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nanslice
First, a recap of the episodes watched last week!
Episode Six - Relena's Secret
When Relena accompanies her father to the colonies where he is expected at an important meeting, he is severely injured in an explosion set off by OZ's Colonel Lady Une; father and daughter are soon spirited away by Doctor J, the engineer who designed the Wing Gundam and trained Heero. Before Vice Foreign Minister Darlian dies, he reveals to Relena her true identity, and Relena soon learns from Doctor J the extent of Heero's mission and his past.
Episode Seven - Party Night
Relena returns to school in time for a dance, but discovers Heero is going to transfer. After she challenges him to kill her after she reveals she knows all about him, Lady Une sends mobile suits at the school to kill Relena. Heero uses the Wing Gundam to fight back (believing the enemy suits have come to get him) and ends up saving Relena, much to his own disbelief.
And a recap for the episodes watched for this week!
Episode Seven - Scenario of Bloodshed
The five Gundams all gather at the New Edwards Base in an attempt to kill the higher echelon members of OZ, but they discover too late they have been tricked; Heero has already eliminated the pacifist leaders of the Alliance while Lady Une and the leader of OZ, Colonel Treize Khushrenada, manipulate the only survivor, General Septum, into declaring war on the colonies (before they kill him too). The Alliance is overturned from within and OZ takes over as the new ruling power.
Episode Eight - The Treize Assassination
Trowa and Wufei go after Treize while Heero, Duo and Quatre attempt to stop the detonation of the New Edwards Base. Wufei and Treize duel in a battle for honor and justice, but Treize decides to spare Wufei when the young man loses and allows him to escape.
A lot happens in these four episodes! Remember, spoilers are welcome as long as you use whiteout text or Rot13. :3
no subject
Date: 2015-06-20 11:44 pm (UTC)EP 5 & 6:
Just as well Wufei wasn't up to much besides a little stealthy throat chopping, because Uhn had the explosions and looking cool with complete disregard for safety quota well covered.
Heero as that weird kid with murder laugh and sick humour is starting to grow on me. My whole memories of his characterization were influenced too much by late series and EW, as well as his expys Sousuke and Setsuna, who're both much more in the truly earnest camp (and wouldn't really pretend they're going to kill an ally and then laugh creepily about it).
All I can really think about Quatre is boy you've got it baaad. Wowww.
OK the thing that annoys me about Relena is that her reckless actions at every opportunity are only matched by her total plot armor.
Also the animation was looking really fine, especially for the fights, like mmmmm Shenlong and Wing.
At this point Wufei is still flawlessly ruining lives, but it looks like he's about ready for his own moment of angst and doubting his life choices and existence.
EP 7 & 8:
[whisper] I love Wufei so much... I love how his intro to the other pilots was basically 'Stop your damn in-fighting. Also, you really fucked up. Bye.'
Though I was also ugly laughing at Alliance for thinking it would be fine and dandy to send all their top people out in an undefended space shuttle while there are 4 Gundams in the vicinity trying to murder them all (or was that machinated that way by Une?). And then Une's crowning moment of awesome when she shoots the guy in the head after he's already been dropped out of the plane. Damn, girl.
Heero's little mission successful smirk was so cute, but so was his next bsod moment. Poor kid just does the extremes. And fell on his head again (or Wing did). It's like he literally can't comprehend living unless he's winning and has a mission. Good old Sally for stepping in. I would almost ship some Sally/Heero if I weren't so lazy about het.
I also liked how well Trowa and Wufei worked together without really working together simply by being the ones who just get on with it. The Treize/Wufei fight was delightful, as was Wufei's fit of emotion! I hope Trowa fishes Wufei out of the sea before he wastes away from angst though.
teal deer, teal deeeer
Date: 2015-06-20 11:49 pm (UTC)The continuing contrived-ness of Darlian's death just makes the episode even more galling. (also I'm not sure why the revolutionaries keep an IV line in his corpse. it's very strange.)
One useful thing that does come out of the episodes 05 and 06 sequence is the introduction of Doctor J, and -- via good ol' Doctor Claw -- an explanation, more or less, of how Heero functions which basically boils down to being a decent enough kid but buried under training and conditioning when he's "on the job".
Which is something the audience prompts gets to watch the results of over the next few episodes; Heero has very specific targets within his training schema (OZ and their affiliates), and he doesn't do well when forced beyond that. Such as his attempts to splat Relena at the school -- she's a civilian, and a civilian under threat from the OZ machines, that's not going to fly.
(thanks be to the gods the school was blitzed. those kids are creepy as all hell. and, somehow, didn't notice Wing chilling in the trees right next door *facepalms*)
This entire two-episode segment is essentially absent from The Glory of Losers, with events being substantially rewritten. For my first chunk of that, check here for last week's GoL post; I'll have the rest tonight. I had to split it because of how the GoL timeline plays out.
