Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans

We're never going to agree on this, but Mcgillis is an Anti-Villain. We're pretty much at an impasse because we'll never see eye to eye on him.

And he very much does say why he killed the real reason, in his final moments. It was not for the power, him feeling they would hold him back. That very much IS him throwing them under the bus for making himself "weak". It's why Gaelio didn't want him to explain himself. Because he's too emotional a person that despite that, he could forgive Mcgillis on some level if he knew he did care about him and Carta.

And also Mcgillis already figured out who Vidar was, and still thought this plan would work.

Edited by OmegaRadiance on Oct 9th 2019 at 5:19:13 AM

Every accusation by the GOP is ALWAYS a confession.

I just rewatched that scene. Gaelio spends the whole fight telling McGillis to look at him instead of ignoring him. McGillis only responds when he finally realizes that he won't be able to kill Rustal so he might as well talk to Gaelio. The part of his response relevant to his motives is this:

He's not saying that he killed them to purge himself of weakness, he's saying that he had to pretend that they weren't his friends in order to go through with his plan to kill them. He doesn't talk about confronting his friendship toward them and overcoming those feelings by killing them, he talks about ignoring his feelings so he'll be able to go through with the plans he's had since before he ever met them. He didn't decide to kill them because they were his friends and he saw that as a liability — killing them was always the plan, his friendship with them just makes it harder for him to go through with it.

As an aside, god I'd forgotten how much that final McGillis vs Gaelio fight pissed me off. It doesn't even try to justify Gaelio winning, it just shows him taking hit after hit without slowing down while McGillis slowly accumulates damage until he dies. The capstone is McGillis shooting Gaelio in the face without Gaelio so much as flinching, because fuck you, that's why.

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

Yes and it made him weak, because he believes strength is an absolute that leaves one standing alone after reading the fables on Agnika Kaieru. He even thought he could win all by himself like he's in a more fantastical Super Robot War. It's quite clear his friends were a weakness making him waver, and so he tried to remove them. This is not what a heroic person does, this is what a villain does. Hell it's why him and Tekkadan were incompatible in the end, Tekkadan is made of people who care about each other and would never do that, while Mcgillis surrounds himself with underlings and tainted all his relationships, including the one that left his young fiance in such a traumatic spot.

Gaelio literally put the mask back on, he knew it could protect him. Not his fault Mcgillis didn't know. Meanwhile Mcgillis psychotically rants like the deluded manchild he isuntil everything goes badly for him.

Edited by OmegaRadiance on Oct 9th 2019 at 8:50:38 AM

Every accusation by the GOP is ALWAYS a confession.

I literally just pointed out that his dialogue makes it clear that killing them was always the plan — the "lifelong aspirations" he mentions is to take down the Seven Stars, and Gaelio and Carta are two of those seven. Their friendship just made it hard for McGillis to go through with it. There's absolutely nothing to suggest that he's killing them because they were his friends and he thinks that friendship made him weak.

Also, the mask stopping a bullet is bullshit. Even if the material was strong enough, it'd still be like getting hit in the face with a baseball bat. Gaelio doesn't have so much as a bruise or a nosebleed after getting shot — and it's not like IBO is shy about showing its characters bruised and bloodied when it wants to. "He was wearing a mask" is a fig leaf over the fact that the script bends over backwards to make McGillis and Tekkadan lose so that Rustal and Gaelio can win, and it's immensely unsatisfying.

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

It sounds more like he worked his plans around to removing them AND make it benefit himself to ease his guilt because he thinks he needs to go forward. Even for Gaelio he spent a long time before truly turning on him despite his plans so far. He didn't even need to wait till near the end.

Honestly I always figured it was made out of what gundams are made of, which unless you got a really huge blunt object to hit with, it takes an otherwise intense beam attack for the metal to wear down. It's why everyone does not rely on beam weapons in this setting. Heck even when tossing the metal as WM Ds down to the surface of Mars and the collission damage Barabtos still worked and Mika could keep going just a bit longer, so the metal can take some heavy damage before the pilot is critical.

Even when the intense beam of Hashmal didn't harm the pilot it aimed a beam at even as it damaged the suit and blew up everyone in the background. It does not give off vibes of a normal helmet that are normally made to protect the brain. Even the way it just bounces off it shows the helmet suffered no dents

Edited by OmegaRadiance on Oct 9th 2019 at 9:41:03 AM

Every accusation by the GOP is ALWAYS a confession.

how is that script bending when smarter, stronger, more resourceful and delibarate side wins over dumber, less numerous and reckless?

Script were bending to even give them that one shot on Rustal. All authors did was removing plot armor from Tekkadan.

Gaelio winning his own duel is also no wonder with much better tech and mindset compensating for skill gap (that wasn't all that big to begin, otherwise Mackey wouldn't have to go as far to taunt him in their first battle ).

Edited by Tenzen12 on Oct 10th 2019 at 2:06:13 PM

I can't stop you from insisting that that's the case if you want, but it's not supported by the actual dialogue. There's nothing suggesting "friendship made me weak, so I killed my friends". It's "my plan was to kill the Seven Stars but making friends with two of them made it hard to kill them, so I told myself that I was never friends with them (but it was a lie)".

Whenever anything happens to Gaelio, there are no negative consequences for him. Whenever anything happens to McGillis, it results in the worst possible outcome. That's what I mean by the script bending over backwards.

During their duel, Gaelio continually takes damage that is completely ignored (eg, McGillis stabs Kimaris in the armor gap between the cockpit hatch and the chest plate — the same blow that was a OHKO at the end of season one — and absolutely nothing happens. So a bit later, he punches through the armor gap on the other side of the cockpit and rips out a fistful of cabling... which also does nothing). Meanwhile, McGillis gradually accumulates damage that does affect his combat performance — eventually ending the duel ends when McGillis realizes that he's out of weapons and out of options. So McGillis crashes them both into the ship hangar in order to storm the bridge and shoot Rustal in person... and this mutual crash ends with McGillis mortally wounded and Gaelio completely unharmed. Then McGillis takes an elevator heading for the bridge... and Gaelio somehow teleports ahead of him and is waiting for him in the hallway when the elevator doors open.

Then Gaelio is literally shot in the face without getting so much as a scratch on him. I'm not sure how much more literal "plot armor" can get.

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

Yeah, Gaelio has significantly better tech and more weapons, both MS still ended destroyed. I don't see problem with that.Sure, authors could just have Mackey being one-shoted from the begining, but that wouldn't be interesting battle, Him being able fight back against Gaeliao and even do comparable damage was done for more exciting finalle same with their shoot out.

Edited by Tenzen12 on Oct 10th 2019 at 3:13:00 PM

I feel more than anything we come to different interpretations of the text. Because everything I read and the fact he wants to move forward and not waver, has been done before by people obsessed with strength who seek to remove those making then "weak".

Like we even mentioned Edelgard on this very thread. Though she came out after IBO.

Every accusation by the GOP is ALWAYS a confession.

Yeah I am surprised Mackey got hero treatment too despite being neither waifu as Edie nor protagonist. Well I guess he get Protagonist-Centered Morality status too because he enable Tekkadan ambitions?

Its without doubt true that both of them are trying size all power and control because they were deprivate of it as children, which also might be reason why they never truly grew up.

If Gaelio had simply outfought McGillis and won, then that'd be one thing. I won't say I would have liked it, but I could have appreciated it as a fight scene, at least, if not its contribution to the plot. My complaint is that they don't show, eg, Gaelio being faster and slipping through McGillis's guard while avoiding everything thrown at him. Instead they show Gaelio and McGillis trading blows and each taking hits, but the hits against Gaelio don't actually do anything. Watching a guy have his mecha repeatedly shanked to no effect and the capping it off by shooting him in the face on foot, also to no effect, doesn't make think "wow he's clearly a better fighter who defeated his opponent with better technology and superior skill", it makes me think "wow that sure is bullshit".

Sure, but those are other characters, not McGillis. "Other characters in similar situations have been portrayed that way" is not an argument that McGillis is being portrayed that way.

Edited by NativeJovian on Oct 10th 2019 at 4:36:55 AM

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

Again that battle run on rule of cool. Having Mackey loose too easily wouldn't be fun. Underlying reasons why he lost are still clearly present.

Edited by Tenzen12 on Oct 10th 2019 at 10:55:33 AM

No, they're not. How does A-V Type E make the Kimaris curiously impervious to stab damage? How does Gaelio's apparently-superior piloting skill make his face immune to bullets?

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

Because rule of cool, but I said that already.

In other hand I never said Gaelio is superior pilot. Don't make things up.

Except everything Mcgillis does fits exactly what they have done, which is why I don't find the idea Mcgillis is different or special in that regards to be a fitting argument. Even revealing he did care with his death has been done before.

Every accusation by the GOP is ALWAYS a confession.

Look, essentially the entire case for the ending boils down to, in addition to blatant leaps in logic with the Final Battle, demonizing McGillis and Tekkadan while simultaneously downplaying the atrocities committed by Rustal and Gjallarhorn. That is all I have seen from the pro-ending arguments.

One of these days, all of you will accept me as your supreme overlord.

Mcgillis did plenty of stuff to earn being demonized, and playing a part in a coup got Tekkadan into it too. There was no walking away from that and getting labeled heroes. That's what happens when you are the aggressors instigating a conflict. Instead of playing defensive or just trying to protect ones self like they always were till this point.

Tragic sure, but Mcgillis literally let the man who raped him live and murdered or tried to kill his friends who genuinely love him. There was no way that's acceptable.

Edited by OmegaRadiance on Oct 10th 2019 at 4:31:13 AM

Every accusation by the GOP is ALWAYS a confession.

That answer makes no sense. You claimed that the "underlying reasons why he lost are still clearly present" in the fight. I pointed out that the things you claim justify Gaelio's win (eg, "significantly better tech and more weapons") had nothing to do with the thing that allowed Gaelio to win (ie, his inexplicable ability to No-Sell being stabbed and shot). You then said that it was okay because Rule of Cool.

You can't have it both ways. Either Gaelio's win is justified and the reasons for it are clearly shown in the fight, or it doesn't matter that his victory makes no sense because it was cool to watch. So which is it?

Incidentally, when I said "superior piloting" I was referring to the effects of the AV Type E had on Gaelio's ultimate performance rather than his "natural" skills. My apologies for the confusion, I didn't mean to misrepresent your point.

So you're straight up ignoring the fact that the show doesn't present him that way and insisting that he must be that way anyway, because other characters are presented that way? Uh, okay.

The Seven Stars were not an innocent neutral third party minding their own business until big bad McGillis and Tekkadan showed up to kick over their sand castle. They were ruthless authoritarians that accepted slavery as a viable business practice, and punished any and all show of discontent against their rule with death.

Fuck the Seven Stars. They deserved to be overthrown. That's why my argument is that McGillis, for all his faults, is ultimately heroic for trying to make the world a better place by destroying the status quo.

Edited by NativeJovian on Oct 10th 2019 at 7:53:53 AM

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

Slavery was being done outside of their control. Now that isnlt to say they aren't shit for doing jack about it when every pirate, mercenaries, or mafia trash exploits them, but changing the system was never Tekkadans goal to begin with. They threw away overseeing Mars and being part of the mafia to get some sweet revenge, lost any good connections to support themselves for it, and threw their lot in with a man Orga visibly punches after the coup fails because of how he talks around Tekkadan and he realizes they threw their lot in with someone they shouldn't until it was late, and Macky only realizes later the Mika he idealized doesn't exist. Mika is a loyal subordinate of Orga and has no desire to rise up the ranks or values stremgth above all like Mcgillis does.

Macky himself is obsessed with Social Darwinist because he read some tall tales about Agnika as a child about his power and standing alone above all, when information released later about the Gundams origins and the like even say Agnika was a Hot-Blooded guy who valued his friends over everything.

They were just trying to survive, and there was no higher goal beyond that in the latter of S2.

Edited by OmegaRadiance on Oct 10th 2019 at 5:26:09 AM

Every accusation by the GOP is ALWAYS a confession.

Still both there isn't reason to choose. You can complain about choreography that's all to it.

