And Now, Episode 21 (just Some Quick Notes For Now)

And now, Episode 21 (just some quick notes for now)

*spoilers follow for Gundam witch from mercury episode 21*

I really like the Calgores fielded by the Space Assembly League, those are lovely. Like someone blended a Heingra and a Jegan together, with just a pinch of the Geara Doga.

Alright, alright Petra’s alive. Fine I guess. Hope she manages to speak to Lauda. I like that Felsi’s getting more focus.

Are we getting 30 episodes, 50 episodes or something different here? Because I’m kinda grappling with the understanding that Shaddiq was essentially the Starter Villain, and that really doesn’t sit right. It is however, really nice just to see him and Miorine talking, even if Miorine is still coming to terms with quinharbour (I guess?). I am really looking forward to her and Suletta reuniting though. (But really, if Shaddiq’s the starter villain, and we get 50 eps, does that mean that Peil’s gonna be the big bad simply by virtue of having moved last? Like we know they’ve got shady stuff going on, but other than the two Elan’s, we’ve received very little to go off).

Alright then, since this is the last chance I’ll have to talk about it on its own, let’s have a look at episode 20, shall we?

I’m just rewatching it before the new Ep., since I had a lot I wanted to talk about, but couldn’t really focus.

*the following contains spoilers for Gundam: Witch From Mercury episode 20 (and 19)*

*Talk about imagery of Prospera destroying multiple other Lfrith frames and how that corresponds with suletta and Eri.* -(awk. Seems I left some notes here)

First off, I’m gonna nip back to episode 19, where Prospera destroys the Lfrith Prototypes (mass production lfrith’s?). I find this interesting for two reasons; One, the consequences of Prospera starting a firefight to cover this are kinda massive (ie episode 20), especially since it throws GUND-arm inc to the wolves, screwing over her daughter’s friends for her own gain. Second, these are machines that Prospera has worked on. These are the machines she built with Dr. Cardo Nabo. Her destroying them is her violently destroying aspects of her past. Furthermore, it parallels with Eri and Suletta. Assuming that the Multiple Eri’s Suletta saw are just representative, it shows Prospera destroying her older children in favour of Aerial, because she doesn’t need them. She doesn’t need the Lfrith’s like she doesn’t need suletta, and it cements her as a Char to me. She doesn’t actively wish harm or dislike suletta, she just finds something else more important, and thus abandons her. It’s a very charlike thing to do, at least to me.

But the first point is also very notable, because basically all of Norea’s actions in Ep 20 are down to Prospera. Due to Prospera causing the fight on Earth, not only is Shaddiq forced to move, but Norea loses it and goes on a full-on rampage in the school. Norea meets a violent end in response to Prospera’s direct actions, and her attacking the school could very easily have led to Suletta being killed, heck, if she’d been standing slightly to the right, she would’ve. Prospera told Suletta to go back to the school and live out her dreams, in a *safe* environment, but because of Prospera, the school is no longer safe. It’ll be very interesting to see Prospera’s reaction when she finds out about this, though of course she won’t realise the connection. I expect she either won’t even blink, or when she finds out Suletta survived she’ll rationalise it easily.

Elan 5 being a coward was not something I expected to be this relevant. Huh. Kinda a parallel with Guel. They both lose someone in combat that they care deeply about, and then (presumably) go and become a better person after the fact. It’s also interesting that this is essentially the first time we’ve seen any development with Elan 5, where he’s actually cared about something and not just been evasive.

Guel and Shaddiq’s big showdown, while great, I don’t really have a whole lot to say about, other than notice the ms differences and wonder how that’s gonna show on the model kits.

Lauda had a really bad time in this ep, which is…. Something? On one hand, that sucks for him, but I fully expect him to either die or get character development, so………yay?

Other general points:

It’s nice to see the Beguir-Pente’s seeing more use.

Weird thing to notice, but the Asticassia school bell sounds super nice. Just a lovely noise.

Anyone else think that that fight between Guel and Shaddiq ended similarly to Gundam Thunderbolt (December Sky)? Maybe I’m reading too much into the mutual kill.

Is it me, or does the Michaelis have a subtly different head design? Maybe it’s just the shot.

