Gundam Wing: Main

[branchandroot]

Welcome one and all, to my pages on that most curious of shows, Gundam Wing. The global show, the show with action so fast paced (and minimalist) you have to watch it three times to figure out exactly what happened. At least if you're watching with subtitles.

If you follwed a link for Blood Sports vs. Elbow Room vs. The Gold Standard this is the same suite but I got bored with that title and changed it. Perihelion is the point in a comet's or planet's orbit during which it is closest to the sun. There's often a fairly spectacular burnoff of volatile elements about then with comets. I trust you can work out the rest of the double entendre on your own.

Reader Advisories: Big ol' spoilers. As with all my pages, don't read if you are in the middle of the series and don't want the end spoiled. While I follow the show's own system and give all character names in given-sur order (except Wu Fei), if I have occasion to refer to non-characters (real people, remember them?) I will use sur-given order whenever culturally appropriate. This is not a purely pro or anti anyone page, but it certainly is purely anti-sexist. If y'all got a problem with that, go blow yourself and get off my page. I'm basing my reading of this story on the official subtitled release from Bandai, but supplemented by the episode translations available on Gundamwing.net. Where there is a conflict, I believe the non-commercial translation.

Oh, yeah, and my stance on official info: Will everyone CHILL OUT already? Of *course* there are discontinuities between one official source and another, of course official info leaves room for multiple interpretations, it was all written by multiple authors! I mean, think about the Star Trek novels for a minute, all right? The characterizations and even basic cultural info varies from one to the next, and they're still all official. In other words, it's entirely likely that, for instance, the anime script writers and the novel writers had slightly different versions of this universe in mind. If some bit of official info contradicts your interpretation, what's the big deal? That doesn't mean you can't enjoy your interpretation in your very own head and on your very own webspace and in the company of like minded people. It's not the end of the world. Breathe in. Breathe out. Calm.

Better?

Good, then, about the story.

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AC and UC

*Author writhes in agony* They're killing UC; I'm absolutely positive of it. With those horrible voices if nothing else.

I've recently acquirred cable, you understand, so I've been following the original series on Cartoon Network. Only my sense of duty keeps me at it. While the storyline is wonderfully more complex, the apparent idiocy of the characters is causing me pain. Especially Amuro. Char is much better, but still not up to par of the original seiyuu; it couldn't possibly be. Any reputable seiyuu would be embarrassed to produce a performance like this! GW is often obscure, to be sure, and frustratingly so at times. But at present I have to call that better than the sledgehammer morality and downright puerile attitudes I'm seeing in the original. Ow, ow, ow.

10/1-And then there's the problem that they can't seem to make up their minds what to show. First UC is gone, then we've suddenly got 8th MS Team. Which has better ink, and the black-and-whitening of the original was getting on my nerves big time, but still.

Some day I really need to get the original original. I admit to a sneaking weakness for good ink, though, so it's currently on the back burner. I do hope the dub isn't this hideous all the way through. Meanwhile, back to the good-ink-series.

Quick sketches of how I see the main characters, just so my later assertions make a bit more sense. Click here for musical accompaniment of "All Fired Up" by Pat Benatar. On we go...

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Azrael's Little Helpers

Heero Yuy, our fallen angel. The boy's psycho. You have only to watch the first episode and listen to that laugh after he toasts two Aries in the stratosphere to catch on to that. Of course, we also get a major clue why in those same scenes; when a civilian shuttle just happens to get in his flight path, he's all set to blow it away. This is not a military target, here. And this is the one of whom J says that he's really a soft-hearted boy! Think about that for a minute. What is never explained in any detail, even in Episode Zero, is just how he managed to retain any kind of sensetivity after being raised by/as an assassin and just how J and Barton managed to supress that sensetivity after it had held on that long. Especially considering that J seems to have a separate agenda that involves channelling rather than destroying Heero's tender-heartedness. No wonder the poor guy seems tense, with that many different demands on him. Though the notion that his sensetivity has been focused and turned into his motivation for killing does go a long ways toward explaining his intensity, even as the basic incompatibility between those two things explains the constant hysteria that seems to fuel that laugh. I get the impression he really was raised in a great deal of isolation, given the way that, as the show progresses, contact with the other pilots seems to calm him down a bit.

