Witch of Mercury is a very fitting title after Gundams are now outlawed and a Witch Hunt commenced against those affiliated with them.
The title, "The Witch From Mercury" also has extra meaning: Suletta's Survival Mantra acts somewhat as a spell to inspire others to break free from the current Status Quo. Suletta shared and explained the philosophy to both Miorine and Guel, both of whom appeared to be affected by it. Miorine repeated the mantra before challenging her father to a duel, while Guel rebelled against his father when he realized Vim didn't believe in him. And then Prospera uses it on Suletta in episode 12, ending her panic attack and creating a scary Dissonant Serenity, bringing to mind mind control.
With how the definition of what a "witch" is in Ad Stella being applied to anyone who is/was remotely involved in the GUND format regardless if they're a pilot or not, it's not difficult to interpret that the GUND-Format is a stand-in for witchcraft.
Although Asticassia itself is not meant to be supportive anyone involved in the GUND-Format, it does reference the classic image of a witch in the design of the school uniforms, which resemble a witch in silhouette.
Elan #4's death by incineration from a laser at the end of Episode 6 brings in another aspect of the witch theme: He's burned at the stake.
In Episode 7, the real Elan and the Peil Technology CEOs basically condemn Suletta to a public witch trial, where she isn't allowed to defend herself as they keep her confined via a suspended platform during their 'Inquiry' until she confesses to piloting a Gundam (practicing witchcraft).
Tomatoes are a major element in Suletta and Miorine's relationship. Back in the 1300s-1650s when witch hunts were rampant, it was believed that tomatoes were a main ingredient in the ointment witches used to power their flying broomsticks or transform themselves/anyone into a werewolf.
Lauda's dislike of Suletta after she began influencing Guel's character development is remiscient of him accusing her of leading his brother astray, a popular form of accusations of witchcraft. He repeats this kind of accusation later on in Episode 23 when fighting Guel, only this time directed towards Miorine even calling him a "witch's thrall".
The Calibarn's primary weapon is a long rifle with a large set of thrusters attached to the back, evoking imagery of a witch's broom.
In the final episode, when the Calibarn, Aerial, Pharact, and Schwarzette are used to override everything, it is set up to look like a group of four witches dancing as if calling the four elements/corners.
Suletta was able to approach Miorine in private without the bodyguards interfering. It was the first indication they don't care about doing their job, as shown when they do nothing when Guel is abusing Miorine. It gets to the point that Miorine can easily ditch them and meet up with the people she arranged to smuggle her to Earth during the second episode.
At the end of the third episode, Suletta tries giving Miorine a nickname, which Miorine rejects. Miorine doesn't like other people choosing things for her.
Why are the Earthians enthusiastically supporting Suletta despite the fact she isn't from Earth? Nika had previously met Suletta a few times, and she knows Suletta is a decent person, and she most likely told others. Additionally, Guel is seen as the representative of the arrogance of the Spacians who look down on Earthians. Since Suletta is fighting against him, a better question would be why wouldn't they cheer for her? Suletta could be seen as a potential ally to them since the 'Enemy of my enemy is my friend'. With Episode 4 revealing that the tensions between Earthians and Spacians are essentially a workers' rights conflict, it makes even more sense why the Earthians are sympathetic towards Suletta: Mercury just like Earth is considered a production and mining facility first and foremost by Spacians and any attempt to step out of these assigned roles is considered stepping out of line by them. Suletta being at the school is just as much a thorn in their eyes as the Earthians are, of course, they would try to help her out.
In Star of the Cradle, it's specifically mentioned that Suletta's mother has missed several of her birthdays due to being away on business at the time. While this does help demonstrate how Prospera's quest for revenge has corrupted her from the loving mother she once was, there's likely more going on here than just garden-variety Parental Neglect. Given what happened on Ericht's fourth birthday, and particularly how the last Prospera heard of her beloved husband's voice was him singing "Happy Birthday" to their daughter, celebrating Suletta's birthday has likely become a Trauma Button for Prospera; thus, it makes a certain amount of tragic sense that she'd try to avoid that situation as much as possible.
