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oh, didn't really see them mentioned but out of curiosity, where do victory and zeta fall on that scale? i've heard there's a lot of oddness regarding female characters in those two, but i've only seen bits of zeta and none of victory. personally, i like G a Lot so i'm probably biased, but yeah it falls short wrt female characters (like most gundams, afaik).  also robots with open mouths are p messed up 
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Jul 19, 2020 04:55
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Booky posted:oh, didn't really see them mentioned but out of curiosity, where do victory and zeta fall on that scale? i've heard there's a lot of oddness regarding female characters in those two, but i've only seen bits of zeta and none of victory. personally, i like G a Lot so i'm probably biased, but yeah it falls short wrt female characters (like most gundams, afaik). They're both, real bad about it
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Jul 19, 2020 05:21
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Booky posted:oh, didn't really see them mentioned but out of curiosity, where do victory and zeta fall on that scale? i've heard there's a lot of oddness regarding female characters in those two, but i've only seen bits of zeta and none of victory. personally, i like G a Lot so i'm probably biased, but yeah it falls short wrt female characters (like most gundams, afaik). It isn't possible to overstate how bad Zeta and Victory (especially Victory) are w.r.t. womens' issues.
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Jul 19, 2020 05:37
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...like the bar's on the floor and the writing tunnels to the center of the earth levels of bad? 
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Jul 19, 2020 06:13
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Booky posted:...like the bar's on the floor and the writing tunnels to the center of the earth levels of bad? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTOplYCfKTA
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Jul 19, 2020 07:01
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Droyer posted:They're both, real bad about it Zeta's quite bad, but it's a complicated bad. Whenever the show gets into a rant on Women And Men, it's deeply weird at best, and it set the Gundam precedent for absurd numbers of women dying to advance men's plotlines. It's also got a serious case of Tomino Has Issues (although the infamous love triangle story is absolute rot from beginning to end. Not a shred of truth to it.), which bleed into the show. Even so(!), Zeta had a surprising number of women in the writer's room, and several of the female characters (Including, surprisingly enough, Fa) were fleshed out as people by the end. Moreover, most of the worst rants have Fa or Emma respond with, essentially "...I do not know what the gently caress you're talking about, but it sounds stupid?" There's a lot to wince at, but it has nice moments too. I say all that partially so there's proper context for saying holy gently caress is Victory Gundam bad about this. Where Zeta Gundam is a good show with serious issues, Victory Gundam is a bundle of issues in the rough shape of a show. A huge chunk of the supporting cast is women who exist exclusively so they can die and traumatize the show's hero, the childhood friend makes Frau Bow look like Sayla Mass, there's a lot of creepy sex stuff... Victory Gundam is Gundam AGE's one real opponent for the coveted "worst about women" award for Gundam shows. It's quite a thing.
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Jul 19, 2020 07:58
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Pretty much the only thing grosser relating to women in the franchise than that scene is watching bridge bunnies get microwaved in SEED(I will still never understand how anything relating to the GENESIS got approval from Sunrise, Bandai, and whatever network aired SEED)
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Jul 19, 2020 07:58
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chiasaur11 posted:Zeta's quite bad, but it's a complicated bad. Whenever the show gets into a rant on Women And Men, it's deeply weird at best, and it set the Gundam precedent for absurd numbers of women dying to advance men's plotlines. It's also got a serious case of Tomino Has Issues (although the infamous love triangle story is absolute rot from beginning to end. Not a shred of truth to it.), which bleed into the show. Yeah, Zeta has moments of people shouting "you could never understand because she's a woman and they are literally aliens compared to men!" and women dying all over the show, but it does have strong characters that are fully fleshed out at least as much as the male cast. Beltorchika gets better when she shows up again and isn't yelling that nobody can understand Amuro like her cos he's her man and she's his woman while Amuro is telling her to knock it off cos she's known him for 20 minutes and he 100% knows that Kamille gets him. Victory meanwhile ends with a female villain surviving in part because its a worse punishment for a woman to grow old (and ugly) than to die.
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Jul 19, 2020 14:30
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Where does IBO sit on this scale?