I’m honestly kinda annoyed we got so many great shots of the Lfrith Thorn this episode, since it got wrecked. Though both it and the gunvolva’s were very evocative at the end, intercut with the devastation of the school.

Not to sound like one of those asshole fans who are all like “oh, the REAL Gundam starts here”, but I do expect Asticassia’s destruction to shake up things quite a bit, and with Shaddiq pushing for the Space Assembly League AND Belmiria about to blow the whole Quiet Zero thing wide open I’m curious as to if things are gonna end up in a full-scale brawl.

Shaddiq also states “we’ll use the witch for as long as we can”. I’m assuming he’s talking about Norea here. Kinda hypocritical of him, and it shows that he’s fundamentally no different than those others who would exploit Norea.

Shaddiq says “weren’t you told to secure your target before you’re suspected”? So, does he have a mole in cathdra? Or is he just good a predicting?

Lastly, Petra. I’ve seen a lot of people drawing her with GUND Prosthetics or expecting her to have survived, but honestly? I think she’s dead. Her running and saying what she wanted to do makes it seem like she’s going to actually die here.

Finding hilarious that Judau appears in the battlefield shouting "i'm skipping class".

No thoughts,only bride.

Alright, it’s probably too early for me to be doing this sort of analysis (I normally like to wait until things are a little more concluded) but

I wonder if the grudge between Renee Costa and Lillique Kadoka Lipati being comparatively petty (Lillique refused an invitation from a boy, Renee viewed this as a insult to him, and by extension her, since he was “number 12 on her list of back-up boyfriends”) is supposed to illustrate that the students settling these thing via near-lethal duels is a bad idea?

(Even weakened beams can still easily kill, as shown by Suletta’s fight against Elan 4)

Furthermore, it enforces the idea that power (in this case Mobile suits) is the deciding factor. Any student on the MS course will have an advantage, regardless of the effectiveness of their support team, since the pilot’s skill matters most. It’s entirely possible for one strong pilot to dominate the house, any duels being passed back to them to resolve, as seen with Guel and Suletta (With their losses greatly impacting the house). It also weakens them against the kind of soft power that Shaddiq and Miorine employ.

I do find it interesting how it’s only Grassley that goes all in on Duelling, with 6 suits compared to Jeturk’s 4 and Peil’s 2 (though that’s mostly suppositions both, since they could have had more off-screen, and that Shaddiq was likely stockpiling materials for his move.).

If nothing else, Renee and Lillique’s duel provides a good contrast to the corporate machinations of Peil and Prospera.

Hm weird thought.

So Al Da Flaga in Gundam SEED.

(Right is the best picture we have of him, but left is more representative in my opinion)

He commissions multiple clones of himself from Dr Hibiki in order to inherit his wealth and power, and the way Rau puts it, in order to achieve a form of immortality.

Thing is, how many clones does he commission?

Because we know that Rau le Creuset(Top Right) is his clone, who eventually ended up killing him and from who we know most of our information about him (Rau is in the middle of his Big Villain Speech when he says most of this, but he’s essentially recounting his origin so I trust what he says here). Rey Za Burrel (bottom left) is also a clone and was made later, most likely as a replacement for Rau once Al found out he was a flawed clone. Thing is, Al was dead before he had much of a chance to impact Rey’s development (Mu doesn’t remember Rau, so Rau must have murdered Al and burnt down the estate when they were both quite young), so it’s implied that Rau and Durandal were the primary influences on Rey’s life, as shown in this image:

Mu La Flaga (top left) is, by all accounts, Al’s biological son, who he hated because he believed that Mu’s mother had tainted him in some way (though I’ll be honest, I’ve accidentally read Mu as the successful clone multiple times prior).

And then, finally, there’s Prayer (bottom right), who’s a “clone of an EA pilot with excellent spatial awareness”. Which sounds to me like the EA found a Al clone and accidentally read it as a clone of his son Mu (which would imply that disinheriting Mu was pointless, since he’s already a really close genetic match). I mean, that makes more sense to me than the EA commissioning a one-off clone, something they despise on the same level of coordinators, just to reproduce a single good pilot. However, I can’t find anything that explicitly states this, so it’s just weird.

But apparently Rey was just one of multiple clones? So prayer could have been part of the same “Batch”? And/or there could be a bunch more Al Da Flaga clones running around, this turning them into an expy of Puru?