowa would let a lion in his gundam? i think he would, especially a small lion. everyone likes trowa because hes the best. okay that is all of my thoughts.

#wesley will write more about trowa soon #thank you for being so cool and good at writing meta and leaving sweet tags!!!! ;O; #YOU HAVE THE TRUST OF LIONS #unparsable #tinyozlion pgw #Asks and Answers #trowa barton #blueiight #Responses and Comments