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Jul 19, 2020 14:39
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EthanSteele posted:Yeah, Zeta has moments of people shouting "you could never understand because she's a woman and they are literally aliens compared to men!" and women dying all over the show, but it does have strong characters that are fully fleshed out at least as much as the male cast. Beltorchika gets better when she shows up again and isn't yelling that nobody can understand Amuro like her cos he's her man and she's his woman while Amuro is telling her to knock it off cos she's known him for 20 minutes and he 100% knows that Kamille gets him. Yea, while Zeta does have women shouting about the inalienable differences between genders (Reccoa especially), I think the important things to note are that others are weirded out by and/or refute them, including other women and that those things are presented as being the particular views of the character and informed by their experiences and not as the character being a mouthpiece for the show's views on women. Also, that while Tomino is the director and would have to approve the scripts, he's generally not the screenwriter of many episodes in his shows (I think G-Reco is the first one he was one of the lead writers on), and the reason for the disparity in how women are portrayed between some of his shows may be less on Tomino personally, even across different time periods, and more on the breadth of writers on the show and Tomino on top of them. That all said, I will, and in the past have, written defence of Reccoa, because I think her views while warped, are internally consistent with the character and make reasonable sense given her background and that other characters, notably Emma and Fa exist to point out her oddities, or even act as almost the exact opposite of her thematically in Emma's case. Also, and more importantly, I think Reccoa is pretty interesting, where Emma, despite being a better person with more reasonable views, is just kind of boring. Reccoa exists as a show of how war and trauma can gently caress a person up, and she even tries to warn Kamille and Fa off from becoming like her, so she has some awareness of how hosed up she is, even if it doesn't stop her.
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Jul 19, 2020 15:04
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overlordbunny posted:Where does IBO sit on this scale? IBO is better than a lot of Gundam - Kudelia is extremely important in S1 and is ultimately responsible for the protags salvaging any kind of victory out of S2, and two of the best pilots in the series, Julieta and Amida, are both ladies - but it's still got a fair amount of yikes in it, like Naze's Space Harem Boat. It also has one major instance of a woman dying violently specifically to enrage the male protagonists.
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Jul 19, 2020 15:04
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The other thing about IBO is the payoff to the (definitely a little weird) harem mafia party boat subplot is the main character dies and the two ends of his love triangle just marry each other and raise his child as their own which zigs so many ways in both directions that I think it's just orthogonal to the scale entirely.
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Jul 19, 2020 15:35
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Kanos posted:IBO is better than a lot of Gundam - Kudelia is extremely important in S1 and is ultimately responsible for the protags salvaging any kind of victory out of S2, and two of the best pilots in the series, Julieta and Amida, are both ladies - but it's still got a fair amount of yikes in it, like Naze's Space Harem Boat. It also has one major instance of a woman dying violently specifically to enrage the male protagonists. In fairness, they are the protagonists. Most of the things that happen in the story are going to be there to have an effect on them.
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Jul 19, 2020 15:42
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Caphi posted:The other thing about IBO is the payoff to the (definitely a little weird) harem mafia party boat subplot is the main character dies and the two ends of his love triangle just marry each other and raise his child as their own which zigs so many ways in both directions that I think it's just orthogonal to the scale entirely. I think they were gay, op.
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Jul 19, 2020 19:28
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overlordbunny posted:Where does IBO sit on this scale? Atra is arguably the most insanely hardcore character in the show, even over Mika.
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Jul 19, 2020 19:51
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Midjack posted:Atra is arguably the most insanely hardcore character in the show, even over Mika. She's certainly impressive. The world made McGillis a monster. It made Mikazuki broken. And it made Atra kind. I mean, she forgave the people who tortured her and went out of her way to save their lives. That's not a common ability. She also managed to survive being a Gundam pilot's love interest with a tragic backstory, which isn't the easiest thing in the world.
