It's a Gundam thread!

I'm kind of wondering, how common is Zeon sympathy in the animated stuff anyways? Like I can get sympathy for the troops, they were conscripts and such fighting for their home and propaganda is a bitch. But I don't think I've actually seen anything out there give the Zeon command or as a whole a lot of sympathy, sure the Federation is a bag of dicks at time but nothing really that major.

Yeah, I see more sympathy for grunts than actual leadership

There's little sympathy for the leadership on either side, but considerable sympathy for the Zeon cause, depending on the show.

In Tomino's stuff — MSG, Zeta, ZZ, and CCA — Zeon is presented as fatally misguided at best. While Tomino's not exactly a fan of the Federation, he also leaves little doubt that Zeon is much, much worse, and must be stopped. It's the later stuff, not done by Tomino, where they start treating Zeon genuinely sympathetically.

I should be clear on the distinction I'm drawing between the Zeon soldiers (the poor bastards generally just doing their jobs), the Zeon leadership (the people running the show, who have actual influence over policy), and the Zeon cause (the set of principles and ideals set out by Zeon Zum Deikun, which the Zeon soldiers and Zeon leadership are at least ostensibly fighting for).

Roughly speaking, post-Tomino UC shows have gotten more and more sympathetic to the Zeon soldier and the Zeon cause, while largely ignoring the Zeon leadership. They've more and more gone in the direction of depiction the Federation vs Zeon as Grey-and-Gray Morality, with the Federation as an amoral juggernaut defended by faceless masses with neither drive nor spirit, and Zeon as a movement of flawed heroes, who have their hearts in the right place but let their righteous purpose be clouded by hate for the evil Federation. The fact that Zeon committed mass murder on a scale never before dreamed of is either blamed wholly on the (conveniently dead) Zabi family, who turned the noble cause of Zeon to their own selfish ends, or else (most often) treated as a generic tragedy, a thing that happened but not anybody's fault, like an earthquake or a tornado.

This is generally a result of the writers trying to have their cake and eat it too. Zeon is, generally speaking, the more interesting faction. They're the rebels taking on The Man, the underdogs punching above their weight, the noble warriors taking up arms in support of a righteous cause against the overwhelming force of faceless bureaucratic stagnation.

Oh yeah, they're also genocidal authoritarians who want to rule the world with an iron fist and don't care how many people are left alive when they're done. Whoops.

Zeon is sexier than the Federation, so it makes for a better story if they're the good guys — or at least if they're a reasonable alternative to the Federation. But they're not. They're mass murdering dictators bent on world domination. This presents a problem for writers, so the majority of them tweak things, just a little. They suggest that maybe Zeon isn't that bad. The portray the Federation as a little worse than they have been before. Now things are more even, and if Zeon still has to lose in the end, at least now we can all mourn the Zeon that could have been, if the noble hearts of its leaders hadn't been corrupted by power, etc etc.

This process continues for 30 years until we reach get things like Thunderbolt and Unicorn, which flat-out portray each side as as bad as the other and there's neither good nor bad, just "us" and "them".

Don't get me wrong, taken in isolation, there's nothing wrong with that. A story about a morally ambiguous conflict between two factions that are equally bad for the world at large can be interesting. Where it becomes a problem is that it's based on UC Gundam, where one side has slaughtered billions of people and the other hasn't. You cannot turn that into a morally ambiguous conflict without condoning genocide. God knows that Gundam tries, mostly by just ignoring the issue, but it just doesn't work.

IMO, at least. There are plenty of people who will argue the point.

Deikun's entire philosophy is pretty dang flawed and Neo Zeon never really does anything peaceful.

Basically Peace and Understanding is utter BS with Newtypes.

Ultimately, you're right. Deikun thought that Newtypes would lead to perfect understanding, which would lead to peace. The unspoken assumption here is that all conflict is fundamentally caused by misunderstanding. In Tomino's works, this is repeatedly demonstrated to be untrue — some conflict may be caused by misunderstanding, but most is caused by incompatible values. When one person believes that it's okay to murder billions and billions of people in order to take over the world, and another believes that people should be left to live in peace rather than being subject to a mass murdering psychopath, that creates a conflict between them that simply understanding each other's position cannot resolve.

The fact that Deikun's philosophies are objectively untrue in Tomino's universe is rarely commented on outside of Tomino's works.

I sometimes wonder how much the romanticizing of Zeon has to do with Japanese audiences seeing themselves in them combined with the whole never owning up to any wrong-doing of their nation during World War II.

Edited by Xeino on Oct 21st 2018 at 6:25:28 AM

I respect Tomino for creating Gundam in the first place, but I definitely do NOT agree with some of his ways of thinking.

Char was among the strongest Newtypes who ever lived.

But in the end he died a terrorist trying to commit human extinction or at the very least massive genocide.

No amount of understanding can fix that.

Massive bonus points for being Deikun's son, the guy who preached the whole understanding nonsense in the first place.

