Mafia By J.Juan

Mafia by J.Juan

Joe Jusko

Just realised that part of the appeal of units using the Rodi frame in Iron Blooded Orphans (besides them looking like little potatoes/dumplings/buns with guns) is that their design resembles the old prototype Zaku unit built by the Principality of Zeon

(I’m specifically referring to the Man Rodi, Landman Rodi, Monkey Rodi and my personal favourite, the Labrys)

With them appearing as exaggerated versions of the following:

The Zaku prototype units (in some sources called “crabman”)

Which were then replaced with the Mobile Worker and subsequently the Waff in Gundam: The Origin.

It’s just neat spotting common design themes with the Zaku-esque suits.

Space Hulk (1st Ed) Box Art by Gerry Grace

Ah! I meant to make a follow up to this, didn’t I?

Well then, a large part of the factor of why I love this as an element so much is that it ties in significantly with Mcgillis, whom I really, really like.

Mcgillis is essentially shaped by the mythology of the world, specifically he’s based a lot of who he is on the legend of Agnika Kaieru. Which makes a lot of sense, honestly. He’s a child in this bad situation, so he reads an old book of legends and is enraptured by what he sees. The old, uncorrupt gjallarhorn. A time of legend, where mystical heroes piloting the legendary Gundam frames fought for the very preservation of humanity. Pretty much every action he takes after him and Gaelio first fight Tekkadan are to create this new, better world.

And he really believes it.

He believes he can do it, he believes that with the backing of Tekkadan, these heroes who pilot the legendary Gundam frames, used by his idol, the man he strives to be like, he can reform gjallarhorn to what it should be.

And honestly, he has a lot of successes. Conditions generally improve with Kudelia’s speech in parliament, the deaths of two of the Seven Stars weaken Gjallarhorn’s position and leaves him a lot of influence, and (as shown in IBO Gekko) at least some of the corruption in Gjallarhorn is exposed and shut down (like Coral).

But he makes sacrifices, like Gaelio and Carta. There’s a lot of interpretations of his relationship with them - was it all a fraud, did he ever value them etc. but the interpretation I tend to go with is that he does value them (as he says in his conversation with Gaelio when he fights him at Edmonton). He fully expects Gaelio to die and he seems like he wants to send him out well. I believe he generally did value them, but he realised that the best way for his plan to work is to have them both die (especially since Carta is essentially under the thumb of his Iznario, who Mcgillis definitely wants out of the way). He’s just gotten swept up in his plan actually working that he’s willing to pay any price.

It’s actually a really good parallel with Mikazuki. Mikazuki makes a deal with Barbatos, trading his bodily functions for the power to protect his friends.

Mcgillis makes a deal with Bael, trading his friends for the power to change things with Bael.

(Heck, there’s even a body autonomy argument there, since both of them are defined by not having control over their own bodies, Mikazuki with the Alaya-Vijnana system needing to be implanted to give him the power of piloting without training and Mcgillis with his body being traded to Iznario, granting him knowledge of Gjallarhorn and Agnika Kaieru. This is reinforced by Mcgillis choosing to re-create the original Alaya-Vijnana system and implant in his body in order to pilot Bael, and Mikazuki choosing to have a child with Atra).

I also think that Mcgillis’ relationship with Almiria is a really good facet of his character, but I’ll cover that in a separate post, since this one’s getting a little long.

In essence, Mcgillis gets swept up in this grand mythology, of which Bael is the lynchpin.

Just look at him when he rallies the fleet in Bael, it looks like it’s out of a painting, or a propaganda piece (honestly a lot of that scene has those vibes). It’s generally unclear as to whether he’s actively cultivating this image specifically to rally his forces, or whether he’s just so deep into being the resurrection of Agnika Kaieru that he just doesn’t notice. He says it himself “this is as it should be”. This. In this moment, he’s living up to the ideal he wants. He is Agnika Kaieru reborn, the man who will reform the corrupt gjallarhorn and lead it into a new, better age.

Then Rustal fires the second volley.

It’s just wonderful to watch, as Mcgillis is swept up in this grand mythology, converting the Gjallarhorn revolutionary fleet to his cause and promising to make Orga the King of Mars. And Rustal just does not care one bit.

I do really like the whole mythic aspect that Iron-Blooded Orphans brought to the table. Not just in regards to the Gundams or mobile suits specifically (though those are wonderful), but just the world in general.

Tekkadan being enshrined as “The Devils of Mars”, and Gjallarhorn’s naming convention having so much influence from Nordic legends and mythology. It really sells the world as not only believable, but where these things have power.

Where a legend can make or break something.

And the mobile suits exemplify this.

I really like the Gundams being these forgotten, almost revered machines. The legendary warriors that ended a war over three centuries ago. The relics of a bygone age, taken up by modern peoples for their own, comparatively petty, causes. That mystic aspect works really well, since it is a setting built on myth, with Kudelia’s Maiden of Revolution and Julieta’s knight imagery.

Gjallarhorn as a whole has a lot of knightly imagery in its mobile suits and it’s aesthetics. Gjallarhorn is the organisation that saved the world from the calamity war after all, so they project that image with their dress and mobile suits. Even Lieutenant Crank and Ein are emblematic of a knight and squire, with Gaelio and Ein only furthering the comparison

Ein’s is a squire, who’s knight is slain by bandits. In desperation he pledges himself to another knight in hopes of avenging his lord, eventually giving up his life to protect his new knight, who gave him that chance. He rises again as a black-armoured murderer, who is lost to his vengeance, focusing only on that single goal, being slain by the very bandits he sought to avenge himself on. Years later, his “memory” is carried by the knight he saved, which is used to give him a chance against his foe.

