Schwarzesmarken - Episode 5 Discussion / Poll
 

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I didn't like what the West were doing at first BUT it looks like they worked out after all.

Theodor's determination was a sight to see, he almost died though if it wasn't for the East helping them. So I guess in the end, they were able to put their differences aside this time and fight against the BETA. Is it just me or does Lise seem kinda odd during that fight? (minus the part where she tried to help her brother).

Oh and of course Beatrix had to shoot someone again...every time I see her with a captive, I get the feeling of that.

Which part did you not like, specifically? To quote, 'war is a damn numbers game', and when the enemy can replace losses so much more easily, minimizing the number of your people who die isn't just morally preferable, it's a strategic necessity.

What I don't like is why Lord Castellan Creed decided to throw in with the BETA. His Tactical Genius is the only way you could get a Fort-class into CQC without being noticed.

Who was the executed women after the credits?

That was Marai Heisenberg. She was Major Hannibal's (bearded dude who died at the end of episode 02) commissar and lover, along with being one of Gretel's friends from the Academy.

Honestly, I don't know why they put Beatrix and Schmidt in that scene. Neither of them were involved with Marai's "interrogation" or death.

It's pointless deaths like these and the politicking displayed by their governments that make me think maybe Muv Luv humanity isn't worth saving.

It's true that not all of them are like that, hell we even saw that in the men and women at the frontlines. But their not the government, they don't have any power to make the long term choices.

Actually, Muv Luv humanity won't be saved because of those things. It's the Muv Logic as much as anything else that 's hurting the war effort.

Invasion of Japan:

Athabasca:

Operation Lucifer:

A-10 Warthog:

While I agree in what you say, I will say that not everything was ethically or tactically correct.

While it was necessary to nuke out Athabasca Hive, the US should have waited and helped more in the evacuation plans before overnuking the BETA and THE CANADIANS without asking permission.

I will admit that they did better in Operation Lucifer when they did the same but gave a 4 minute warning. Japan was angry that they used experimental weapons in their soil, and their best engineer/designer was killed in that operation (Takamura).

I'm not gonna say I can't accept the fact that US/EU techs and equipment are always superior and better than Soviet(now Russian) and Combloc which are always inferior no matter how hard they try to come out with their own "advanced" techs, but rather I already learned how to appreciated the positive sides of the ex-Combloc techs that has been imprinted in my mind for years. Inferior or not, everything are good on its own depending on how people view them and comprehend in words.

Call it a messed-up sentiment if you want, but this is a way of life. Maybe it's just me likes to be an underdog.

That's wonderfully idealistic, but far too dangerous. If there were any laser-class in the second lander, giving them time to deploy and for the haze of vaporized rock to clear is an unacceptable risk.

See, Athabasca is a tiny town (population of slightly under three thousand today) in the middle of nowhere. It counts as part of the the 'couple of fences' between Kansas and the North Pole. If you don't launch the missiles, those people are going to get eaten anyway; there's nowhere to evacuate them to, and no way to deploy conventional forces in time to stop the chomp.

(And going slightly off topic, I usually assume that the 'turned half of Canada into a radioactive wasteland' thing was a bad joke, because atomic bombs do not work like that. At all. Except maybe in Fallout games. But seriously, if it's an in-joke, it's actually hilarious.)

As for Lucifer... The fact that they got the reaction they did after the G-Bombs turned the fight around pretty much vindicates not asking permission. The smart move would have been to start the heavy bombardment to get the Laser-class firing and building up heat (plus the AL cloud - Serious question, how much good does that actually do? It didn't help half of Yui's squad in Total Eclipse), then drop the bombs without bothering with the landing.

I am a bit confused regarding the position of political officer. I assumed it to be something like the Star Treck medical officer (When the commander gets really out of wack you step in there), but this time she seemed to have some real decision making authority aside from that. Also who does she answer to? She seems to be a subordinate of that guy at the ship, while Iris... (head of 666th) is not.

The post of political officer (or political commissar) is something originally created by the Red Army of the Soviet Union. In the Red Army the commissar was responsible for the indoctrination of the troops and to guarantee the loyalty of the commanders. If the commissar had the impression that an order by the commander was against the principles of the Communist Party he had the authority to override said order. Not sure how it was handled in the GDR, with the key being whether they had the right to override orders by the actual commander.

To spare money for adding new characters, even if cameo ones.

I thought they just couldn't have two episodes in a row without Beatrix eating someone.

That's understandable, but it's still totally mischaracterizing them.

They seem determined to make her as unambiguously evil as possible.

I've said it before, but it bears repeating. They're portraying the Stasi rather accurately.

She's bad, but she isn't a complete monster like the anime portrays, there's a little more nuance than that.

Well, the same could-

... Almost hit Godwin's law there. Point is, Joesph Stalin (~30-50), Genghis Khan (~40), Mao Zedong (~60+), and all the other true butchers of history were complex, nuanced, people, not one-dimensional evilboard cutouts. That doesn't change the fact they were evil.

Alright, first, Muv-Luv stasi is way more evil than RL stasi. You can chalk it up to desperation, maybe, but I'm pretty sure RL stasi didn't run around committing mass executions. They were much more subtle than that. Not to whitewash them or anything, they just managed to find a more subtle method of dealing with political dissent than their Gestapo forefathers. Abuses still happened, people still got abducted (without cause sometimes) and women were still raped.

Second, I've read a little of the LN. I'll try to say what I want to say without spoiling it and getting this post deleted. Beatrix in the LN is a charismatic leader who views authoritarian state control as the most efficient means of surviving a very, very bad situation. She's not a complete monster and is always trying to justify her actions, just like real evil people did. In a way, she's not totally wrong. Desertions really hurt the DDR, especially ones involving TSFs, which are in very short supply. Furthermore, she hates Axmann, because he's off the wall evil, rather than being pragmatic and is absolutely horrified when she finds out Schmidt's plan. She was believable in the extent of her evilness, and her and her men carried a certain degree of guilt around their necks. I could get into the small glimmers of good she does, like not purging someone when she was ordered to, rescuing someone else from Axmann, or saving everyone's butts at certain points in the storyline, but they verge too much on spoiler material. Additionally, if you take into account that she's the main love interest and heroine of the prequel story, it becomes clear that she's more of a tragic character than the hatesink the anime wants. Most of the scenes the anime has to trump up her vileness are anime original scenes anyways. Don't misinterpret me, she's still very bad, is still defending a horrific regime and serving in a terrible organization, and still does terrible things, especially towards the finale when she grows increasingly desperate, but she isn't the smirking stasi sadist the anime portrays.

So basically, communist Meiya? :heh: