It's a Gundam thread!

I mean it is basically used to lock in the relationship routes - flay being a loose end ‘gun chamber loaded’

Edited by FrozenWolf2 on Apr 15th 2024 at 10:54:03 AM

All involved characters are headed for Kira x Lacus and Athrun x Cagalli rather than Kira x Cagalli and Athrun x Lacus well before the "Kira and Cagalli are siblings" things gets revealed, so it's not like they really needed to pull that reveal to sink those ships.

I have a very strong recollection that the reason Kira and Cagalli ended up as a set of twins where only one was a Coordinator is that their mother wanted to make a statement about Natural and Coordinators being more alike than different, but that's not from Seed because I just finished rewatching Seed. Does it come up in Destiny? I genuinely don't remember.

Anyway, thoughts on the final episodes:

Kira and Lacus's relationship is portrayed... oddly. When Kira and Mu are missing in the Mendel colony, Lacus forbids Athrun from going to look for them because if Kira and Freedom are lost then they can't afford to lose Athrun and Justice too. She's not even crying or anything herself as she says that, just stone cold pragmatism. But then after Kira makes it back, when they're alone together, she asks him to "stay with me forever", which is as close as they ever come to a love confession. But Kira is still kinda messed up over... everything, but especially Flay, and we just got a demonstration that Lacus is absolutely willing to sacrifice Kira if that's what it takes to save the world. Like, if they wanted to do a straightforward romance, she could have told Athrun to have faith that Kira would make it back instead of "if he's dead then I need you alive". But they didn't. I'm not quite sure what to make of it.

One veeeeery interesting scene is the episode immediately after Azrael gets his hands on the n-jammer canceler plans. He's arguing with a room full of men in suits about how best to use them. Some of them want to use it to fix the energy crisis on Earth (and they play the clip of the ruined city again), but Azrael wants to nuke the PLANTs. He points out that they already did it once, so why quibble over choosing to do it again? One of the suits says "no, your people made that choice". I'm not sure if the suit guys are supposed to be politicians or other defense industry executives like Azrael, but they're definitely not military because they're not in uniform. So in context, "your people" can only be Blue Cosmos. Which implies that the destruction of Junius 7 was a Blue Cosmos operation (with sympathizers in the military?), not something OMNI wanted. Naturally, this is never expanded on or mentioned again.

Another random thing: the weird scene where Lacus goes SEED mode kinda-sorta? I'd forgotten that she's monologuing about some wild shit during that. Basically asking about whether it's worth living in a future created by violence, since everyone involved is either dead or scarred by the killing they did. It sounds like a leftover speech from an early draft where Lacus is a more typical total pacifist Gundam princess, instead of stealing overpowered war machines to had out to her loyalists and end the war by and means necessary. It doesn't match her characterization anywhere else in the show, but it's basically the last bit of focus she gets, so it's definitely going out on a weird note.

Anyway, things kind of fall apart in the last two episodes. Azrael tries to nuke the PLANTs but Freedom and Justice shoot down the missiles. Patrick Zala then uses GENESIS on the OMNI fleet, without any acknowledgement that he was five minutes late to save the PLANTs and it was only Team Lacus that prevented the Coordinators from being wiped out. Azrael correctly identifies GENESIS as a threat to all life on Earth and insists that it must be destroyed at all costs, then launches another wave of nukes at the PLANTs instead for some reason (Freedom and Justice stop those, too).

From there, things kinda... resolve themselves without any input from the protagonists? Mu loses a mobile suit duel against Rau because Rau has a better Gundam, then sacrifices himself to save the Archangel from Azrael. The Archangel kills Azrael in turn (whose fleet was already in shambles and the ships carrying his nukes destroyed) and then disappears from the plot. Kira duels and eventually kills Rau, but Rau isn't actually doing anything, just kind of roaming around shooting everyone while he watches the show, so killing him doesn't solve any problems. Athrun and Cagalli (and, hilariously, a random faceless Astray pilot, who I'm pretty sure wasn't there in the original) storm the GENESIS command center to stop it from firing again since they can't destroy it from the outside, but Patrick Zala has already been shot when they get there.