Duo Maxwell, death on a good hair day. He seems much better barriered against what he's doing than Heero, but clearly has a morbid streak a mile wide. Perhaps the term I'm looking for isn't actually barriered but rather something like selectively immersed. He seems perfectly cheerful in combat, but he's cheerful nearly all the time, except when he's getting slammed into his own viewscreens or something similarly extreme. This is a major red flag for anyone who knows their psychology. Especially when you put it togather with his typical expressions outside of combat. Look closely at how the artists draw him, especially the eyes and mouth. When he's alone or unobserved he tends to a rather serious and introspective expression. Under really stressful circumstances (nearly the cause of Une shooting up the Colonies, about to be shot by a comrade, just saw Deathsythe destroyed, etc.) he starts looking downright agonized. And even when he's smiling or teasing one of the other pilots, look at his eyes; they're still usually wary and always calculating. My personal take on Duo is that he defends himself against the pain of death by identifying with death--more common to do it with a person, but there's no rule you can't do it with an abstract/natural process. After all, if Duo is death, then death can't hurt him, right? It doesn't work that way in the long run, but for the short term and combined with the adrenaline rush of sneaking and killing it keeps Duo going. At least until he can no longer ignore the logical point that if Duo=death, then he's claiming responsibility for the loss of his gang and the residents of Maxwell church. Which may, of course, be part of the (subconscious, I would say) point--Duo trying to get control of what happened. Be a landmark bad day when he lets himself wake up to the bottom line impossibility, there. I would also like to point out one of the more significant script changes in this show: in the original, when we first see Duo cutting the hell out of a MS factory, his last line is something like "Took out the objective, so now I can stick around and have some fun." In the dub (and the Bandai subtitle, bad Bandai!) it's given as "Took out the objective, now all I have to do is get out of here." A little change, but it says so much about Duo's character.

Trowa Barton, he shoots through the OZzies with the greatest of ease... Can we say, dissociated? Sharp eyes, though. Of course, the one not infrequently goes along with the other. But this is a boy who has clearly been through some serious trauma at some point. The general fic-consensus seems to be that Trowa was, to be blunt about it, forced to be the camp whore for one of his mercenary companies. A reasonable enough supposition, with plenty of historical precedent; it would certainly explain why he volunteers as a Gundam pilot--to shoot down soldiers more efficiently than ever before. And why he gets the Gundam with the over-kill guns. Paybacks are hell. Unbalanced development, skewed away from the emotional and toward the intellectual, fits with that too, as does the conviction with which he can play a part (especially an amoral part; it isn't all that uncommon for survivors to develop remarkable flexibility about moral standards like truthfulness and respect for authority once it sinks in that said authority didn't do jack to protect them). Same goes for Trowa's skill in observation and strategy--both survival skills when dealing with older, larger, stronger people who are inclined to hurt one. He seems to have a reasonable grip on his own mechanisms, though, which is good because otherwise he'd be several orders of magnitude more dangerous than Heero. He is capable of differentiating friend from foe (doesn't shoot Quatre the first time they meet, after all), even if he is inclined to no-quarter once he has defined an enemy. Every now and then, though, he shows a flash of...attitude. For instance, the moment in Episode 15 when he's faked a pursuing car into a channel (in Sicily I believe) by springing off his motorcycle just before the alley ends, coming to perch on a clothesline (on one toe, no less); he watches the car go smash, tucks his hands in his pockets and strolls down the clothesline and off-screen as if moseying down a sidewalk. I loved it.

Quatre Raberba Winner, aka Pricilla Prince of the Desert. No, sillies, that wasn't an insult. Seriously, I'm very fond of Quatre, if only because he's the sanest of the pilots. That's not saying a whole lot, but still. Quatre seems to me the one who has put the most thought into his decision to become a pilot. Neither Heero nor Trowa had much choice; I suspect in Duo's case it was six of one half dozen of the other as far as the gruesomeness of the lifestyle went. And Wu Fei, I would say, just took off in a blind rage to wreak justice/revenge. Quatre, on the other hand, had it all--wealth and luxury, a loving family (even if he did feel like a drone), security. And he gave it up to do something that he clearly doesn't like (killing people in job lots) in the interests of achieving something he dreams of (peace, fairness, amiability all around). He seems to be the only one who's fighting for his very own conviction of all humanity's right to good lives, instead of for his personal quirks or at someone else's behest. He's also the only one with any grasp of strategy (well, Wu Fei might but he sure doesn't make much use of it if so); Trowa is a superb tactician but it's Quatre who pulls the pieces together into the big picture. He figures out how many other pilots are operating before they all run into each other at New Edwards, and that he and Duo can/should return to space as openly as possible. And that makes a fair amount of sense given that he's the son of a major industrial figure; you don't survive in industry without being pretty sharp. I find it interesting that the expression in his eyes when he is working to draw information together is a far cry from his usual sweetness; it's very focused and very intense. Quatre is the character I'm most inclined to think of as Treize's match. All in all, while Heero's strength of body is a lot flashier, I think I would tag Quatre with the strongest spirit.