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Jul 19, 2020 22:00
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Kanos posted:IBO is better than a lot of Gundam - Kudelia is extremely important in S1 and is ultimately responsible for the protags salvaging any kind of victory out of S2, and two of the best pilots in the series, Julieta and Amida, are both ladies - but it's still got a fair amount of yikes in it, like Naze's Space Harem Boat. It also has one major instance of a woman dying violently specifically to enrage the male protagonists. I think Kudelia honestly is a point against IBO. She is set up to be an incredibly important character but despite that fact she is arguably the most sidelined "is a plot princess" character besides Marina in recent Gundam (and since every single recent Gundam show has a princess character that's something.) S1 Kudelia is largely fairly good as her personality and her desires drive the plot. She suffers arguably the most from the S1 to S2 transition and while her ending is arguably kind of nice it still feels like "Mika's two wives raise his child" when in a series that also gave us Naze Turbine. By the end she's gone from a central driving factor of a series to not. IBO is very much a series about Men (and boys forced to be Men) in a lot of ways and one of the end results of that is that most of the female cast is heavily defined by their male counterparts. Even Julieta is "Master Rustal" all the time though at least her plot is about making her own decisions and being her own person. (S1 Kudelia is also fairly good but then S2 Kudelia happens.) Part of this is intentional as the exploitation of women is absolutely a theme in the series, but at least some of it is just being interested in the Manfeels. In comparison like... SEED has a huge female cast with a lot of romantic entanglements but a good majority of those characters are defined by their own goals, not who they are dating.It has gross fanservice but at least part of why it did well was that it did has a cast of women who were mostly defined by their own goals and own ideas. Lacus Clyne for all her many flaws as a character is defined almost entirely by her own goals and motivations, not by her romance with Kira which is more of an afterthought. Where as male characters very often end up defined by the female character they are supporting. (In comparison Destiny is awful about this with almost all the new characters like Stellar, Lunamaria, Meyrin and Talia being defined almost entirely by their relationship to a male character and how they make that male character feel.) If I had to rank recent (recent being "post-SEED era") I'd probably go G-Reco -> SEED -> IBO -> Destiny -> 00 -------------------------------> AGE. Whatever you want to say about the other shows none of them have the sheer seething contempt and hatred for women that AGE basically radiates. ImpAtom fucked around with this message at 22:53 on Jul 19, 2020 |
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Jul 19, 2020 22:49
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Why
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Jul 20, 2020 02:10
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ImpAtom posted:I think Kudelia honestly is a point against IBO. She is set up to be an incredibly important character but despite that fact she is arguably the most sidelined "is a plot princess" character besides Marina in recent Gundam (and since every single recent Gundam show has a princess character that's something.) S1 Kudelia is largely fairly good as her personality and her desires drive the plot. She suffers arguably the most from the S1 to S2 transition and while her ending is arguably kind of nice it still feels like "Mika's two wives raise his child" when in a series that also gave us Naze Turbine. By the end she's gone from a central driving factor of a series to not. The interesting thing about season 2 Kudelia (and there's a lot interesting about season 2 Kudelia) is that she's still advancing her goals, and it's largely independent of the men in the main cast. She's negotiating trade deals, running a NGO, starting a school, keeping in touch with VIPs on multiple planets, and generally doing what she'd been meaning to do all along quite successfully. She's just increasingly distant from Tekkadan, despite them being the only family she has left after cutting ties with her parents, and Tekkadan's who we're following. Unlike Marina, Kudelia's doing her thing well, but her thing is boring TV. And that kind of ties into the ending, where, yes, she and Atra are raising Atra and Mika's son and that's an important beat, but she's also President of Mars, and she's shown completing one of her goals with the Human Debris treaty. Her arc reached a conclusion through her actions. (Although, yes. Mari Okada was interested in manfeels. It's what drew her to writing for IBO in the first place.)