So other than stopping the nuke attack (which only would have succeeded otherwise because Patrick Zala is apparently an idiot), basically everything resolved itself without the protagonists' input. That could have been an interesting thematic resolution — proving Kira right and Rau wrong by showing humanity pulling itself back from the brink at the last second — but the story didn't build up to it and it's not even actually the climax (there's still some shenanigans with a self-destruct mechanism that causes GENESIS to blind fire one more time, but it's not actually important), so it feels sort of aimless. Which is a shame, because I actually do enjoy the fact that the story gets a mostly-happy ending without relying on "because the protagonists were best at giant robot fights". They just couldn't figure out how to make that into a satisfying wrap-up of the story they were telling.

One other random thing that I've thought about a few times over the course of the series: I cannot figure out what the deal with Birdie (Kira's pet robot bird that Athrun made for him) is supposed to be. The Haros pretty clearly act as a kind of proxy for Lacus, saying the things that she's thinking but can't say out loud without breaking her princess act. But Birdie doesn't talk (he only says "birdie", not even the mostly-nonsense that the Haros manage), so all of its symbolism is wrapped up in where he goes, basically. Birdie spends the first part of the series with Kira, but after he and Flay sleep together, Birdie is usually seen with her. In Orb (the first time around), Birdie randomly flies away and leads Kira to Athrun (and it has to like, fly out of a room, down a hallway, out a building entrance, and across a tarmac to get to him, so it's not like he just saw Athrun and decided to go visit) so they can chat. After Strike is destroyed, Birdie ends up with Sai (notably taking Sai's side when he and Flay argue about whether Flay really had feelings for Kira or not), and when Kira returns with the Freedom Sai gives it back to him. Oddly, he's not really seen with Lacus, and the only other notable appearance Birdie has in the series is flying through space to lead the camera to Kira and reveal that he survived after the final battle.

I've put way too much thought into this and I can't decide what exactly Birdie is supposed to represent. Kira's true feelings, the way Haro is Lacus's? First with Flay, then with Sai as a proxy for the Archangel as a whole? If that's the case, why doesn't Lacus end up with him? I can't think of anything that makes sense.

I seem to remember that one of the Astray mangas revealed that the nuke was smuggled onto the OMNI blockade fleet by Blue Cosmos sympathizers and launched by an OMNI pilot who wasn't even in on the plot and was lied to that it was conventional ordinance so that they'll take the fall for it.

Edited by amitakartok on Apr 16th 2024 at 2:38:38 PM

There's a fanfic called "Gundam Seed Bloodlines" where Cagalli is the Coordinator and Kira is the Natural.

Huh, that's interesting. I had vaguely recalled reading somewhere that Blue Cosmos rather than OMNI was responsible for the Bloody Valentine, but I couldn't remember the source and never found that reference again. If it was Astray... well, Astray does some wild shit in general, and I'm hesitant to call something canon to the TV show just because it happened in Astray, but with the line about "your people" directed at Azrael I think it's probably fair to say that it is true even in the show's continuity.

Thoughts on Gundam Seed in general having finished my rewatch:

The biggest and most important problem, imo, is that the show just doesn't have any respect for Naturals. Broadly speaking, the way the show talks about Coordinators, they're fully superhuman to the point where the best Natural in the world is maybe on par with the worst Coordinator. What we see is much different, but that's how the exposition treats it and there's very little pushback even though it's very on theme to emphasize that people's similarities are more important than their differences. Similarly, OMNI spends the entire series getting slaughtered (with the sole exception of the Archangel, naturally). At first it's because they don't have mobile suits and ZAFT does, but even when OMNI does roll out their own mobile suits, they just immediate job. OMNI are only allowed to be even remotely successful when they're being incredibly evil — using weapons of mass destruction, betraying their own soldiers, and sending evil, artificially enhanced psychopaths out to fight for them (and also treating them horribly, just so it's clear that everyone involved is an asshole).