Chang Wu Fei, the sulky dragon. At least he is when he can't find a good fight to take his repressions out on. I would probably like Wu Fei if it wasn't for his attitude toward women. I don't care if it is internalized guilt over not having fought beside or instead of his wife and not being able to prevent his wife's death, it's rude and annoying as hell and I have a strong urge to slap some sense into him. Particularly in episodes like 9 when he mouths of to Une about how she's an example of why the weak shouldn't fight--because when they get their hands on powerful weapons they can't use them right. The woman is in a Leo, for crying out loud; no one in a Leo is going to be any match for someone in a Gundam, regardless of the skill level involved. I'm a bit more alongside what he says to Noin in Episode 4; it was moderately stupid to stop her two soldiers from blasting Wu Fei away with that laser cannon just because he's young. She had already had a good example of what he was capable of, she should have toasted him. And I have to say, it is Wu Fei who twigs to how Treize manipulated the pilots into killing off the Alliance pacificts. He has a brain, and he's capable of using it effectively. I don't think he's applying said brain to his own motivations, though. OK, so he wants to work out his own guilt and vengance by frying OZzies. Cool. But he doesn't seem to be looking any further than the battles themselves; he has ideals that drive him (justice, of course), but unlike Quatre he doesn't seem to have much in the way of vision. He approaches the future blindly, and I'm more than a little convinced that he hopes someone will kill him before the future arrives and he has to deal with it. Little note on names and symbolism, and a possible reason to make this boy number five. The symbol of his clan is the dragon, yes? And the...highest ranking I suppose, dragon is the kind with five claws.

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The Wonderful Wizards of Oz

Treize Khushrenada. *deep sigh of intellectual lust* Power is supposed to be the ultimate aphrodisiac, but I think skill is a better one. Treize may well be my favorite GW character. He's a ruthless bastard, and damn but he's good at it. There is a small, rather nasty, part of me that truly appreciates the beauty of how he "stages" things. The whole New Edwards deal, for example. It was so perfectly balanced. One little bit of false information and the pilots who are slicing up his men a) take out the upper echelons of the military organization Treize wants to overthrow and b) are demonized in the public eye because of their actions. Treize clearly knew all his actors very well and predicted how each one would react to a T. And then there's his little "lesson" for Tsubarov. Just...beautiful. Of course, I have a few issues with his choice of arena. Choosing people as a medium is all well and good, but choosing the deaths of others as the game counter is a bit callous, even for the vicious little part of me that appreciates the game. I can't help feeling that Treize's real metier is politics--Treize would play it so much classier than it usually is. Of course, that could just be my personal tastes, influenced by my occupation as a critic. But enough rhapsodizing. The man is a bundle of contradictions. He's chosen war as his arena, apparently convinced of the spiritual nobility of a death struggle, one human to another. But what to make of his memorizing casualty lists? Is this simply a "fitting" memorial, or does he actually feel guilty about those deaths? If he values life, why is he engaged in bloodshed? He's marvelously (foolishly) chivalrous and fantastically ruthless at the same time.

Lady (Midii?) Une. I'm inclined to doubt that she's the Midii from Trowa's Episode Zero, if only because she seems a solid handful of years older than the pilots. But anyway. Here's someone else with some serious contradictions to manage, though I'm at a bit of a loss for their root. The best I can come up with is that Treize needs both a coldly pragmatic plotter and a sweetly charismatic diplomat of peace, and Une is so committed to being what he needs that she produces the quintessence of both in herself (very unhealthy gender dynamics, here). And because they are at such odds, the two halves don't communicate very well. Not the classic genesis of multiples, but it seems to fit with what evidence we have. Interesting that it's the woman in OZ high command who's the most pragmatic and down-to-earth. I find the implied message here...tangled. On the one hand, this powerful woman is clearly set up as dangerously amoral, with Treize being the check on her dishonorable ruthlessness; on the other hand, Treize is capable of stunning callousness himself. His "honorable" methods are pretty nasty and bloody--deliberately bloody, really. Perhaps he and Une represent the masculine and feminine versions of war-loving psychosis, he trapped in the concept of honor and she in the drive for success. Because if she were in charge, in her own interests, she would certainly rule the world in a month purely on the strength of vicious efficiency. Talk about amoral! Hm. Come to that, maybe we do have some clue of more classic multiple-generating trauma in her background, at least insofar as she and Trowa seem to have some patterns in common. In any case, this does seem to code the odd version of honor that Treize and Zechs display as masculine. Whether this is good or bad...the jury is still out.