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Jul 20, 2020 05:38
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chiasaur11 posted:The interesting thing about season 2 Kudelia (and there's a lot interesting about season 2 Kudelia) is that she's still advancing her goals, and it's largely independent of the men in the main cast. She's negotiating trade deals, running a NGO, starting a school, keeping in touch with VIPs on multiple planets, and generally doing what she'd been meaning to do all along quite successfully. Ironically I think Kudelia might be the single most powerful and accomplished woman in Gundam. She has stiff competition from Haman and Martha Vist, but every other woman leader I can think of had a steep decline (Haman gets banished to the shadow realm, Martha gets gulaged, Releena goes from not-quite-puppet queen to cabinet minister). Ok, I guess I forgot about Lacus, but I try not to think about Lacus that much. But I think Kudelia might still beat her on scale (planet-wide power base vs. Side-cluster size power base). And for all of S2, her priority is shown to be her job and political goals. She doesn't let herself become callous for it, but she also doesn't forget that her goals are bigger than Mikazuki or Tekkadan. Contrast that to Orga, who despite aspiring to "King of Mars" never looks at what that means beyond Tekkadan. (Which I think is largely why he ends up going down with McGillis, rather than seeing the trap and getting out when he still had that option available. Biscuit was right.)
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Jul 20, 2020 15:20
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Warmachine posted:Ironically I think Kudelia might be the single most powerful and accomplished woman in Gundam. She has stiff competition from Haman and Martha Vist, but every other woman leader I can think of had a steep decline (Haman gets banished to the shadow realm, Martha gets gulaged, Releena goes from not-quite-puppet queen to cabinet minister). Ok, I guess I forgot about Lacus, but I try not to think about Lacus that much. Dianna/Kihel from Turn A probably give her a run for her money too, since they're in charge of a Moon civilization, and while Dianna's main arc during the show is about finding happiness and a life outside of ruling, Kihel's is basically the opposite and she takes up power throughout the show. Starting by taking Dianna's position, and then having to quickly learn the ropes while pretending to be someone she's not from a society far beyond her own, with technology she's never interacted with before all around her. Which also matches Kihel's stated ambition in the first episodes, where she argues with her father about wanting to go to college and work in the government but he thinks it's unfitting of a lady or something. She ends the show the Queen of the Moon, which is about as good as government work is going to get, really. The Moon isn't as big as Mars, but then, we're never told how densely populated or terraformed either stellar body is, so it's hard to know which would be bigger in terms of population or actually used space. Queen Maria in Victory is quite powerful too, at least on paper. All of her accomplishment takes place in the backstory of Victory though, where she goes from a good healer, to leader of a faction taking over a lot of the Earthsphere, including all the Sides if I recall. She's also a figurehead for Kagatie in reality, even if she wasn't entirely aware of it until it was too late. I think Kati Mannequin could be a good contender too though, even if she's not a politically powerful figure, since she's one of the major military figures of the entire Earthsphere by movie's end. She may even have some control over aliens after the movie's events. Edit: In terms of accomplishment, I think you could consider Selene McGriff from Stargazer too, since she developed and tested a solar sail that could allow for interstellar flight. Which is a pretty big accomplishment. Warmachine posted:Haman gets banished to the shadow realm Is this a euphemism for ZZ? tsob fucked around with this message at 15:51 on Jul 20, 2020 |
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Jul 20, 2020 15:41
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Warmachine posted:Ironically I think Kudelia might be the single most powerful and accomplished woman in Gundam. She has stiff competition from Haman and Martha Vist, but every other woman leader I can think of had a steep decline (Haman gets banished to the shadow realm, Martha gets gulaged, Releena goes from not-quite-puppet queen to cabinet minister). Eh, I think this glosses over the ways in which she ends up as a puppet for powerful men, like when she tries to help Tekkadan and Nobliss yanks her funding, and when Rustal makes it clear that everything she's doing after the end of the war (including harbouring survivors) is with his permission. Julietta and Azee seem like better examples of women who came out on top at the end of the series - they're beneficiaries of male patronage, but they gained that patronage through clawing their way out of the gutter with raw talent and determination, and have become (or are soon destined to become) independent power-players in their own right. Like, when Rustal retires, Julietta is going to the most powerful woman in the solar system, and it won't be close.