Even moreso than Orb, the story is presented from ZAFT's POV. We see Junius 7 exploding dozens of times over, but the April Fools Crisis gets a couple of still pans and isn't even named on-screen. Hell, ZAFT is presented as magnanimous for only deploying n-jammers on Earth in response to the Bloody Valentine, rather than countering with nukes of their own. This despite the fact that the show hints at the 11th hour that it wasn't an OMNI-approved operation at all, but actually a Blue Cosmos terrorist attack? Even when they're being portrayed as in the wrong (such as Waltfeld in the desert, or Patrick Zala trying to destroy Earth), they're portrayed as much more sympathetic than OMNI. Waltfeld is treated like a man of honor, and Zala's last words are begging Athrun to finish avenging his dead wife (ie Athrun's mother, who we've been told was killed in the Bloody Valentine). Meanwhile, Azrael dies giving an unhinged rant about how he never loses, everything always goes his way in the end — after treating everyone around him so terribly that they abandon him to his fate. OMNI's three drugged-up Gundam pilots get similar ends, despite the fact that they're clearly unwilling experiments who are forced into combat with the threat of excruciating pain from their chemical withdrawal. By the end of the series, none of the OMNI-aligned characters are even remotely sympathetic, while many of the ZAFT ones are.

Anyway. Above and beyond that one massive glaring issue, Gundam Seed is broadly pretty good at what it sets out to do.

The character relationships are pretty much the star of the show. Like 90% of the character beats land, and most of the 10% that don't are crammed into the last few episodes where they don't have enough room to breathe. The episode after Kira's apparent death at Athrun's hands is probably the single best episode in the franchise, and nothing really happens in it, it's just the cast reacting to Kira going MIA. Seed is at its best when it focuses on its characters. It's a story about people first and foremost, and the situation going on around them mostly serves as backdrop to drive those personal stories. A lot of Gundams are the opposite, with the story and its themes being the real point and the characters just being actors needed to perform the story. Both are perfectly reasonable ways to go about it, Seed is just hard in on the character side of things.

Which can be a little frustrating because it feels like with a bit more focus, the themes could have been a lot better as well. Stuff like the Mendel colony gets brought up and then mostly ignored because it's only relevant to the characters as a shocking revelation, then it's fulfilled its purpose so the show moves on. Seed mode in general could have been something meaningful instead of just a personal power-up — which would have made the fact that Cagalli and even Lacus (maybe?) go seed mode during the final battle. With a bit more work, the ending could have been something that's satisfying on multiple levels, instead of just the character-focused one where everyone confronts their nemesis (Murrue and Natarle, Kira and Rau, Athrun and his father as a proxy for the ZAFT hardliners as a whole, etc) and somehow that resolves the situation even though it shouldn't.

I want to talk about Cagalli a little, but it's weird because at the end of the day she doesn't actually do much. She's there to be a foil for both Kira and Athrun at different times and that's basically it. She has almost no scenes without one of those two. Conspicuously, I don't think she ever has a conversation with Lacus, who does have a much firmer presence in the plot and has scenes where she's doing things on her own instead of just being an accessory to Kira and/or Athrun. Ultimately, Cagalli's not actually that important to the story, which feels like a huge missed opportunity.

Anyway, if it sounds like I'm being mostly negative, I'm not trying to be. Gundam Seed was good, I enjoyed it a lot. That just makes its problems that much more frustrating, because it's easy to envision Seed being better than it was. A lot of what I like about it comes from little bits and pieces of things that it leaves lying around without really exploring it. I think that sort of thing is fascinating and makes the show a lot of fun because it gives you something to think about — but at the same time I can't deny that the show would have been better if it did something with that stuff instead of just throwing it out there and then letting the audience chew on it.

I find myself wondering how much of Seed's problem stems from the fact that it spent a good half the show following MSG's outline. A lot of the problems at the end felt like they were just a lack of screentime to let things develop properly, and if they had cut down or cut out some of the stuff from early on then they would have had more time to do their own thing.

Anyway, that's it for Seed. Up next is Destiny, but I probably won't post about that until the end of the week.

Edited by NativeJovian on Apr 16th 2024 at 6:41:51 AM

Zaft is presented as the justified victim

And Omni pretty much has only Nat and Flay once the defection happens and they are portrayed as helpless cogs in machine

——-

Sigh yay in the end Cagalli is just kinda there isn’t she

Edited by FrozenWolf2 on Apr 17th 2024 at 3:53:30 AM

I've been unable to find corroboration of the pilot's lack of intent or even their name on the wiki, only that the nuke was fired from a Mobius launched from the Agamemnon-class Roosevelt that was dispatched to Junius 7 for Gunboat Diplomacy on day 3 of the war, but received new orders en route to shoot to kill. I might have mixed in some fanon.

It's also stated on the Mobius' page that the nuke's launcher is so heavy-duty equipment that it requires all other weapons to be removed.

Edited by amitakartok on Apr 17th 2024 at 9:39:02 PM

So where would Cagalli fit on the the Relena scale?

Marina of 00 is a 1

Lacus is a 10

Relena is a 5

What exactly is the Relena scale supposed to measure?

... yeah, I genuinely cannot fathom what that scale is supposed to mean.

I don't think you can call it a Relena scale if Relena is meant to be smack-dab in the middle.

And honestly, Cagalli has quite a bit of Sayla in her.

Cross referencing with the Shout Out thread, but workshop threads on this site are dead so I was hoping we could get some eyes on it:

So, Mobile Suit Gundam SEED had an entry for its resident Char Clone as an Expy of The Phantom of the Opera, which was eventually removed following discussion calling it out.

Part of it still lives on as a Shout-Out entry for another character:

• Shout-Out: The specificity that her distant and eventually-dead father is from the "Kingdom of Scandinavia" to go with her engagement, professional singing career, and an ambiguous relationship dealing with a ruthless man in a mask all seem to be these to Christine Daäe of The Phantom of the Opera.

Like the original Expy argument, I don't know Phantom's cultural relevance in Japan but I do know that searching "Phantom of the Opera" and "Gundam SEED" turns up pretty much nothing in google other than our own page, a lot of that entry is either very vague or very obscure (having seen both Phantom and the Gundam series, I wouldn't have been able to tell you that either character is Scandinavian), and the fact that Foe Romance Subtext was deemed misuse on another page (and added by the same user), I think that entry could be cut.

Oh boy. Gundam Seed Destiny sure is a TV show.

Destiny starts strong, and it dives right into things. One of the benefits of being a sequel, you don't have to do all that much exposition about the setting because presumably people watched the first show. It took Seed about three episodes to have Kira do more than stumble around in the Strike, but Destiny has the Extended trip having cool fights in their stolen Gundams from episode 1.

And they are broadly really cool fights. Anyone who's not a named character is killed off immediately, of course, but there's actually some interesting back-and-forth between ZAFT and Phantom Pain for the first four episodes or so. Something about the fights have real weight in a way that most of Seed's fights didn't. Obviously, Phantom Pain gets away with the Gundams and the Minerva survives, but it doesn't feel like a foregone conclusion, it feels like both sides legitimately doing their best to kill the other guy and achieve their mission.

Then the Junius 7 stuff starts and the show rapidly goes downhill. The decline is steeper than I remember, and starts earlier too.

First, let's talk about Cagalli. She actually does pretty well when she's talking with Durandal. She's firm on her points and calls him out when he's being evasive or noncommittal, they just keep getting interrupted by things like Gundam attacks, so she's never able to actually pin him down. But when she talks to Shinn? She never gets to respond because the scene just cuts away after Shinn says his piece. It's not that something else happens to interrupt them, it's just Shinn talking mad shit and then end scene without Cagalli saying anything in return. That continues once she returns to Orb — people say ridiculous things, she sputters in confused indignation, and then scene change. It makes her look like an idiot because we only ever see her on the back foot, and we never see her making her own arguments or how other people respond.

Then there's Shinn. Shinn's an asshole. The first time he talks to Cagalli it's after one of the random Minerva crewmen suggests that it would actually be "convenient" for ZAFT if Junius 7 did wipe out all life on Earth. Cagalli interrupts to call him out for his callousness, but Shinn intervenes to defend him, saying he was "obviously" joking (he wasn't) and anyway Cagalli and her whole family are assholes, so fuck you. When Athrun asks what his fucking problem is, he gets all indignant because obviously Athrun and Cagalli are belittling the death of his family. So, in summary: finding it convenient if all life on Earth were to end? Stop being such a snowflake. Asking why he's being such an asshole? How dare you disrespect my grievous personal loss. Shinn's moral compass begins and ends with "people I like are right and good, people I don't like are bad and wrong."

Djibril's first appearance is hosting a party of old men in tailcoats while they do rich people things like ride horses and play billiards. They decide that they're going to let Junius 7 fall because afterwards it will be easy to convince the survivors to declare war on ZAFT. They plan to, and this is a direct quote, "unite humanity under a banner of hatred". These charming and nuanced individuals are basically the only representation we get of Earth for the whole series. Oh, Djibril also has the President of the United States on speed dial (seriously, the guy gives a press conference under straight up the White House seal), which he uses to give a speech that would actually be more subtle if he just said "I'm a fascist lol" for five minutes straight.

However little Seed cared for Earth, Destiny cares even less. After Junius 7 falls, we see people all over the world using Blue Cosmos slogans and demanding blood. OMNI issues a set of demands to ZAFT that basically amount to complete surrender, and launch forces from the moon to attack the PLANTs when they inevitably reject them. We see everyone from the commanding officers to random pilots also using Blue Cosmos slogans, before they're completely slaughtered by ZAFT's superior mobile suits and also a new superweapon that only works against nukes. Because OMNI is categorically not allowed to actually accomplish anything, even when they're meant to be threatening. Hell, even the Extended trio in their stolen Gundams got completely shut down by Yzak, Dearka, and Athrun (all in ZAKUs) during the Junius 7 battle. So even their competency only lasted about 5 episodes.

It takes exactly two episodes from the Junius 7 drop to re-establish ZAFT as the real victims here. PLANT citizens are fistfighting each other in the streets over whether going back to war is the right thing to do after OMNI tried to nuke them (again) and failed miserably (again). Because the PLANTs (approximately 30 million people) are allowed to have a diverse variety of viewpoints, but Earth (??? billion people) are all racist, warmongering assholes. One thing that actually is interesting is how much of a foil to Lacus they set up Durandal to be. After the failed OMNI attack, Meer appears in public as Lacus, pleading for calm and imploring the people to trust in the Supreme Council, while Durandal shows Athrun the Savior and gives him a speech very similar to the one Lacus gave to Kira upon offering him the Freedom. Their methods are nearly identical — the difference is that Lacus implored people to think for themselves instead of blindly following the government, while Durandal asks people to trust him, the Supreme Council Chairman, to act in their best interests for them.

All of this comes off as harsh — and it is — but the moment-to-moment writing mostly works. It's genuinely compelling to see the new characters interacting with old ones with their differing perspectives coloring everything. Shinn is a generally nice kid as long as Cagalli isn't involved, Lunamaria is doing a lot of the heavy lifting of getting Athrun to interact with the new cast, and Rey is still mostly an enigma at this point. Athrun has, even more than Shinn, been the viewpoint character so far — and if I remember correctly, it basically stays that way until Athrun tries to leave ZAFT again and gets shot down by Shinn for his trouble. The dub is quite good, not only with the returning characters, but the new cast as well. Even the Extendeds, who generally have the most range to cover, are very well done.

Uzumi really did leave Cagalli with the check didn't he

Edited by FrozenWolf2 on Apr 21st 2024 at 4:24:56 AM

Oh, he did. She's just not allowed to admit it, if Orb is indeed culturally an ersatz of Japan as the fandom claims.

like Seed's a lot of things but its not subtle about its views and projections -Its no Gate thats for sure-

Honestly, a big part of the Gundam Seed narrative is old and dead people creating a huge mess for younger generations to clean up.

Starting of course with Al da Flaga, whose narcissism nearly wiped out humanity.

So, I cross-posted with the Shout Out thread but I don't expect a response (like with the claims of Rau being an Expy/Shout Out to The Phantom of the Opera):

There's another questionable set of shout-outs on the same pages, specifically some shout outs to Jem. On their own, the entries are compelling enough, but if I had my doubts on the pop-culture impact of The Phantom of the Opera in Japan, I really have my doubts on the impact of Jem.

Lacus Clyne:

• Shout-Out: Visually, her main black/sleeveless with arm gloves/ponytail outfit in SEED Destiny was taken from an episode of Jem, "Old Meets New", and makes a quick appearance in that show's second opening.
  • I believe this is the outfit being referenced, normally worn like this. To me, it's an evolution of her outfit from the first series, just in black since she's now in an antagonistic role to the apparent main character. Calling it a Shout-Out to a one-off outfit from a decades old foreign cartoon when the similarities are mostly the color scheme kinda rings hollow.