The early GUND-arms having data storms makes sense: The human brain has not learned to handle direct control of the Permet-infused systems of a massive GUND-arm equipped mobile suit. Any attempts to make sense of it flood the brain with junk data, causing massive amounts of seizure-like neurological damage.
Suletta's body language quirks reflect the fact that she's used to interacting with other people through Aerial. She crosses her arms in front of her when confronting Guel (the same pose that precedes unleashing Aerial's Stave Bits), kneels during conversations (as a Mobile Suit pilot would to better communicate with humans on the ground), and often hides her face behind a tablet or another person when intimidated (being used to protecting herself with Aerial's shield).
Elan's very sudden turn of coldness and cruelty towards Suletta may go beyond him just feeling lonely. Elan is established as an Enhanced Human, and implied to be some sort of clone or test-tube baby. He was created, raised, and prepared by Peil to become the solution to the GUND-Arm problem: a human who can effortlessly control a Gundam without suffering a Data Storm. That he cannot causes him emotional stress, leaving him to feel as though he is a failure, but he remains one of the best pilots at Asticassia. It's when he pilots Aerial that he suffers an emotional breakdown: he easily proves that Aerial's ability to go beyond Permet Level 1 isn't unique to Suletta, but can be performed by any individual, with Permet Level 2 causing him no discomfort at all. Thus, Aerial doesn't merely prove that Suletta isn't like him, she proves that Elan is obsolete. This possibly motivates his insistence to take Aerial away from Suletta: he wants to eliminate the competition.
Guel is given a combat AI that takes over his Darilblade completely... and it promptly falls for a very obvious salvo from Aerial's GUND-bits, which Guel himself probably would have evaded. In this case, the machine fails.
During the Guel vs. Elan fight, Guel loses due to his opponent having vastly superior technology. In this case, the man fails—though it was only as close as it was due to Guel's superior tactics.
During the Elan vs. Suletta fight, Elan lets his temper get the best of him and ignores his own Long-Range Fighter specialization to get into a melee fight with Aerial. Again, the man fails.
Also during the Elan vs. Suletta fight, Suletta is saved by Aerial's GUND-bits acting on their own. The man (Suletta) didn't fail, but the machine succeeded.
The ending of the terrorist attack on Asticassia in season 2, despite not being a school-mandated duel, shows a human pilot getting overwhelmed by GUND-Format's Data Storm and dying as a result. In this case, the man fails.
In the third duel between Suletta and Guel, Guel is having PTSD during the beginning of the fight, which hampers his skill, despite his machine having new technology and its AI to help him, until his House mates cheer him on. Again, the man fails.
Also in Suletta's third duel with Guel, Suletta's Gundam suddenly gets shut down just before she could claim victory. Here, the machine fails, albeit due to Miorine's sabotage.
When Guel challenges Suletta to a duel again when she wishes to speak with Miorine, Guel states that if Suletta loses, she would need to give up on Miorine. He was testing Suletta’s resolve. Before their match begins, they mention how classes don’t matter because someone’s class has nothing to do with their resolve. Guel appears relieved when Suletta defeats him because he sees for himself that Suletta has the resolve to see things through and potentially reach Miorine when he failed to. He promptly returns her Holder uniform to her afterwards, and smiles as he calls himself a fool for standing in Suletta’s way.
In a neat case of Shown Their Work, Delling having a 3% share in GUND-ARM Inc. gives him the right to view its financial record, following modern-day Japanese law.
Out of the Earth House students that Miorine employs in her company, both Martin and Lilique are the ones who are the first to be onboard and are the ones that Miorine entrusts to do the heavy paperwork. Being that they're also in the management department like her, it makes sense they'd be the ones Miorine defaults to for these tasks.