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Jul 20, 2020 16:09
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Darth Walrus posted:Eh, I think this glosses over the ways in which she ends up as a puppet for powerful men, like when she tries to help Tekkadan and Nobliss yanks her funding, and when Rustal makes it clear that everything she's doing after the end of the war (including harbouring survivors) is with his permission. Not sure how Kudelia wouldn't find herself in the same class as Julietta and Azee. Nobliss is a pretty clear example of male chauvenism, but he and Rustal are both symbols of the difficulty of working within that established power structure. Rustal is perhaps the best example of how to gain concessions from a power structure like that--it is far easier for him to throw some concessions to Kudelia and maintain real power than have to fight a civil war and the attendant PR issue to get out of making concessions. All three are noteworthy in their spheres. Kudelia may not be able to punch out the Arianhrod but she does still maintain sovereign political power in her sphere. Real life nation-states behave this way too. tsob posted:Is this a euphemism for ZZ? Specifically when a Newtype uses magic to wreck your poo poo. See also: Paptimus, Full Frontal, and the defective emo clone of Full Frontal who's name I can't rem---Zoltan. Right, him. Though if you really despise ZZ you could think of it that way too.
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Jul 20, 2020 16:56
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Warmachine posted:Specifically when a Newtype uses magic to wreck your poo poo. See also: Paptimus, Full Frontal, and the defective emo clone of Full Frontal who's name I can't rem---Zoltan. Right, him. Does it count if she wrecked her own poo poo? She used her Newtype power to self detonate after Judau had chopped her mobile suit in half with a powerful, but still normal, beam saber.
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Jul 20, 2020 17:38
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tsob posted:Does it count if she wrecked her own poo poo? She used her Newtype power to self detonate after Judau had chopped her mobile suit in half with a powerful, but still normal, beam saber. I think so personally. Technically Full Frontal decided to peace out after Banagher said "Even so!" too many times. I don't think anything was actually stopping him from continuing on other than deciding he was done with the whole thing. It's not like the Neo Zeong/Sinanju were in bad shape.
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Jul 20, 2020 17:49
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Warmachine posted:Not sure how Kudelia wouldn't find herself in the same class as Julietta and Azee. Nobliss is a pretty clear example of male chauvenism, but he and Rustal are both symbols of the difficulty of working within that established power structure. Rustal is perhaps the best example of how to gain concessions from a power structure like that--it is far easier for him to throw some concessions to Kudelia and maintain real power than have to fight a civil war and the attendant PR issue to get out of making concessions. The big difference is that Kudelia is using someone else's power, which can be taken away from her at a moment's notice. Her funding and the enforcement of her policies are entirely up to Rustal. Taking the Turbines away from Azee or Gjallarhorn away from Julietta (again, after Rustal's retirement) would be considerably more challenging.
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Jul 20, 2020 17:51
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Darth Walrus posted:The big difference is that Kudelia is using someone else's power, which can be taken away from her at a moment's notice. Her funding and the enforcement of her policies are entirely up to Rustal. Taking the Turbines away from Azee or Gjallarhorn away from Julietta (again, after Rustal's retirement) would be considerably more challenging. No, Rustal has to play ball with Kudelia because otherwise Tekkadan will almost certainly cause problems again as they're still in her pocket as private security and they know how to hold a grudge a long time. He also actually wants things going well with Mars, if only because things sure didn't work before and it's far better having them happy and productive than rioting out from underfoot again and not mining ANY half-metal at all.
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Jul 20, 2020 18:43
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MonsieurChoc posted:This would put Gundam X straight in the middle. Ah yes, the Gundam X Divider.
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Jul 20, 2020 19:07
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Neddy Seagoon posted:No, Rustal has to play ball with Kudelia because otherwise Tekkadan will almost certainly cause problems again as they're still in her pocket as private security and they know how to hold a grudge a long time. He also actually wants things going well with Mars, if only because things sure didn't work before and it's far better having them happy and productive than rioting out from underfoot again and not mining ANY half-metal at all. It’s an interesting take on the legacy of colonialism.
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Jul 20, 2020 19:25
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Neddy Seagoon posted:No, Rustal has to play ball with Kudelia because otherwise Tekkadan will almost certainly cause problems again as they're still in her pocket as private security and they know how to hold a grudge a long time. He also actually wants things going well with Mars, if only because things sure didn't work before and it's far better having them happy and productive than rioting out from underfoot again and not mining ANY half-metal at all. Tekkadan is shattered - no mobile suits, no leadership, just a few men and boys with enough combat training to run VIP security, and half of those have gone to civilian work. Rustal spared them because they're no longer a threat (remember how he refused to accept Orga's surrender until they were destroyed as a fighting force?) and we already know that if Kudelia wants to make them something more than that, he can simply yank her funding. She's not a threat, she's a useful vessel for his policies.
