Gundam foils and the drive to heroism

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False Prophet
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Gundam foils and the drive to heroism

find it interesting that despite the differences between their temperament, Jerid and Mashymre shared the same delusion that they were somehow greater than they were. We later saw the same thing with Gyunei, Riddhe and Zabine.

This is probably a running theme in U.C. all things considered. If you think about it, U.C. protagonists are usually the reluctant types being pushed into extraordinary situations. They never wanted to be heroes in the first place. If you are the opposite type, U.C. seems to say that you will end up making a fool of yourself. Even protagonists are not immune to this. Just look at Kou.

On the opposite end we have Char. During the OYW, for all of his revenge fantasies, Char is a pragmatic opportunist. And at the end of the show, we see the narrative awarded him for being like that--temporary set aside his hatred for Amuro to settle on the bigger vengeance with the Zabis and got what he had always wanted.

Then again, we later knew that Char was never able to shrug off his affair with Amuro. By the time of CCA, he seemed to be frustrated by both that fact and the feeling of inadequacy to his father's legacy.
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MythSearcher
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Re: Gundam foils and the drive to heroism

False Prophet wrote: Mon Sep 07, 2020 11:10 am find it interesting that despite the differences between their temperament, Jerid and Mashymre shared the same delusion that they were somehow greater than they were. We later saw the same thing with Gyunei, Riddhe and Zabine.

This is probably a running theme in U.C. all things considered. If you think about it, U.C. protagonists are usually the reluctant types being pushed into extraordinary situations. They never wanted to be heroes in the first place. If you are the opposite type, U.C. seems to say that you will end up making a fool of yourself. Even protagonists are not immune to this. Just look at Kou.

On the opposite end we have Char. During the OYW, for all of his revenge fantasies, Char is a pragmatic opportunist. And at the end of the show, we see the narrative awarded him for being like that--temporary set aside his hatred for Amuro to settle on the bigger vengeance with the Zabis and got what he had always wanted.

Then again, we later knew that Char was never able to shrug off his affair with Amuro. By the time of CCA, he seemed to be frustrated by both that fact and the feeling of inadequacy to his father's legacy.
Counter argument: Haman Karn
She never wanted the position, never thought of herself as better than others(while she IS better than most of the other characters, at least those in similar leading positions and is unarguably the one who is closest to accomplishing a victory on the Zeon side), she ended up dying without accomplishing anything because the idiot Toto though himself better than others.
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yazi88
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Re: Gundam foils and the drive to heroism

She also killed a lot of civilians by dropping a Colony on Dublin and didn't allow people to evacuate either, so that's a pretty moot point with Haman Karn.

Shoot, I think Scirrico is a more decent person than Haman Karn in some ways. She has way more emotional baggage than him. And she was not that good of a leader in ZZ either given the moronic uprising of Glemy and having a big civil war inside of Neo Zeon. So all her accomplishments in Zeta were negated by the events of ZZ. And she offed herself too by taking the cowards way out rather than own up to her actions.
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domtropen
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Re: Gundam foils and the drive to heroism

At Dublin the fed itself didn't do anything, and many in its rank actually like the idea of wipping out the population there too according to the anime.
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yazi88
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Re: Gundam foils and the drive to heroism

Yeah but the Neo Zeon troops were stopping the AEUG/Karaba from evacuating the civilians. Its one thing for Federation not doing anything to help, but its a different thing when Neo Zeon is stopping people from escaping a Colony drop.
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MythSearcher
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Re: Gundam foils and the drive to heroism

yazi88 wrote: Sun Sep 13, 2020 4:22 pm She also killed a lot of civilians by dropping a Colony on Dublin and didn't allow people to evacuate either, so that's a pretty moot point with Haman Karn.
That is one of the reasons she achieved closest to victory.

And she is still the reluctant type pushed into the situation and isn't the delusionary "I am greater than yee" type mentioned in the first post.

The moronic uprising of Toto is that, the moron did it, and has little to do with Haman. Anyone in their right mind will not uprise at that moment and thus no one in their right mind would be prepare for it. She likely prepared for an uprising for a later time, say, after the victory against EF.
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yazi88
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Re: Gundam foils and the drive to heroism

Haman's leadership in question is one of the reasons that lead to Glemy's uprising. If she was more effective there wouldn't have been such a big nasty infighting going on, especially with such a very large amount of forces that sided with Glemy. Its one thing if Glemy had a small faction of soldiers following him, but it was a lot, so much so that most of his forces overwhelmed Haman's forces.