Analyzing the damage taken by Team GUND ARM Inc. and Shaddiq's squad, it is immediately apparent that the Grassley students are fighting like it's a duel, with relatively systematic damage done to mobile suit heads (and antennae) and legs more than anything else (for mobility kills), after which, the Earth House students 'play dead' while Shaddiq mono-focuses on Aerial. In comparison, Suletta does damage more totally, destroying all the limbs and heads of her opponent's mobile suits to blind, immobilize, and disable them thoroughly. This means that Shaddiq's squad gets reduced in strength, and given his plan to focus on defeating Aerial while sweeping aside the lesser Demi and Zoworts fielded by Team GUND ARM, also means that the Earth House students have a lot of leeway in repositioning their damaged-yet-mobile/functional mobile suits without being noticed to set up for Chuchu's winning headshot on Shaddiq's Michaelis. Aerial was the sole focus of Shaddiq's team, with his squadmates being far less able to react to what Team GUND-arm were setting up since; they were either busy helping Shaddiq box in Aerial or sitting in dismembered mobile suit cockpit blocks unable to further contribute to the duel. With the win conditions for both teams being the damage/destruction of the antennae on either Michaelis or Aerial, this meant that Earth House was able to preserve just enough fighting power to deliver a knockout blow while Aerial was busy distracting the entire opposing force.
Why does Shaddiq target Chuchu first during the duel between Earth House and Grassley? Because other than Suletta, Chuchu is the only other Earth House member with experience piloting a mobile suit. Even if she isn't much of a threat on her own, taking her out right away leaves Suletta as the only real threat to Shaddiq's team.
Miorine's greenhouse can be seen as a metaphor for her heart, as she stays secluded in both and doesn't trust people outside to let them in. Her interactions with the main cast further solidify this.
Guel forces his way in and tries to destroy it to exert control over Miorine as his bride. Miorine, with Suletta's help, forces him out. Later, post Character Development Guel is now respectful of her greenhouse and even saves Suletta from Elan #5's assault but would rather stay outside represent his new positive behavior and respect for her bounderies. Guel being invited inside signifies Miorine's plan to include him in her agendas against the Beneritt Group and Prospera.
Elan doesn't want to enter and never tries to, taking no effort to earn Miorine's trust.
Shaddiq wanted to enter, but his distrust prevented him from ever trying and eventually results in him getting shut out. When Miorine cuts away an unripe tomato at the end of Episode 9, she's symbolically removing the feelings they shared for each other since it never got to grow and ultimately went nowhere.
Suletta makes a sincere effort to understand her with no ulterior motives or intentions of controlling her, which causes Miorine to let her in and establish a meaningful and trusting relationship with her. Additionally, while Miorine didn't let Suletta in at first, Suletta respected Miorine's wishes and only entered when Miorine was in trouble which helped build the foundation of their developing relationship.
Finally, when Norea and the Gundvolvas attack Asticassia in Episode 20, just an episode after Miorine crossed the Despair Event Horizon due to the incident at Quinharbor; said greenhouse is completely destroyed reflecting Miorine's current mental and emotional state.
Suletta giving Miorine one of the tomatoes she salvaged from the said destruction along with promising Miorine to help her grow more tomatoes in the future represented Miorine’s recovered mental state along with a new hope for the future which she becomes motivated to fulfill in the epilogue.
During Episode 07, Shaddiq observes that Miorine has changed. He playfully says that the "witch" cast a spell on Miorine. However, later Shaddiq shows signs of being a Green-Eyed Monster and more openly antagonistic to Suletta. Under that lens, it becomes clear that Shaddiq was being passive-aggressive and stealthily insulting Suletta. This also explains why Miorine dragged Suletta away. Rather than feeling embarrassed, she was seeing through Shaddiq's facade and trying to extract from the situation.
After his defeat, Shaddiq appears to drop any hostility towards Suletta because he sees that Suletta is Miorine’s white knight when he failed to be one to her. In Episode 22, when he observes Miorine’s renewed resolve, he quickly deduces Suletta was responsible. Rather than referring to her as a witch, he refers to Suletta far more respectfully.