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Jul 20, 2020 19:30
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Ibo's one of the most overtly pro-incrementalism works I've seen in gundam that actually does the work to show why incrementalism is the way to go. like, a ton of gundam seems to reject huge changes to the status quo- amuro argues for incrementalism in CCA, In seed, all three powers and political structures remain intact, just from what we can tell in Destiny it's kira and friend running the show. Domon keeps the gundam fight going, but maybe there's going to be some changes to the process. The problem for a lot of these shows is that they can be fatalistic, in that the same wars keep happening again. Maybe the only exception to his is 00, but in that case, the entire world basically became the start trek federation, but this wasn't really due to any direct actions by Celestial Being. They didn't take the reigns of power, but were largely a force to fight against in s1 and got rid of the Ribbons in s2 and more or less hosed off. Like, Kudelia, for all her faults, is the only character I can think of who starts essentially a political action group to advoate for real laws and policies changes that would address the concerns of the populace. She's also hugely successful at this and makes real substantial changes to their living standards. The ones with the grand ideas, like mcgillis and tekkaden are expressly punished. They die largely achieving nothing. Monaghan fucked around with this message at 19:44 on Jul 20, 2020 |
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Jul 20, 2020 19:42
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Solkanar512 posted:It’s an interesting take on the legacy of colonialism. I mean, that's what a declining empire looks like. States on the periphery start gaining more power and autonomy, and the imperial core starts making concessions to save face/power until it can't concede any more. This is Darth Walrus posted:Tekkadan is shattered - no mobile suits, no leadership, just a few men and boys with enough combat training to run VIP security, and half of those have gone to civilian work. Rustal spared them because they're no longer a threat (remember how he refused to accept Orga's surrender until they were destroyed as a fighting force?) and we already know that if Kudelia wants to make them something more than that, he can simply yank her funding. She's not a threat, she's a useful vessel for his policies. Yank what funding? This isn't Nobliss sponsoring Kudelia anymore (he's dead anyway, thanks Ride), it's two sovereign states. Mars has its own economy, its own agriculture and heavy industry. Again, she can't punch out the Gjallarhorn forces in a fight, but Mars doesn't have to. That's like saying Cuba or Brazil or I don't know, Egypt is a puppet that only operates at the will of the United States. She doesn't have to be a threat to have accomplished something, and gained power. To use someone I said achieved less, Releena established a one-world government that would go on to become the Earth Sphere Unified Nation while acting as a puppet for the military industrial complex. She outmaneuvered Dermail and the Romefellar conservatives by using her charisma and tugging at the right ears. Dermail could have just had her assassinated, but that would have caused more problems than it solved. Kudelia has the same power. And make no mistake, that is power. Warmachine fucked around with this message at 20:00 on Jul 20, 2020 |
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Jul 20, 2020 19:48
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Monaghan posted:Domon keeps the gundam fight going, but maybe there's going to be some changes to the process. When was Domon in a position he could have changed that, even if he'd wanted to?
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Jul 20, 2020 19:55
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tsob posted:When was Domon in a position he could have changed that, even if he'd wanted to? I didn't mean to say it's all on Domon, but more of an illustration on how gundam characters very rarely fight to overturn unjust systems and how a return to what the status quo arrangement was before the conflict is often the norm in gundam.