Zechs Merquise/Milliard Peacecraft. Curious that he's presented to us as the more charismatic figure than Treize. At least we get both Walker and Otto as examples of the loyalty he inspires, whereas I don't think we really get any examples of Treize's effect on his people (besides Zechs himself and Une). On the other hand, we also see him more deeply and immediately affected by the loss of his people than Treize. His motivations are also a bit more straightforward. Vendetta, nice and simple. Which is, of course, why the poor guy goes to pieces when his vendetta is accomplished, and probably why he winds up absorbing the Gundam pilot's motivation by some odd sort of psychic osmosis. Strange, that he's shown as a better leader than Treize but clearly doesn't have the broad vision that would drive him to exercise his skills for a cause of his own--instead of someone else's. Zechs fights for extremely personal reasons; at the most basic, I would say he fights for love.

Lucrezia Noin. Noin distresses me almost as much as Wu Fei, though for rather opposite reasons. In the names of all Deities and Devils, 'Zia, get a grip! Ok, so Zechs is the most gorgeous thing in nature, that's no reason to be his doormat. I mean, honestly, it isn't everyone who gets the accolade of 'the one competent officer in OZ' from the pilots, and here she is wasting her potential to pick up after Zechs. It also isn't everyone who can shoot the badge off a cap at three meters without damaging the cap; that one impressed me. She's a good teacher, a good organizer, a good tactician even when it comes to playing politics to get Lady Une to back off one of her crazed schemes, why isn't this woman Treize's second in the field instead of Zechs? Who is stunningly unreliable when it comes to actually keeping his mind on organizational objectives. Sigh. I want so much for her and Sally to hook up; they deserve each other in the best possible way and Sally would be good for her.

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And Then Some

Relena Darlian. Nice girl, but she could use a sense of perspective. To be sure, sometimes the flipped out things she does works. She gets Zechs and Heero to stop fighting, at least temporarily, down in Antarctica, despite the fact that Heero's letter never does get delivered. On the other hand, what does she think she's doing opening his mail? That's a private letter, addressed to Heero and opening it, not to mention reading it once she's seen just how private it is, is rude to say the least. So, score one for the spoiled-daughter-of-privilege theory. Her intentions seem admirable, though they're also in flux throughout the show. She wants peace; cool. She has a hard time deciding how to bring that about. On the one hand, she can take the same route as the pilots--shooting Une, threatening the Romefeller assembly with destruction by Gundam. On the other, she can take the complete opposite way and do Absolute Pacifism. My concern with Relena is that she doesn't seem to have much in the way of middle ground, and here she is getting into politics. Bad mixture. I actually think she'd make an admirable pilot, but she needs to wait a few more years before trying politics. If Treize had stayed in the game he would have eaten her alive.

Catherine Bloom. Irritating voice, but if I can manage Usagi, I can manage anything. Seems like the character with the most common sense. I don't, for example, think she's oblivious to how down in the dumps Trowa and Wu Fei are when they get back from the abortive kill-Treize mission. After all, she's a very people oriented person, witness the reasons she gives Trowa not to self-destruct: think of the pain of those he would leave behind. It doesn't seem consistent for her to be dead to really obvious depression. So why would she be making, under the circumstances, inane comments about helping to clean up the dishes? I suspect she's trying to distract them a bit. Not precisely cheer them up, because if she wanted to do that I think she would have stayed with them. Instead, she tosses the cleaning comment over her shoulder as she leaves them alone. So, not cheer them up, but give them something everyday to think about instead of whatever is so clearly bothering them. Probably one of the best things she could do in that situation. She strikes me as well grounded.