Miorine challenging Shaddiq might initially seem like she's subjecting Earth House further to her whims. In fact, it's a sign that she does care for what they stand for, and for them as people. If she had accepted Shaddiq's offer, they would be under his control, and they would be at the mercy of Spacians yet again. Chuchu, especially, would have probably felt betrayed. Throwing down the gauntlet was Miorine giving them the fighting chance to retain their independence from any of the established members of the Beneritt Group, but also, as per her request to have the duel broadcast, to show the world what Earth House can really do. It's also important for this moment that Suletta, even with her revealing yet another trump card, did not end up being the key to their victory, but merely a distraction to draw Grassley House away from what Miorine was counting on: The resourcefulness and true unity of Earth House to be able to scrape out a win. The entire episode was Miorine showing her attachment towards a group that are, in their own way, as oppressed as she had been.
Besides being foils to one another in terms of their backgrounds and their relationships with Miorine, Suletta, and Shaddiq also contrast with one another in relation to their willingness/unwillingness to take the extra step for her. The title of Episode 9 (where the duel between Earth House and Grassley House occurs) is called "If I Could Take One More Step Towards You" which sounds like the antithesis to Suletta's "If you run you gain one, but if you move forward, you gain two" mantra. Shaddiq chose to run and gained the relief that his relationship with Miorine would not be strained if he had chosen to fight for the Holder title. However, when Suletta moved forward, she gained not only the Holder title from Guel but also Miorine's trust. This goes back further back to Episode 1 when Suletta explains her mantra to Miorine: She added that by moving forward, she gains two which includes things like pride, experience, and trust. By moving forward for Miorine the way she did, she gained Miorine's trust just as Miorine gained hers.
While promotional materials, the opening, and the Prologue show mobile suits using blue or pink beam weapons, all battles fought at Asticassia have used green beams. The manual for the HG Demi Trainer explains that the school regulations require beam weapons to be set to low output, which explains the color difference; when it comes to visible light, green is at a lower energy level than blue. Come in episode 14, when Sophie and Norea attacked the academy, the beams that destroyed the place and killed a student were blue colored meaning the limiters of the Gundam's weaponry are not activated.
Guel runs away and lives a life as a normal worker without any problems. This implies that like Miorine, he considered running away before to escape his father's domineering shadow. Unlike Miorine, however, he planned and prepared for it, shown by how he can live outside the academy with only a tent and basic supplies, and why he can work as a laborer, having learned skills that would be useful outside of what his father planned for him.
Why was Suletta happy to take care of Miorine's greenhouse? Because it represented to Suletta that Miorine completely trusted her, and her heart was open. Why didn't Suletta mind Miorine being gone for a long period of time, while still keeping track of how long she was gone? She was used to it because her mother regularly left her on her own for business trips. In both cases, they made it clear Suletta was being helpful to them. Suletta was crushed at the end of Episode 10 not because Miorine was busy, but because she viewed Miorine's actions as an indication she was closing herself off from her and did not find her to be useful at all. If anything, Suletta feared Miorine viewed her as superfluous or unnecessary.
After he unwittingly kills his own father in a fight for his survival, the remainder of Guel's scenes feature him upside down. When considering his fall from grace as the former Big Man on Campus as Asticassia to a lowly laborer, you could say his life has been turned upside down, and now that his father is dead, it is depicted in the literal sense since his life is now irreversibly changed.
In the last scene of season 1, the bloody hand that Suletta offers to Miorine is her right hand—the same hand which she used to kill a terrorist with Aerial.
The only thing left of the terrorist's body is his arm after Suletta kills him, which conspicuously floats past Miorine, who is the CEO of GUND-ARM Inc.
Antidote:
Sophie reveals that the Antidote is only effective against Permet Score 3 and below, which makes sense seeing as in most cases, going above 4 should be fatal anyway. Why bother developing a counter to something that no one can use?
Permet Score 4 also seems to indicate complete synchronization between the pilot and the Gundam. So it makes sense why Antidote, which seems to focus on shutting down the Gundam's systems, doesn't work; the Gundam's systems aren't doing anything to pilot the Mobile Suit anymore, it's all the pilot's mind.