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Jul 20, 2020 19:59
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Monaghan posted:Ibo's one of the most overtly pro-incrementalism works I've seen in gundam that actually does the work to show why incrementalism is the way to go. I'm not sure that is what it says. What it says is that revolutionaries will not reap the fruits of their revolution. There's a reasonable argument that McGillis's war shocked and destabilised the world enough to mandate sweeping change, but he personally ended up dead and villainised while the powers that be found an inoffensive pretty face from a respectable background to hail as the real hero. The world didn't change because of Kudelia's efforts, but because enough of the rulers of the solar system were dead and disgraced that she was seen as a solution to their crisis of legitimacy, and because there was no way they could afford to let the anyone believe that a weird fascist manchild radicalised by an elite paedophile ring and his army of subhuman child soldiers had managed to shake the pillars of the Earth. IBO isn't pro-incrementalism, it's just very open and blunt about who puts in the work, who profits, and who is written as a hero and a villain at the end. It tells you what the cost of change is, what the established hegemony will permit, and how social outcomes will differ from personal outcomes. For every 'civil rights hero' feted by society, there are dozens who have their lives ruined or abruptly ended in their fight to change the intolerable. IBO lays that out, and leaves it up to you if the trade is worth it. Darth Walrus fucked around with this message at 20:18 on Jul 20, 2020 |
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Jul 20, 2020 20:09
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Warmachine posted:Yank what funding? This isn't Nobliss sponsoring Kudelia anymore (he's dead anyway, thanks Ride), it's two sovereign states. Mars has its own economy, its own agriculture and heavy industry. Again, she can't punch out the Gjallarhorn forces in a fight, but Mars doesn't have to. That's like saying Cuba or Brazil or I don't know, Egypt is a puppet that only operates at the will of the United States. Kudelia's also got the Vetinari system working for her. All the alternatives look worse. Kudelia might push for some policies you dislike. But she won't kick off a war for her own ego, she won't ignore good offers just because of bad blood, and a lot of major power players have existing deals with her. The popular head of Arbrau owed her bigtime (and one of his highest ranked assistants is the last officially recognized living member of Tekkadan), she's sworn a blood oath with Teiwaz, she knows where the bodies are buried on Mars... If you want Kudelia's defining moment, it's in season 1. She just found out that her best and only friend since childhood was plotting against her the whole time at about the same time as that friend gave her life to save Kudelia from one of Nobliss Gordon's assassins. The standard move here is vengeance. But it's not Kudelia's play. Kudelia's play is to call up Nobliss and tell him that she knows everything, and that they can do business. She wants to improve things, and getting her pound of flesh isn't important on that scale. In IBO's traditional Gundam kids V. adults setup, she and Rustal are adults (corrupt, embedded in the system, not part of direct combat) opposed to McGillis and Iok's arrested development (certain of their goals, driven to fight at the front, idealistic). And in Iron Blooded Orphans, it's not necessarily such a bad thing when adults win. Of course, comparing Kudelia to her competition in Gundam's most powerful woman listings, she's arguably the most self-made. Lacus is the daughter of Siegel Clyne, the martyred former leader of the Plants, Diana was queen by birth, Haman was forced into leadership with the death of her father, Kihel got appointed by a Prince and Pauper swap, and Martha's heir to the Vist family and married into Anaheim electronics. Meanwhile, Kudelia's dad is a puppet governor who sells her out at the first signs of pressure. She comes from money, yes, but it's standard upper class money. She made her (initial) reputation from her Naochis July Assembly speech, which made her appealing as a potential martyr for the real power players. She negotiates funding for her NGO herself in season 2, she signed oaths with Teiwaz, and generally (with more than a little luck) she managed to go from being less powerful than even a low level Gjallarhorn family heir to running a planet. (Also, Kudelia's a college graduate at 16, which isn't impossible, but it's pretty crazy. Even by Gundam standards.)
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Jul 20, 2020 22:01
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I would have still preferred if what Kudelia got from Mika's first encounter is that she needed to get bulked the gently caress up and get inside a robot
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Jul 20, 2020 22:13
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Cao Ni Ma posted:I would have still preferred if what Kudelia got from Mika's first encounter is that she needed to get bulked the gently caress up and get inside a robot Wasn't she actually contemplating exactly that very early on before someone else pointed out how stupid that would be, especially considering how dangerous the operation to get whiskers in the first place is
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Jul 20, 2020 22:49
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She should have gone through it
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Jul 20, 2020 22:52
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Cao Ni Ma posted:She should have gone through it Actually the correct answer is no one should have gone through it
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Jul 20, 2020 23:01
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