Meer Campbell (Lacus' body double from the sequel series)

• She's also this to the heroine of the eponymous 80's cartoon Jem, given that she's a highly-talented accessory-wearing pink-haired popstar who exists for reasons of necessity and her identity is incredibly popular, but not real^note  the twist being that Jem was one person, two identities; where in SEED Destiny, is two people, one identity. Meer's slightly-elongated star hairclip can be seen in the Jem logo.
  • This is definitely more compelling, and the hairclip thing would be proof positive if "elongated star" wasn't such a fairly generic cutesy image. The rest of the writeup just feels... twisted, like more of a forum game where someone's trying to draw (potentially tortured) comparisons to characters ("exists for reasons of necessity"?!?). And she's a pink-haired pop-star because Lacus is a pink-haired pop star. Which is why she wears accessories. That's what pop stars do.

Searching "Gundam" or "Gundam SEED" and "Jem" comes up with absolutely nothing but our pages again.

Edited by Larkmarn on Apr 23rd 2024 at 11:49:29 AM

The page also has an entry claiming Lacus is a Shout Out to The Little Mermaid. I'm not seeing that at all. Are these all by the same person? They definitely read like the work of a one person drawing some rather bizarre comparisons

Edited by RangerJackWalker on Apr 23rd 2024 at 12:13:28 PM

Meer, not Lacus. See here: Mobile Suit Gundam SEED ZAFT

I suppose that's also worth discussing too. I took it at face value and the "Durandal is the Sea Witch" sounds pretty conclusive but it might not be wholly accurate. I don't know if these all have been added by the same person or not but if they're the same one who added the "Rau is the Phantom of the Opera and Lacus is an Expy of Christine" entries, then they may well be somewhat misrepresentative. It's still a much easier sell, Fairy Tale Motif is far more accessible than "very specific 1980's foreign cartoon that's only dimly remembered even in its home country."

• Meer's character is this to the Hans Christian Andersen version of The Little Mermaid. (A mermaid is "Meerjungfrau" in German.) The mermaid in the story transformed her appearance completely through a bargain, gave up her voice for her dream, did not regain it, and Did Not Get The Guy she was in love with. Oh, and she ends up losing her life by sacrificing herself instead of the person she cares most about, just like that mermaid. It's even represented in one of the SEED Character Theater picture dramas, with Durandal playing the sea witch who transformed her.

EDIT: Okay, Durandal getting an Gender Flip entry for Ursula from the Disney version of the Little Mermaid is a lot much. Especially the entry culminating in saying he has "tentacle-like black mass of hair."

EDIT EDIT: Okay, pulled the Meer and Durandal references to discussion. See here.

EDIT EDIT: Oh, wow, okay, the "Lacus is the Little Mermaid" entries are actually all over the place and super thin in places. Even if they're accurate, the entries are awful. "tends to explore and "float" around a lot, has a Beautiful Singing Voice, something permanently in her hair, dresses which feature "fins" (as seen above), a big dramatic moment sitting on a rock, and another one after which we see her legs". Even if the entry is valid, this example is awful.

Edited by Larkmarn on Apr 23rd 2024 at 5:06:05 AM

Oh, it's that person. I remember getting into a minor edit war with them after they basically rewrote all entries related to Durandal, Rau and Rey's 'relationship', based entirely on their sole interpretation.

Edited by RangerJackWalker on Apr 23rd 2024 at 3:04:18 AM

For the SEED Discussion about the Jem and the Little Mermaid. I see this in the ShoutOut page :

Note that to be this trope, the reference must be unambiguous and reasonably construed as deliberate on the part of the creators.

I don't think when seeing Lacus or Meer we will directly think of Jem (which I don't know much about), same for the Little Mermaid IMO. Based on that alone, I think we can drop the entries. To me, the person who wrote those really tried to push them hard as examples, especially when I saw Durandal's and Meer's entries.