Pollution:
One of the Spacian soldiers calls out a Dawn of Fold member for using physical ammo, which has been outlawed because of pollution. Norea calls out the soldier for how Spacians already polluted the Earth. However, the guy did have a point; the fact physical ammo was banned for pollution concerns shows Spacians have reflected on the damage they've caused and are trying to correct it.
Getting cross over pollution, of all things, in an active warzone would seem to be a bit of an overreaction. However, "pollution" means something quite different in space. Energy weaponry produces no spent casings, and a missed plasma or laser beam will eventually lose coherence and dissipate in the vastness of space. Kinetic munitions, however, will keep going until they hit something, somewhere, sometime. Even spent shell casings have the potential to form orbital debris and cause significant damage to something they'd collide with. Effectively, the taboo against kinetic weapons reflects the modern bans on weapons such as cluster munitions and land mines; not because of the damage the weapon can cause in warfare, but because of the huge potential to cause accidental harm to innocents somewhere down the line.
On the other hand, a treaty such as this is also terribly convenient for Spacians who have a vested interest in keeping Earthians oppressed. Presumably, ballistic weaponry is easier and cheaper to manufacture than the plasma weaponry favored by the Spacian military-industrial complex. Banning physical ammunition for Mobile Suits and other spacefaring weaponry would make it harder for any entity on Earth to (legally) assemble any real military power.
Also, energy weapons (other than Aerial's massive, mobile suit melting combined beam) still leave MS fragments all over the orbits. So it's not like energy weapons don't create orbital debris.
Suletta's words when engaging Sophie in combat in Episode 12 with Aerial Rebuild is a word-for-word Ironic Echo of what she says to Guel when slapping his rear to defend Miorine, making for a warped contrast between her earnestness and innocence at the start of the series and her new propensity for violence and lack of morals by the end of it.
Guel parallels Suletta's journey throughout the season in a single episode, following his declaration that he wants to move past her.
He thinks someone needs help while he's stuck inside a ship, then busts out of a hangar without permission to try to save them. In episode 1, Suletta does the same when "rescuing" Miorine in space.
He reaches out of his mobile suit to a person whose death he was unknowingly responsible for after beating them in a duel, in this case, his father after being forced to fight and kill him. In episode 6, Suletta similarly reaches out to Elan #4 after winning their duel, and he is executed by Peil shortly afterward.
He suffers a mental breakdown over death in episode 12 just like Suletta, having accidentally killed their father and watching their mother kill several people respectively. However, Suletta's Dissonant Serenity afterward towards killing following Prospera's influence still essentially puts him one step behind her with respect to their personal journey.
Miorine grows tomatoes in her greenhouse and is introduced to Suletta by offering her a tomato. In episode 12, Suletta crushes Miorine's attacker with Aerial's hand, leaving a bloody mess that evokes a squashed tomato.
The poster for Season 2 shows Miorine and Aerial facing the same direction while Suletta is behind them, symbolizing the former two as Suletta's protectors.
The poster also foreshadows Miorine and Eri's choice to protect Suletta but having to hurt and abandon her in order to so. The two of them are shown gazing towards the darkness while leaving Suletta in the light, reflecting their shared desire for her to live in a world free from all strife.
This poster might have also been foreshadowing how at the end of the series, Suletta would end up disabled, but it is the support she received from Miorine and Eri that has allowed her to slowly regain her ability to walk. The series even ends with Miorine helping Suletta stand up.
Beginning of season 2 shows Holder's challengers utterly failing at defeating Suletta despite the fights being a series of back-to-back battles instead of a single duel like the usual. The big guys with any chance of defeating her are either absent or just refuse to come out by that point, leaving only students with lesser support and inferior non-Gundam machines. No wonder they get trounced.
With the reveal that Ericht's body gave out after she and Elnora fled from the Vanadis Incident, that gives Prospera yet another reason to seek revenge against Delling as the whole thing could have been preventable if the GUND-Format technology had been available to Eri to help her survive in space. But due to Delling's action it was not to be and she had to save Eri some other way.
