It's a Gundam thread!

I think its because he was willing to use Thermonuclear weapons to keep the feddies from taking Odessa. I dunno if he really was bluffing or not though; I do think the EF still had an advantage in terms of nuclear warheads over Zeon.

edited 3rd Mar '12 1:23:26 AM by Scherzo09

It stops counting as a bluff when you actually launch the missile whilst your own troops are in range.

Also, given his general treatment of his troops (for instance, bitching out the Black Tri-Stars for holding a funeral ceremony) one can assume that his objections to abandoning the mine had more to do with its economic value than the people inside.

Yeah, I know what you mean. EF probably could've easily abrogated the Antarctic Treaty then and there since nuclear policy is to respond to an ICBM launch as if it were nuclear... especially the guy launching has threatened that he will nuke you.

I dunno if Complete Monster fits the bill though, something like Greedy Bastard or something along those lines.

Like I said, I don't disagree that he's a bastard. But in the dub at least when they abandon the mine, M'Quve actually comments to Kycilia that this will mean all the men inside will die, and it's Kycilia who tells him they have to do it anyway. The funeral thing is because he thinks it's a waste of time when there's still a war on; as for the nuke, yeah, that was bad, although even then it isn't hard to see it as an attempt to impress Kycilia (who I'm honestly starting to think is a lot worse than him).

The man's certainly empathy deficient, I'm not arguing that. But I don't see him as significantly more evil than Char "I killed my best friend because I hate his daddy" Aznable. M'Quve's a greedy, obsequious sycophant, but I wish people would stop trying to hold him up to the same level of evil as Gihren Zabi. I had to cut a whole lot of comments about him being a Complete Monster because they just don't fit.

PS-On a totally unrelated note, in "The Big Zam's Last Stand," where in the Hell does Mirai's sudden crush on Sleggar come from? As a You Tube commentator put it "Oh my gosh, Sleggar. He slapped me that one time, it must be true love!"

Tomino's chauvinistic ideas of how women operate? I remember a quote from one of the Dynasty Warriors Gundam game being like "You're letting your emotions as a woman get in the way!" though admittedly it could've been a Wing or G character

Also I personally think like Gihren is the only 'Evil' Zeke from MSG, though there are some Zekes from other OYW stuff who're pretty bad.

edited 3rd Mar '12 9:52:51 AM by Scherzo09

Yeah. Tomino doesn't have the greatest track record when it comes to women (although Sayla and Kycilia are both pretty cool, albeit in totally different ways). It bothers me because a) I quite like Mirai and seeing that inflicted on her is just annoying and b) the fact that she and Bright are going to end up together is bleedingly obvious from about episode 2 and attempts to forestall that just come off as forced.

I would argue that quite a few of the Zeon's are evil (Kycilia, M'Quve, and yes, Char are all pretty bad), but Gihren is definitely the worst of the worst. All the others have some human qualities (Kycilia's love for her father, M'Quve's loyalty to Kycilia, Char's desire to avenge his father and concern for both Sayla and Lalah). Gihren checked his soul at entrance and never picked it up again.

Always felt Kcyllia was more of a My Country, Right or Wrong type; she seemed to always hate Gihren. That doesn't make her good because of course she stil believed Zeon to be superior to the EF, but I don't think she was megalomaniacal.

As for Char, I guess he's evil in the sense that he's willing to use anyone as disposable tools to achieve his goals (except for like Lalah), but I don't think that makes him much different than say Lelouch from Code Geass. The only difference is that Char doesn't brood about it.

See, I hated Code Geass and found Lelouch utterly impossible to sympathise with, so that's probably not the greatest comparison, at least for me. Char's not a genocidal nutter like Gihren, but as you pointed out, other people just don't matter to him. They're irrelevant in the face of his personal quest for revenge. And that's leaving out the fact that he's committing Revenge by Proxy, killing people who never really did anything to him (though Kycilia at least, will not be missed).

As for Kycilia, her reasons are definitely better than Gihren's, but she's willing to use his kind of tactics, and unlike Dozle for instance, cares nothing for the lives of her men. I'd say she's pretty far in the black, although not completely so.

Tomino's chauvinistic ideas of how women operate? I remember a quote from one of the Dynasty Warriors Gundam game being like "You're letting your emotions as a woman get in the way!" though admittedly it could've been a Wing or G character

That was from Zeta. Specifically, the final duel between Reccoa and Emma.

Gotta love how he has women criticising female emotionality. That'd be funny if it wasn't so stupid. Here's a hint Tomino—have them say "you're letting your emotions get in the way". Means the same thing. Isn't near as dumb.

Well, technically she's letting her (very probably Newtype-implanted) desire to get into Scirocco's pants get in the way, so there is something of a gendered element to it.

Seriously, it is creepy what Scirocco does to her head.

Yes, but it doesn't exactly excuse the blatant sexism

Oh, I quite agree.

This conversation is getting me bummed out by reminding me you can count every Gundam series that has a female lead protagonist on one hand.

A double amputee could count the number of shows with female protagonists.

Triple, and missing all but one of the toes on his remaining foot.

Wasn't Loran supposed to be one before the suits blocked it?

An amputee?

That's actually got me thinking—we may well need a disabled Gundam protagonist more than we need a female one. The show may only have had one female lead, but there have at least been plenty of competent Action Girls and powerful female characters as the show has gone along. What we need now are some disabled people. And while we're at it, positive, none stereoptypical black people.

I should probably wish for the moon while I'm at it, eh?

Orrrr how about split the difference and do a show with the cast of Katawa Shoujo as Gundam Pilots? :3

Hadn't even heard of that game but hey, I can work with that. Filling the cast with Moe girls like those? That'll make the series' Kill Em All tendencies even more heartbreaking.

EDIT: Still doesn't solve the race problem though. When the only two black characters in AGE were revealed to be a blonde guy in blackface (that is seriously what he looks like) and Fonroid (the cowardly, would-be captain of the Diva) a little piece of me died inside. I'm hardly Mr. Political Correctness, but that was bad. It might have been better if they hadn't included any people of colour.

edited 3rd Mar '12 8:21:38 PM by AmbarSonofDeshar

Lalah was Indian in MSG, so there's that. Weren't there Arab protagonists in 00?

Kurdish, not arab.

Not to mention that they were all drawn as white, and despite Setsuna's constant ranting about how "there is no God in this world" the actual issues of religion were never touched on.

Does it need to, though? Gundam has always managed to get its point across without ever having to...*sigh*...debate religion. It honestly never has to because there are many reasons for war.

Also, Setsuna clearly has a darker skin tone, not that you can tell with the purple tinted Celestial Being jumpsuit visor. At least Kira's is transparent.◊