For Durandal : IMO, citing the SEED Character Theater is really confirming this impression for me. More so, this is the only trait from Ursula this is based from, not any other traits from her (and Durandal is very different from Ursula). For example: Durandal is not an usurper while Ursula is, he already has power while Ursula crave it, he is a Well-Intentioned Extremist while she is not, ... I don't think borrowing one trait from a character should count as a full example. I'd say, drop it.

For Meer : The Little Mermaid example feels similar to Durandal. While the parallels are more evident, this feels forced to be an example too. Is this by the same writer than the Durandal's entry ? If so, this really feels like pushing an agenda by mixing two versions of the Little Mermaid (Ursula from Disney's version and the Mermaid from the original story) to force a trope example.

And I think we can also remove the Little Mermaid's references from Lacus' page too.

Edited by CybranLord on Apr 24th 2024 at 9:24:56 PM

I have not seen this art of Durandal as Ursula so maybe that is legitimate. But just the name Meer isn’t an inherent connection to Meerjungfrau or Mermaid. They are both words derived from the literal meaning of Meer (Sea), which is a counterpart to Lacus (Lake).

At best, it’s a coincidence that was picked up on by this supposed art piece that exists but it doesn’t feel like an intended shout out.

Durandal’s many shout outs to Emperor Palpatine are much more unsubtle. While the existence of more blatant shout outs doesn’t rule more minor ones, I’ve never seen anyone else make a connection to The Little Mermaid.

I seriously doubt that this set of characters (Rau, Durandal, Lacus and Meer) are a web of intricate shout outs to The Phantom of the Opera, The Little Mermaid and Jem.

Edited by RangerJackWalker on Apr 24th 2024 at 1:40:07 AM

With Durandal, I'm of the opinion that if this representation of him exists (which it might, but if it does then it's miscited), then that could definitely count as a Shout-Out in of itself, but a larger discussion would need to be had as to whether that means the entirety of the character is a Shout-Out to the character.

Either way, it's not an acceptable entry for Gender Flip.

As for the Lacus/Little Mermaid entries, another thing that gives me pause is that they were originally Expy entries that were moved to Shout-Out due to being insufficient for Expy so... yeah. I'm comfortable removing those.

I assume these all were added by the same guy ~harotype at least did some of them. With the SEED character move it's tougher to look through the histories but I hope he can clear some stuff up.

So, looking at Lacus' entry:

• She's the daughter of the local leader, tends to explore and "float" around a lot, has a Beautiful Singing Voice, something permanently in her hair, dresses which feature "fins" (as seen above), a big dramatic moment sitting on a rock, and another one after which we see her legs. She has strong shades of The Little Mermaid, and it continues in the sequel. She's a Disney Princess in a Gundam show.
  • She's the daughter of the local leader
    • True, but tremendously vague.
  • tends to explore and "float" around a lot
    • It's a show set in space. Everyone does. Lacus does have a particularly famous floating scene, but that doesn't have to do with being a mermaid, that's a reference to Lalah.
  • has a Beautiful Singing Voice
    • True but vague again, and also part of an existing reference
  • something permanently in her hair
    • Which doesn't have anything to do with the Little Mermaid? Or even many other Disney Princesses?
  • dresses which feature "fins" (as seen above), a big dramatic moment sitting on a rock, and another one after which we see her legs.
    • This is where we go from "vague but true" to "this is a forum game." Seriously, this borders on Word Salad to try and weasel a comparison between the two.

Also, it's not a Shout-Out but I found another really weird entry for Fraw Bow from Characters.Mobile Suit Gundam. This one is definitely added by Harotype so he can definitely help clear it up.

• Full-Name Basis: On a regular basis. There's no explanation for why.why^note  One very vague theory is it increases her similarity to Snow White, who has her own German background and small people hanging out with her, and in the Disney version, a prominent bow.
  • I... don't think Fraw Bow's use of Full-Name Basis is to highlight an elaborate trilingual pun based on a character whose connection to Fraw Bow is solely "is often with people shorter than her."

Especially since the same user insists that the "Bow" in her name is a reference to a 1920's movie star which... now that I mention it, I'm pretty dubious of.

Edited by Larkmarn on Apr 24th 2024 at 2:53:54 PM

This is getting comical.

Edited by RangerJackWalker on Apr 24th 2024 at 10:31:57 AM