In hindsight, Eri repeatedly ignores her Mom telling her not to visit the Gundam by herself. This shows how she can't be Suletta, who obeys without question.
Doubling as Fridge Horror: speaking of Eri and Aerial... Notice something?
The Holder's uniform being white matches the white Fairytale Wedding Dress Suletta would have worn for the wedding to Miorine as a result of being the Holder.
It seems odd that Secilia and Rouji from Burion house are on the Dueling Committee but aren't pilots, but it makes sense that Burion doesn't need its house heads to be pilots. The big three companies - Jeturk, Peil and Grassley - want their sponsored students to show their mobile suits off in duels or mock battles as a way of advertising their products. Burion makes the demi-trainer models used by all students, so their product is being used by everyone and needs no hotshot pilot to do the advertising.
This also explains why Peil needs lookalikes who can properly pilot a mobile suit in place of the real Elan Ceres, rather than simply shifting the real Elan into the mechanic or management strategy specializations which are filled with non-pilots. It would be humiliating for a top-of-the-line mobile suit manufacturer to admit that the student they sponsored was incapable of properly piloting their one of their own products when their competitors could field skilled pilots like Guel Jeturk or Shaddiq Zenelli.
Prospera does seem to pretty rapidly shift to Pet the Dog in regards to Suletta, agreeing with Eri that she should stay at the school away from their revenge plot when in the past she seemed to regard her as a bit of a pawn. However, this can be explained by the fact that Eri/Aerial reached Permet Score 8, and thus can finally properly talk to Prospera. Its almost certain the first thing Eri told Prospera once the latter was able to hear her was her long-held desire to keep Suletta out of their revenge, the same thing she wished she could desperately tell her mother back in Cradle Planet. And naturally, Prospera would abide the wishes of her beloved daughter.
There's a grim sort of poetry to Asticassia's shaken, grieving students being housed in a refugee camp set up in the middle of their ruined school: the very fate that has befallen countless people on Earth, thanks to the military-industrial complex embodied by Asticassia itself.
Lauda's hatred of Miorine to the point of taking over the Schwarzette to attack her with seems completely crazy, but it makes sense when comparing his near-worshipful adoration of Guel to Shaddiq's obsession with Miorine. Both of them put the objects of their admiration on pedestals rather than treating them as human beings, and are quick to blame changes in their personality on those whom they see as manipulating them or hurting them. Miorine replaced Suletta as Lauda's prime target of concern once Guel won her back in the duel. When the slaughter at Quinharbor happened, Lauda probably blamed Miorine for tainting Guel with blood (an inverse of what Shaddiq believed at the time). Discovering that Guel had killed their father and that Petra had been seriously injured by Norea's rampage at Asticassia (a school associated with Miorine more than any other student)confirmed his worst suspicions and sent him over the edge. It also explains why he was happy to see Guel vandalize Miorine's greenhouse at the start of the show, because it meant that Miorine had no power over him at the time.
Overlaps with Fridge Horror - Lauda wants to keep Guel alive in addition to having his vengeance on Miorine, which is why he's attacking with Quiet Zero in plain sight. If he doesn't succeed in the latter due to interference from Suletta or Dominicus forces, he'll take his brother away from the battlefield and let Prospera get rid of Miorine for him.
The original Asticassia uniforms resembled a classic European witch in silhouette but the uniforms at the rebuilt Asticassia are variations of the ubiquitous Japanese seifuku or sailor suit uniform. This is a subtle way of showing that the "curse" of Gundams and the "witches" involved in their creation has lifted from the school.
Alternatively, the change in uniform follows the evolution of witches in Japanese media. At first, a young girl with magic is a 'witch', who used their 'magic' for lighthearted but ultimately selfish ends. But at some point there was a transition, and a young girl with magic was instead a 'magical girl', not a 'witch', and used their 'magic' for heroic ends. Gundams are no longer a "curse" but instead take on a heroic, helpful aspect, and so those connected to Gundams are no longer "witches" but have become "magical girls". And magical girls wear seifuku.