Char was a much more capable leader and he was the only Zeon revival movement that had no infighting at all. Although Gyunei was thinking of overthrowing him, it was more of out of jealousy with Quess.
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Chris
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Re: Gundam foils and the drive to heroism

yazi88 wrote: Mon Sep 14, 2020 7:19 am Haman's leadership in question is one of the reasons that lead to Glemy's uprising. If she was more effective there wouldn't have been such a big nasty infighting going on, especially with such a very large amount of forces that sided with Glemy. Its one thing if Glemy had a small faction of soldiers following him, but it was a lot, so much so that most of his forces overwhelmed Haman's forces.

Char was a much more capable leader and he was the only Zeon revival movement that had no infighting at all. Although Gyunei was thinking of overthrowing him, it was more of out of jealousy with Quess.
We all know though that this was due to Glemy being tagged in as a poor substitute for Char, so I really put the fault on the writing staff for not making Glemy more compelling a character, or better yet, given his goofy origin, creating someone entirely new who would rise up against Haman.
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yazi88
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Re: Gundam foils and the drive to heroism

There is that too. But Haman was also having all those weird delusions and distracted by Judau too. Its likely the change in some of the writing compared to Zeta, but Haman lost a lot of her bite in ZZ compared to Zeta.
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MythSearcher
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Re: Gundam foils and the drive to heroism

yazi88 wrote: Mon Sep 14, 2020 5:54 pm There is that too. But Haman was also having all those weird delusions and distracted by Judau too. Its likely the change in some of the writing compared to Zeta, but Haman lost a lot of her bite in ZZ compared to Zeta.
This is not only a problem for Haman, but everything in ZZ.
Joke is that Judau is the only main protagonist under Bright's command that didn't get Bright slapped but instead hit Bright instead.
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Though he is much less spoiled like Amuro and Karmille and more mature(comparitively) from the very beginning of the show, so that's that.
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Re: Gundam foils and the drive to heroism

Agreed the writing in ZZ can be very inconsistent at times.

Haman starts out as a cold and calculating misanthrope,who because of her (rather vague, at least in the anime) backstory feels that tyranny is the only way to lead the world. Come ZZ her "schemes" include sending a bunch of morons with weapons around to gather militia forces. She then instantly becomes dangerously fixated on Judau, and repeatedly keeps trying to get him to join her side. She then decides the best way to convince Judau to join her is to try and kill his ten year old sister; afterwards despite the Federation folding like a cheap suit, Haman orders a colony drop on Dublin. This manages to kill everyone but the corrupt politicians; who don't care about their citizens, and also fled the area beforehand. This is not to say that something as horrible as a colony drop ever is reasonable, but Haman seemed to especially not have a reason to do this. The Federation was already trying to curry favor with her , and afterward only the AEUG and Karaba tried to stop her. Then despite everything she's done up to this point, the story reveals Haman dosen't actually care about power. umm...

Basically the story depicts Haman alternatively as a tragic heartbroken cynic who is entranced by Judaus optimism, or as a power hungry, tyrannical Shotacon who will force Judau at gunpoint to be her lover. When the two mix together it makes Haman less sympathetic than intended.

Glemmy also qualifies...

As has been mentioned before Glemmy is over promoted for no apparent reason, and despite numerous failures. He starts out as goofy and arrogant, and grows more cynical as time goes on. By the midpoint of the show Glemmy actually gets to see how people are used by Neo Zeon (ie the Blue Team). This kind of makes Glemmy more reasonable compared to Haman, especially considering her later actions. However to this end Glemmy brainwashes a bunch of Loli clones to be his expendable pawns. Then he crashes Axis into Core 3 , which probably killed the entire civilian populations of both(ie millions of people). Also he goes from hating Haman for her ruthlessness, to wanting to overthrow her because he's apparently Giherens illigitmate son.

At least with Haman it seemed like they were trying to soften her character with her interactions with Judau (how well that worked when she ran off and committed more atrocities, is another story), But with Glemmy his character really does seem uneven, which seems to be a result of inconsistent writing.
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