Sally Po. Another very down to earth character. I'm very fond of Sally. She has ethics, as displayed by both her horror over the OZ soldiers who want to blow up New Edwards and her decision to abandon the Alliance and take up the fight for freedom on her own ground and terms. She has a great deal of patience, as shown when she has to deal with the adrift Wu Fei. She has brains and subtlety, as we see when she explains that being the visible underdog can draw support to a cause. And she's got practicality and guts to spare, witness her raid on OZ to retrieve Sandrock. I like her. If I had to put togather a team of guerillas, I'd definitely want her in it. Forget Heero, I think the person Relena needs to get to take care of security and be a councilor is Sally.

Hilde Schbeiker. Haven't met her yet.

Dorothy Catalonia. Ditto.

Marimeia (Barton) Kushrenada. It's a bit hard to say what kind of person she is. We don't, after all, see much of her. She's pretty uniformly presented as a victim--a child too young to know any better led astray. Rather ironic, that, considering the ages of everyone else in the show. Yes, fifteen year olds work the most powerful weapons in the Earth sphere and get crowned, nineteen year olds are officers and twenty-five year olds command world-conquering armies. But this girl really is too young. I do wonder why this figure of the misled child was brought into Endless Waltz. She strikes me as a sort of gesture toward normalcy, on a par with the gesture made in the OVA toward sovereignty of the people. She has a short temper, she's been sheltered from real sources of fear, she believes what her parent figure (Dekim) tells her; she's a thoroughly typical child. Even if she does have a certain expression, that sidelong look, that makes her look very much like her father at his most manipulative.

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Onward

So, there's my opinions. More of them can be had on the other pages. Politics is just what it sounds like; GenderSex is pretty likewise; Miscellany has stuff on ranks and music and language and so forth. The Portrait Gallery gives a pictorial account of all the expressions I could find on our characters' faces. If you wish to respond, my email link is at the bottom of the page. Intelligent conversation is always welcome; flames will be posted for ridicule and derision. I have little respect for people who can't manage to frame their disagreements coherently and politely. Below is my menu of worthwhile GW pages. Have fun storming the castle!

Links

Gundam Project. If you want to know the difference between AC and UC, go here. This is the best general site I've found, and answers many of the newcomer's questions.

The Gundam Wing Archive. Translations galore, including episodes and manga. Couldn't do it without them.

Too Much Testosterone. The page with nearly everything...except good organization. It does, however, have very good essays on the characters and how they fit together, and lots of the usual jazz.

Katsu Katsu. Has a number of good rants and thoughtful character analysis, a bunch of good fics (if you like dark fantasy) and some very useful extras like a page on Japanese terms and grammar. Also has great monthly essays, well worth reading.

Kurai Tenshi. The author is most fond of Duo, but the site, fics, etc. feature everyone sooner or later. A very good site. Her fanfics are impressive, and the quote list is a scream.

Counting for Lunatics. Seems to be down. When it's up it's an absolutely hysterical (by my sense of humor, anyway) cross between spoof and high grade analysis. A must read for those who enjoy things like Pratchett and Robin Williams.

Women of Strength. This page pays, in my opinion and the author's, some much needed attention to the neglected women in the Gundam Wing storyline.

The Gundam Wing Music and Lyrics Directory. Just like it says, and this page has it all. Character songs, Two-Mix songs, BGM, and of course romanized lyrics and translations.

Gundam Wing is a Victim of Fan Rape. I think Croik is going overboard on some of her/his/its (gender used to be listed as "teacup" so it's kind of up in the air) assertions, but, if you can disregard the apocalyptic tone, she/he/it has some very good points. In general, she/he/it argues for the primacy of authorial artistic intention over the more wild fan interpretations. I don't entirely agree, but the page is worth reading. Once you get to the actual character analysis, the tone evens out and it gets much more convincing.

Gundam Wing Analysis. Zapenstap writes a lot of well thought out essays. I disagree pretty strongly with one or two of her positions, but the world would be a horribly boring place if we all agreed. Go read and judge for yourself. Her explanation of just what the heart of space is is especially good.

Credits:

GW, of course, belongs to its authors and Bandai; do not mistake this page for anything official. I try to avoid being official whenever I can. I would like to thank the people who maintain the Gundam Wing Archives and Kumiko, of the Shinigami Project, for providing background and provoking thoughts. Screencaps are used here as illustrations to analysis, with no commercial infringement.