Suletta struggling so much with piloting when her cameras go dark makes sense when one considers that vision is your primary means of input for things like balancing and navigation. Flying IFR in the real-world is already extremely difficult; combining it with the difficulties of using a humanoid body with one's eyes closed only compounds the issue. On top of this the Demi Trainer model doesn't appear to have the necessary flight instruments, such as an attitude indicator, to perform IFR piloting.
Kenanji Avery is a Man of Kryptonite, carrying systems in his Beguir-Beu that can shut down the GUND-Format systems. Were it not for luck, Ericht and Elnora would've been killed. But this also means Delling and the units under his command could have taken the GUND for themselves without bloodshed, even beyond a corporate takeover, and seized the minds behind it. The Inciting Incident that causes the entire plot, happened because Delling decided to mercilessly kill a whole development colony for the sake of pragmatism and making sure nothing stood in his way.
A big element of Delling even having the opportunity to outlaw Gundams is because they can render their pilots into a vegetative state or outright kill them. Ericht is, as far as the setting has revealed so far, the only person compatible with GUND-Format with seemingly no consequences. Forget the world finding out the Aerial really is a Gundam, the girl is an asset that several of the corporations would probably be tripping over themselves to seize, never mind what Delling would do if he could figure out how to safely harness a Gundam for his own ends. Episode 5 only further showcases this by revealing that Elan is an Artificial Human, created to illegally harness the GUND-Format... and he considers himself a failure because it still harms him. Ericht is so special, so much of a seemingly-impossible exception in the known cosmos, that not even lab-grown "Cyber Newtype"-style children can accomplish what she has. Which only escalates the nature of her political and scientific value and the threat she lives under.
While she doesn't fit all of the standards, being a shy, nice girl with a standard Gundam color scheme of a mobile suit unit, Suletta is the direct pawn of Prospera, the active Char Aznable Expy of the story, or rather her active playing hand on the field. Suletta gets the red, high-speed combat ace that is above most other combatants, while Prospera gets the manipulative and sociopathic factor out for revenge. Which also makes Suletta the deathly right hand of Prospera; were it not for the Duel system keeping things in check, the only thing potentially keeping Suletta from killing their foes mercilessly is herself, and Prospera might have measures in place to avoid that becoming a problem.
During the first episode, Guel makes his introduction by interrupting a class and dueling someone who insulted him. During the said duel, he decides to show off in front of Miorine as he recklessly defeats his opponent. This nearly resulted in Suletta getting crushed, and she is only saved by Miorine pulling her out of the way. Guel isn't shown being reprimanded for his stunt, and no one besides Nika or Miorine even seemed remotely concerned for Suletta's safety, including the instructors. If anything, this seems to be passed off as a regular occurrence. Have other students' lives been put in jeopardy in other instances? Have any of them been killed? Were their deaths overlooked due to not being in the same social class?
The teachers are neglectful and apathetic at best, enabling the discriminatory bullying that is happening constantly. This is at its worst in episode 4 when Suletta and Chuchu's exams are blatantly rigged. It seems like the entire system is straight-up classist on top of the Fantastic Racism: Guel and other top dogs likely get near-complete autonomy with few restrictions, whereas some Mercury upstart like Suletta or a person from the Earth House like Chuchu are effectively disposable to them.
Episode 6 reveals that there is a real Elan Ceres who exists and that the Elan Ceres shown so far isn't an artificial clone of him, but an actual human being who was made to wear his face and be enhanced to use the GUND format. Meaning that the Peil Technologies CEOs just had a real flesh and blood human being incinerated due to him no longer serving any purpose to them. Seeing as this Elan was #4, that means there the three others like him likely also suffered the same fate.
After his duel with Suletta, Elan #4 gets flashbacks of a woman (presumably his mother) celebrating his birthday. Based on the woman's clothing, the state of the house, and even the cake itself, it is likely that whomever Elan #4 used to be was someone living in poverty (perhaps even an Earthian). If the previous Elans are the same, this means that Peil Technologies is openly using poor and downtrodden boys like him to turn into their Elan doubles because they know that nobody will know or even care if they are gone.