Edited by slimcoder on Oct 21st 2018 at 6:44:36 AM

Even worse, he didn't do it for any practical reason or big goal, that was all propaganda. He kickstarted this shit to be better than Amuro.

I'm really not sure that Char is all that powerful. He can operate a psycommu, but Haman, Scirocco, Amuro, Judau, and Kamille are all shown to be in a whole other league, and we never see him breaking the laws of physics (or people's minds) in the same way they do.

Funny thing he outlasted most of those people.

Hell I think Judau is the only one still alive.

While Kamille is practically dead in the mind.

Edited by slimcoder on Oct 21st 2018 at 7:05:26 AM

Kamille got better.

Okay so two then.

Man Char really gets some points for lasting as long as he did.

Edited by slimcoder on Oct 21st 2018 at 7:35:16 AM

The Sympathy thing started with War in the Pocket.

then went to full steam in Stardust Memory

where of the Three Main Zeon characters... the one thats portrayed as the least sympathetic... is the one that betrays them cause She's trying to stop them from doing a Colony Drop

That Bitch

Char understands the concept of bowing out when his beat or when he has nothing to gain... The one time he forgets that is... well CCA and thats why its his last appearance

Edited by FrozenWolf2 on Oct 21st 2018 at 10:35:35 AM

I still think that if the writers are that devoted to being sympathetic to Zeon even when they shouldn't be, then they should just make a full on AU where Zeon or the equivalent thereof is worthy of being sympathetic in the first place.

Edited by kkhohoho on Oct 21st 2018 at 11:26:37 AM

They did, it was called Gundam Seed.

...of course, they still managed to screw that one up by making the Zeon-equivalent kill tens of millions of people and portraying them more sympathetically than the Federation-equivalent, who killed a quarter of a million people. Whoops.

Edited by NativeJovian on Oct 21st 2018 at 12:27:24 PM

Well thats the Reason Orb exists... to be invaded

Yeah, hence why I didn't mention it. If they're really going to be sympathetic, they probably shouldn't have such a fucking high body count. Nor should the other side be made that much worse to achieve it.

Yeah, not to mention I highly doubt a pop singer with a minor in politics and her incredibly talented bodyguard and friends are gonna instantly "fix" them.

I bet the first five years of Ms Clyne on the Supreme Council are gonna be nothing but constant tiring reforms.

Assuming that another Azrael or Djibril doesn't show up in the EA chain of command, of course.

Lacus' problem is We're constantly told She's a great leader... She never really shows that she is. I mean in large part Lacus is portrayed as naive and fucking stupid and only gets by cause she attracts Hyper competent people to her.

Its like Lacus is suppose to be a Take That! at Relena or Relena done 'Right'

She never gets to the point I can take her serious as a leader.. I mean Lacus's Command Outfit◊ is something straight out of Harem anime which is the problem with Lacus' design all of her looks either invoke Cute moeblob or Pop Idol

Relena's got much better outfits 'Her in the Oz looks is 10/10' Hell The Queen of the World looks is alot more dignified then anything Lacus puts on trying to show She's putting the I'm IN CHARGE NOW!

Relena atleast has those moments where she walks right up to the Jaws of Death and Dares you to shot her

Man I can't remember shit from Seed.

Like I'm pretty sure when I saw was not that long ago, maybe late middle school or early high-school so around 6-7 years ago possibly.

Still I can't remember fucking shit about what happened in either Seed or Destiny.

Edited by slimcoder on Oct 22nd 2018 at 12:51:53 PM

That's a good point, how are we meant to take Lacus as a leader seriously when she still looks and acts like some Bubblegum Princess type?

And how did Durandal expect to fool the world with Meer when she acts even less like a fuckin' leader or political somebody than Lacus did?

Thats a good question I'd Assume-

"You'd have to be pretty messed up to disagree with Lacus-sama!"

Yes I know the bit at the end didn't happen in the series proper... let me imagine it did!

Edited by FrozenWolf2 on Oct 22nd 2018 at 3:22:38 AM

When most of your leaders are insane bigots who happily burn the entire world down as long as they personally win (It's honestly kind of scary how Mitsuo Fukuda manged to predict a certain current President of the USA with Azrael and Djibril totally by accident.) or a "benevolent dictator" who plans for utopia are Genetic Determinism backed up by death lasers, then I would happily side with the pop star no matter how much experience she lacks. Lacus wants to keep people alive and not oppressed, That enough of a good reason anyone sane should follow her. Which is why I find all of the arguments that she and Kira are "self-righteous hypocrites" from the CE haters to be stupid since they are basically saying stopping humanity for destroying itself is wrong when that is what anyone here that found themselves in their situation WOULD ALSO DO.

Edited by Xeino on Oct 22nd 2018 at 2:05:57 AM

I mean, the catch is that the first half of Destiny kind of does present Kira as a self-righteous hypocrite. See also, his early interventions in the battles between ZAFT and ORB, where he was interfering with an operation against genocide-enablers and getting people killed in order to promote peace. One of the big problems with Destiny is that there's not an obvious or smooth transition between that and 'Kira is wise and sensible' in the second half.