At no point noone in or out of universe were downplaying Rustals dirty tactics ever. And Chocolate man was always Deatheater.

Edited by Tenzen12 on Oct 10th 2019 at 7:48:54 PM

On Mc Gillis' worship of Agnika Kaeru, it made sense for him to use Bael as a way to justify leadership. Why? Because the Gjallarhorn Agnika created is gone and instead, power-hungry jerks like Iznario Fareed and Rustal Elion are in it. Is that supposed to be what Agnika wanted? While Gjallarhorn is needed to prevent another Calamity War, I doubt Rustal would sincerely uphold that.

No it wasn't? Slavery wasn't just found in deep-space criminal organizations (like the Brewers and Teiwaz) where Gjallarhorn's influence was limited. It was also being practiced openly by otherwise legitimate above-board companies on Mars (ie, the Tekkadan kids before they overthrew the adults and rebranded themselves as Tekkadan) and at minimum as an open secret even in "civilized" places like Earth (ie, McGillis before he was "adopted" by Iznario Fareed).

True, Tekkadan just wanted to survive and live in relative peace. But we weren't talking about Tekkadan, so I don't even know why you're bringing them up. We were talking about McGillis, whose endgame goal was always to overthrow the Seven Stars and reform Gjallarhorn into a meritocracy rather than an aristocracy.

That's debatable. You can make the case that his true ideal was Might Makes Right and his objection to the Seven Stars is that it propped up weak people who had powerful family connections. You can also make the case that he wanted to destroy the Seven Stars for allowing appalling human rights violations like his own childhood, and his talk about allowing the strong to rise to the top was only his plan for a reformed Gjallarhorn specifically, not society in general.

But either way, it's still better than the status quo, and his motivations are ultimately altruistic (he wants to make the world a better place for the sake of other people) rather than selfish (he doesn't just want power for himself — as one of the Seven Stars he's already one of the most powerful people alive, and he's actively working to destroy the system that put him in that position of power because he thinks it's unjust).

...no, the two are very definitely mutually exclusive. Either the way the fight plays out clearly displays legitimate in-universe reasons why Gaelio was able to win, or it shows things like the Kimaris completely ignoring being stabbed and Gaelio completely ignoring being shot because it's cool, in-universe logic be damned. It cannot be both at the same time.

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

The company they worked for was a group of mercenaries. It's why they overthrew them when the older mercs tried to boss them aroumd after the companies owner fled like the coward he is, and Gjallahorn has been bad at handling things outside earth, because it's outside of earth where such a system is allowed to run rampant. But Gjallahorn itself mever practices nor oversees the use of human debris. It had a very apathy and complacent handling of it.

No it's not. He was obsessed with power and always saw it as what matters most. He fixated on it. He was always about getting ahread that way even before he was ever part of Gjallahorn, he trampled over other kids to get ahread like that back then.. And no Social Darwinisim is not an improvement. It's essentially justifying strong crushing the weak and if anything would lead to human debris becoming even more commonplace than it already is. Because that's where the weak end up.

If we want a Social Darwinist paradise just release the Mobile Armors and have them do what they did best, because they embody what such a system is at its core. Being literal embodiments of strength.

I also want to add Meritocracy has never worked in Real Life, because, surprise surprise, the rich elite privilege individuals exploit the system to get ahread and the poor don't have the opportunities they do despite the system granting more opportunities. Especially when merit is so easily ill-defined. In fact said system is typically used to justify abusing the poor and less privileged for being "weak". And woe betide them when they also decide culling the weak is a good idea too.

Edit: To look no further the SS in Nazi Germany were, surprise surprise, Meritocratic in nature. And we all know what Nazi Germnay was like.

Edited by OmegaRadiance on Oct 11th 2019 at 2:00:10 AM

Every accusation by the GOP is ALWAYS a confession.

I feel like this argument is going in circles

I absolutely cannot help but adore handsome 2D boys

Yeah, it really is. I don't feel like discussions always have to come to a "conclusion" — there's nothing wrong with different people sharing different viewpoints and that being the end of it. I've only kept going because I have a hard time letting go of counterfactual claims like "Nazi Germany was a meritocracy".

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.