Elan #4 is executed by being incinerated with a laser cannon, which seems like massive overkill... which is the point. The method would leave absolutely no remains behind, which combined with the fact that his past has been completely erased and the CEOs allude to getting another Enhanced Human pilot, basically means there's no proof left that he ever even existed. All anyone else would see would be Elan having a sudden change in personality by the time the next copy, or the original, took his place.
At the risk of getting way too into detail, the guy Suletta flattens at the end of episode 12 wasn't Overdrawn at the Blood Bank like it first seems. As pointed out here, its blood... and the cells from his red muscles being ruptured and leaking spreading their contents across the floor as what is essentially flesh paste. Aerial Rebuild smashed the guy so hard he was flat-out liquefied.
Most Gundams get a Mid-Season Upgrade because they either took major damage, or the threat's escalated enough that the heroes need to bring out everything they can to fight back. Aerial Rebuild seemingly follows this at first — up until you realize Prospera and Delling effectively are manipulating everything to their own ends and Suletta is fully ready to murder with it under her mother's orders, all but turning the usual heroic upgrade into a plan fully exploited by the villains.
Season 1's Stinger is a graphic demonstration of just how dangerous even an unarmed Mobile Suit can be to unprotected humans. Now recall that MS are sometimes deployed on Earth as riot police, and imagine just what sort of Police Brutality a sufficiently Rabid Cop might be able to inflict in one.
Norea killing the student at the start of her and Sophie's attack doesn't just serve the point of causing panic and chaos to the pilots within the Rumble. Since the event was broadcast and the student was (presumably) a Spacian, she is showing the people of Asticassia (which holds numerous wealthy Spacians) the reality that most Earthians know mechs and Gundams for, weapons of war and destruction, used on the innocent and powerless to serve the controller's purpose.
Ericht appearing before Elan#5, zapping him with a data storm and throwing him out of Aerial becomes this in hindsight - would Eri have inflicted the same terrifying ordeal on Miorine in the first episode if she'd had a high enough permet score at the time?
Suletta's Friendless Background is brought into horrifying context with the revelation of her mother's use of her as an Unwitting Pawn. Prospera likely didn't raise Suletta on the lonely mining planet of Mercury solely out of desperation, she almost certainly did so intentionally to ensure that Suletta would be entirely dependent on her emotionally.
Cardo Nabo likens the necessity for humanity to grow to adapt to space, to something like the GUND System being like extra layers of clothes to help protect them. She had from the start been focused on Transhumanism, but for benevolent purposes. Then Delling's forces killed everyone but Ericht and Elnora, and if Elnora as Prospera is to be believed, Eri couldn't adapt to space. So everything about straight up transforming Eri into the Aerial Gundam is taking Nabo's own ideology and stretching it to horrifying extents, as Elnora is quite literally using her own mentor and mother figure's designs, ideas and plans and then twisting them into a platform for revenge and control. Episode 18 then effectively proved this true; Eri was already dead due to her illness, so Aerial Gundam and the GUND System is one massive plan for a desperate attempt to revive Ericht, essentially serving as her life blanket in conditions that had killed her before, and revenge was only a portion of the ideal.
The fact that Suletta is a "Repli-Child" is already pretty bad — and then you realize that she grew up in harsh space conditions and acclimated very naturally to Mercury, where Ericht became an Ill Girl and ultimately had to be transferred to Lfrith. Either the Repli-Children can be genetically modified to better handle specific conditions, so Suletta was quite literally designed to handle what Ericht could not for the sake of Prospera's plans, or Suletta's mere existence proves that the conditions of your body failing in space are so randomized and unpredictable that Suletta was the lucky one where her origin struck the bullet of a proverbial Russian Roulette.
shows Miorine and Aerial facing the same direction while Suletta is behind them, symbolizing the former two as Suletta's protectors.