And then there's episode 07, in which the entire apple cart is upset and the audience is treated to just how far Treize, OZ -- and the Romefeller Foundation -- will go. Field Marshal Noventa is a terrible, terrible loss; and it's telling just how many of the Alliance council were ready and willing to reemmber basic human decency and power down the military machine, opening up proper negotiations with the colony nations. (it's also telling that the way these proposals were phrased suggests that Darlian was not actually officially doing anything of the sort.)
Of course, the trouble with allowing an outside force that has great influence, deep pockets and the source of the major military machine, figuratively and literally -- namely Romefeller -- sink its fangs into a world govenment is that one will inevitably wind up with exactly what happened.
Treize makes his bid for power and succeeds admirably; at this point he'd been spending years building up influence -- and his understudies, such as Zechs and Noin, have been helping with the indoctrination of every member of the Specials that entered their own spheres of influence -- and his particular brand of toxic 'glory' is one that easily appeals, and easily digs into the mind. Consider the two fools set by Une to annihilate a chunk of the African continent wider in diameter than the width of Sweden: "I'm sure they'd be glad to die with such honour.", they say, when confronted by a horrified Major Sally aghast that they fully intend to atomize their own people on top of everything and everyone else. 'Honour', indeed.
With the scattershot methods used by the Gundam pilots, it was no doubt pitifully easy to spread the false information concerning the attendance of the New Edwards meeting in the first place. There's no central organization, only the scientists sending directives with singleminded intensity -- easy to fool, easy to make them overlook details. (granted GoL adds an extra wrinkle to why the pilots were sent to the base, as noted in the link above.)
And, with the annihilation of the Alliance leaders -- those calling for peace, those not heading up OZ -- we're treated to seeing just how thoroughly Heero's mind goes off the rails when contronted with a major violation of his training. He's in shock, unresponsive, until Sally give him a new mission; one that jars him into action, and -- notably -- prompts the comment that failure means death, but he's not ready yet. An argument could be made that succeeding in disarming the missiles diverted his death-wish (not that he wouldn't have died instantly if he failed; no wonder he accepted), much the way that these successive mental jolts are going to begin to lay the seeds for other changes.
We also get to see how Heero is not by any means a normal human being. Aside from his 'training', programming, this is the first time (as I'm fairly certain there's another one) we see him casually crush metal bars and pull them aside. Sally of course finds him a most fascinating subject, and who can blame her --
The other major reveal throughout these episodes, Zechs, is handled well but would probably have had more of a punch if the hints didn't come one after another anyway before he puts a bullet in Onegell. More interesting (for me, at least) is his swinging back and forth in behaviour and principles, from encouraging the violence (and suggesting it may be too much for Noin) to "The Alliance and OZ ... it's not as if the world will change if one replaces the other, so why should we even fight" -- and yet leading a rebellion he does not believe in.
Zechs may think he's burying himself -- "May you rest in peace, the outraged and betrayed Milliardo Peacecraft" -- but what he's done is lay the groundwork for his further fracturing in the future.
More Glory tonight, I'll toss the link up here --
Re: teal deer, teal deeeer
Date: 2015-07-27 02:59 am (UTC)Sorry for late reply; I'm terribly behind in my watching.
Re: teal deer, teal deeeer
Date: 2015-07-27 03:34 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-06-21 05:27 am (UTC)I think folks may find how some events unfold in this version interesting, to say the least.
Setting Data~
Date: 2015-06-21 12:52 pm (UTC)(pt. 1 - from the data book)
Building the colonies was the greatest endeavor man has ever undertaken. Conditions on Earth were grim; overpopulation and constant warfare were a way of live. When the first permanent colony was constructed in A.C. 1, it offered people hope in a new frontier where war and famine would be a thing of the past.
The Earth nations all eagerly joined the colonial construction boom, not in the name of peace, but to expand their national borders into the new frontier. This nationalization of the early colonies created a microcosm of the conflicts on Earth. War broke out between the colonies and various nations, and because of the harsh conditions of living in space, casualties were high. Emigration to the colonies all but ceased and the remaining settlers lived in poverty.
While the other countries lost interest in the colonies, the Arab nations understood their future potential. With their vast wealth from the now depleted crude oil, their experience at negotiating peace between bitter rivals, and their ability to adapt to the most inhumane living conditions, the Arab Nations found great success in their new role as arbitrator. They stepped in to moderate the colonial conflicts and act as a pipeline for resources to move between the colonies. Later, as the need for resources grew, the Arab countries brokered the mining of asteroids.