It sounds like a classical story, and that’s just Ein. It only touches on Gaelio, but he undergoes his own arc, intertwined with Ein. There’s a bunch of imagery like that, particularly with Gjallarhorn. One example would be railguns.

They’re fairly common weaponry, but they’re wielded so much like lances. Iok seeks to use one to slay Hashmal, so even though they’re ranged weapons in a world defined by CQC, they don’t seem out of place, because they still seem like a comparatively simple weapon. Dainsleif’s looking like bows and being employed en mass a la archers would be another example. It even adds to the knightly theme, since one of the main downfalls of knights was the invention of the longbow, a bow capable of piercing armour.

So you have this setting built on all this, where even Tekkadan, who don’t even pay lip service to the idea are part of this grander mythology.

And then Rustal shows up and completely upends it.

It just all works really well.

Just for fun, let’s think up a list of reasons as to why Mcgillis chose not to use the Fareed Family Gundam.

It was destroyed/lost in the calamity war.

It reminds him of Iznario, and he wants to reject that connection.

It’s got a very specific way of fighting (like Flauros) and he wants something with a more generalist bent.

He feels a greater kinship with Agnika Kaieru than he does the Fareed family founder.

It was the 72nd Gundam frame built, and was completed postwar, thus running counter to Mcgillis’ ambitions to be like his idol.

It’s been chained up in a similar manner to how Bael eventually will be.

It was scrapped to repair another Gundam frame.

It’s biometrically locker to a blood member of the Fareed family for some reason.

The previous pilot was an amputee, and didn’t so much pilot the Gundam in so much as they were “plugged in”. (Think Gundam Thunderbolt).

Iznario (or a prior member of the Fareed Family) sold it, or parts of it, for bread money (as the Warrens did).

It was stolen by Gundam thieves.

It requires three pilots.

The colours clash horribly with his hair.

Despite their great combat skill, the Fareed family founder was just kind of a prick, and nobody looks on their history with much fondness.

The Fareed family founder was very small by modern standards, and the cockpit’s uncomfortable to sit in for any length of time.

The hands were damaged, and are now in the permanent pose of throwing up gang signs.

Bael’s just, like, so much cooler.

It’s really, really uncomfortable to look at for a significant period of time.

Any time it’s activated, the Fareed family founder’s custom mixtape of post-calamity rap starts playing and nobody knows how to turn it off.

It’s haunted.

Iznario lost it in a poorly conceived bet.

It’s likeness was bought out by a prominent snack food corporation some years back, and as such it legally is not allowed to be viewed by anyone.

The door to it in Vingolf is stuck, and nobody ever noticed until Mcgillis came along.

Somebody spilled drink on the controls, and now they feel weirdly sticky.

The cockpit’s stuffed with body pillows, and nobody can bring themself to clean them out.

It’s lying at the bottom of the ocean after someone took it for a joyride.

It’s got an absolutely awful paint job that Norba Shino would be proud of.

It’s uninsured.

It was mounted on the prow of the Fareed family ship, and it’s exceedingly difficult to remove.

It’s stored in multiple separate locations. All Vingolf has is a pair of legs and the right hand.

It’s currently being used as a soundstage for a prominent punk-rock band on Jupiter, and no-one’s sure when the lease ends.

It has the words “free ice-cream” prominently painted on it somewhere.

It achieved sentience and promptly grabbed some popcorn.

The Fareed family never had a Gundam, and just killed that many mobile armours with conventional tactics.

It’s covered in rust.

It doesn’t have nanolaminate armour for some reason.

It’s being used as a power source for Gjallarhorn’s premier health spa and resort.

The Fareed family threw it into the sun when the war ended, believing they wouldn’t need it anymore.

It’s been repaired really badly, and the duct tape and welding really doesn’t inspire confidence.

It’s off starring in its own, less successful show.

It’s got a hit play on broadway.

It runs off a subscription service, and nobody’s been paying it for the last 300 years.

Mcgillis has really poor gatcha rolls, so he just got 26 common rarity grazes instead.

It’s really a Leo somebody scotch-taped a v-fin to.

The entire Gundam is made of cardboard.

Mcgillis forgot the password to get into the hangar, and he can’t ask Iznario.

Somebody doodled angry eyes and a handlebar moustache on it, and nobody can look at it without cracking up.

It was taken apart, then reassembled incorrectly. (It’s got a leg sticking out of where it’s head should be, and nobody’s sure where the sword ended up)

He can’t activate it without deleting the entire Fareed family’s Doom highscores.

It’s currently being used to hold a massive tv that the rest of Gjallarhorn use to watch the hockey.

It is currently on fire.

When he went to pick it up, two of the engineers were using it to hold a romantic candlelit dinner and he felt awkward interrupting so he hasn’t been back since.

A head of the Fareed family used it as the site of a drunken party and when everyone came round from their hangover it was just gone, and nobody could remember what happened to it.

It looks exactly like the Gundam Dantalion, and records have been lost as to why this is the case.

It’s currently being used as a scarecrow.

Feel free to add any more in the comments!