Independent from the jurisdiction of their founding nations, the colonies finally found peace and prosperity. Completion of the first colony in a gravitationally stable Lagrange point, colony L1, signaled a new era of emigration to space. Construction began in other Lagrange points and people surged in to occupy the new colonies. 15% of the Earth's population moved to space during this period. But the peace was not destined to last. Certain powers on Earth would soon set their sights on the colonies once again.
~*~
More information on Lagrange Points:
https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Lagrangian_point
(note: L1 is not actually a stable point!)
The colonies in Gundam Wing are Stanford tori:
https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Stanford_torus
Re: Setting Data~
Date: 2015-06-21 12:57 pm (UTC)I can totally buy that where they nammer about a "stable" L1, the colonies are being adjusted with boosters/are in a cyclical orbit within the point; these are the people who in-setting were going to be able to move a colony from L2, around the moon, and drop it on the planet, after all }3~
The notes about Arabic nations and nationality for the colonies (used however loosely it may be) is a lynchpin in Wing -- wave for the camera, Quatre, and your immensely influential family and the medical madness involved therewith --
Re: Setting Data~
Date: 2015-06-21 01:04 pm (UTC)Yup~
no subject
Date: 2015-06-21 07:57 pm (UTC)Doctor J tellingly doesn't correct Relena's impression that Heero's the only one sent by the colonies to fight OZ. And it makes sense, given he's already told her that the colonies stopped communicating with each other after Heero Yuy's assassination. We haven't seen much of the organization he's apparently part of, but those two pieces of information would be enough to limit Relena's knowledge of everything related to Operation Meteor having more than just Heero involved (even if she's also met Duo).
I guess Wing's flight mode either isn't stealthy enough to make the trip to New Edwards Base without getting detected or it doesn't have the range necessary to do so. Either one would explain why Heero's taking the trouble to steal a plane when his Gundam can fly.
I will note that I could have sworn there was more Wufei and Treize in episode 8 than there ended up being. Maybe I got fooled by the episode title and summary.
no subject
Date: 2015-06-22 05:57 am (UTC)Yeah... that fight did end up quite short. Wufei was in and out of there really fast.
no subject
Date: 2015-06-22 11:50 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-06-22 05:11 pm (UTC)On the other hand, we get to see Relena having some serious guts (and even more so, reading Taichara's GoL notes, wow). Does she do some really ineffective, dangerous, scatterbrained things? Oh yes. Does she still haul off and do 'em? Ohhh yes.
Not really sure how all that got past the Alliance without detection, tho. I mean, Gundams, yeah. But there was a plan to kill all the Alliance leaders/pacifists/whatnot BEFORE they showed up. I'm now curious what it was.
Stupid shouty Septum nearly got me banned from watching GW, back when I was a teen buying VHS tapes of it with my minimal paychecks, because he was loud and obnoxious and apparently a bad example? And then he got thrown out of a plane and shot, and I got to keep buying VHS, muhahaha.
no subject
Date: 2015-06-25 12:54 pm (UTC)My best thought at the moment for the planned Alliance deaths? That shuttle was never going to get off the ground without exploding -- Heero destroys it while it's still taxi'ing, so we never see it fly. Such a shame, machine failure ...
no subject
Date: 2015-07-27 02:13 am (UTC)Also, I am so behind on episodes :x
ETA: I really enjoyed watching the slowly building camaraderie between the Gundam pilots. I like how Quatre was able to understand that Heero was overwhelmed by what had happened with the deception from OZ to initiate their coup d'etat. Then again, Quatre is the most empathetic of the pilots, so . . .
Treize and Wufei's duel is one of my favorite moments. I have to say that I enjoy Wufei as a character simply because of how intense yet hypocritical he is. He refuses to fight Noin, but has no problem engaging Une (although he kind of didn't have a choice with Une).
Treize and Wufei's dueling styles reflect their personalities, which is also why this scene was so enjoyable to watch. Wufei charges at Treize, and Treize maintains his composure throughout the entire duel (hell, Treize wasn't even phased when Wufei's dragon arm destroyed the side of the ship mere feet away from him). And when Treize turns to place his blade at Wufei's throat . . . so elegant. I know a lot of people dislike Treize for how manipulative he is, but I really love how calm, collected and calculating he can be. Treize is my favorite of the OZ characters.
I also think it's an interesting peek into Wufei's character that after being defeated in the duel, Wufei simply leaves. He doesn't try to attack in vengeance; he just accepts defeat and goes to angst. I also like that Trowa was able to understand that and not pester Wufei about it--you know Duo or Quatre probably wouldn't have let it go that easily. Well, Quatre would, but Duo is the chatty sort (which makes him very likeable; supposedly he is the most popular of the five Gundam boys, and rightfully so).