Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch From Mercury - Anime Episode Discussion

[B214]

Isn't this just the outcome of war? The victor becomes justice, the loser becomes evil. Even if the Benerit group decides to slaughter DoF without giving them a chance to surrender, they can still paint it as they're terrorist so they have to slaughter all of them and people in space wouldn't even know a thing about it and wouldn't care about it either since they look down on Earthian.
The group has been shown to deploy mobile suits to quell Earthian protests against Spacian exploitation on Earth, and those aren't terrorist either.

[Key Board]

Earthians have serious grievances about how Spacians run things
DoF was born from that

but from a meta point of view, their real mistake is allying with Shaddiq who is definitely lying to them.

another IBO comparison would be that Shaddiq is the McGillis of Gwitch, and that DoF has made an error putting so much faith in him. Despite them having justified grievances.

I think Shaddiq is in an even more worse position than McGillis actually. McGillis had to fight an enemy that was more or less grounded in reality. Shaddiq risks being blind sided by Gund sorcery and there is nothing he could have done to prepare for it. It's completely different genre.

//

[Obelisk ze Tormentor]

You know what, I just realized this: Nortrette's dream of using plants principle to solve human society problems is pretty much Knights of Sidonia. I mean, the people of Sidonia have evolved to the point where their primary source of energy is photosynthesis in order to be able to live in faraway space, right? And that's just one aspect of it.

[Xeiros]

Piece by piece Sulleta’s support base is being taken away from her.

1. Her view that Gundams, Aerial in particular, are heroic machines that help save people is put into doubt with her encounters with Sophie and Norea

2. The pedestal she has her mother on is beginning to form cracks

3. Her bride to be is far away, busy with other concerns, and unable to properly communicate.

4. Despite her best efforts she couldn’t save Nika.

5. The rest of the kids of earth house have been detained.

6. Elan’s constant efforts to chip away at her.

Remember when she was sad about Mio not relying on her enough? Well now she’s in a much worse mental state, only this time she no longer has the support base to help her work through it. Being heavily tied to the story’s central mysteries there’s no doubt that when the other shoe drops she’s gonna be front and center for all the trauma that results.

She of all the major characters in the show has the farthest to fall in terms of her mental state. She’s the one most susceptible to trauma due to her heavily sheltered upbringing. She’s just plain not equipped to handle what she’s already experienced and it’s only going to get worse.

If you thought Bob went through it last episode, oh boy. Get ready. She’s in for so much worse by the time the final credits roll. If she gets a happy ending with Miorine, it will most certainly have been earned.

[Marina2]

Suletta's strongest strength as a character is her ignorance of everything around her and her idealism. As for anything that might happen to her psychology, I believe her mother will have safety measure in place.

And If everything fail, there is still "If you run you gain one, if you move forward you gain two" cheat code to use.

[Frontier]

Originally Posted by Kazu-kun

For those who can't deal with DoF being terrorists, I wonder how they deal with stuff like Hathaway in which the protagonists are the terrorists. lol

Just like kuroyanagi said, you can't expect the faction that's lacking in resources and manpower to play fair. They can't afford to do things that way. Besides, the Benerit group doesn't play fair either. We know they have no qualms slathering civilians.


EDIT: On a different note, I couldn't help to notice the dude talking with Miorine wasn't quite truthful. He conveniently omitted the fact that Delling knew the Vanadis lab was about to solve the problem of Gundams frying their pilots' brains when he ordered the attack. So his motivation wasn't quite as noble as this dude made it out to be.

Even after watching the Hathaway movie I just came off with the impression that it was all going to blow up in Hathaway's face for a variety of reasons .

Originally Posted by Marina2

Suletta's strongest strength as a character is her ignorance of everything around her and her idealism. As for anything that might happen to her psychology, I believe her mother will have safety measure in place.

And If everything fail, there is still "If you run you gain one, if you move forward you gain two" cheat code to use.

Even Eri seems to be there to keep Suletta conditioned into going along with or believing in her mom.

[Obelisk ze Tormentor]

Originally Posted by Frontier

I'm just wondering what it's going to take for Suletta to turn on her mother, either by Miorine's prodding or finding out what she plans to do with Quiet Zero.

Either that or she'll become Shinn 2.0: being a henchman under Prospera if she becomes the final boss later. and Guel will be Athrun 2.0

[Kazu-kun]

Originally Posted by Frontier

Even after watching the Hathaway movie I just came off with the impression that it was all going to blow up in Hathaway's face for a variety of reasons

Of course, but not because he's fundamentally wrong. The truth is there is no right answer to that kind of dilemma.

Spoiler for hathaway spoilers:

He failed because he made too many logistic mistakes, like getting too deeply involved with Gigi and Kenneth.

[Frontier]

Originally Posted by Kazu-kun

Of course, but not because he's fundamentally wrong. The truth is there is no right answer to that kind of dilemma.

Spoiler for hathaway spoilers:

He failed because he made too many logistic mistakes, like getting too deeply involved with Gigi and Kenneth.

I mean, I see where his point is coming from, but just that he seems out of touch and being kind of an idiot...but I guess that's Hathaway in a nutshell .

[ryllharu]

Originally Posted by Kazu-kun

Just like kuroyanagi said, you can't expect the faction that's lacking in resources and manpower to play fair. They can't afford to do things that way. Besides, the Benerit group doesn't play fair either. We know they have no qualms slathering civilians.

Agreed.

What made this point abundantly clear to me was the final episode of the first season. DoF attacks, uses chainguns, and the spacian pilot goes on a berserk rant on open channels about them using solid ammo and polluting space, then immediately gets exploded into equally dangerous space debris.

That level of hypocrisy (however justified due to Kessler Syndrome as best represented in Planetes or Gravity) while spacians roll over Earth and blow stuff up whenever they want a new area for themselves and fling those resources into space for themselves makes the morality of the setting quite gray. Plus, spacian companies routinely make all manner of debris by blowing up each other with beam weapons to test out new models of mobile suits, as we saw with the red Darilbalde testing.

[deadite]

AEUG is still my gold standard of Righteous resistance movement in Gundam.

[Twi]

Originally Posted by Kazu-kun

For those who can't deal with DoF being terrorists, I wonder how they deal with stuff like Hathaway in which the protagonists are the terrorists. lol

Just like kuroyanagi said, you can't expect the faction that's lacking in resources and manpower to play fair. They can't afford to do things that way. Besides, the Benerit group doesn't play fair either. We know they have no qualms slathering civilians.


EDIT: On a different note, I couldn't help to notice the dude talking with Miorine wasn't quite truthful. He conveniently omitted the fact that Delling knew the Vanadis lab was about to solve the problem of Gundams frying their pilots' brains when he ordered the attack. So his motivation wasn't quite as noble as this dude made it out to be.

Who says I was cheering for Hathaway?

I saw one of his men blow up a hotel in the movie. Well, shoot in half with a laser beam. Watching those mobile suits duke it out from the ground level was like something of pretty horror show that didn't need to happen, and but unlike this show, a quick google search tells you how Hathaway ends in the novel, so...


Not playing fair is Gurella tactics like this episode. That's different than opening with a terrorist attack against a largely civilian compound for a high-risk assassination plot spearheaded by a teen with way too much ambition for his age. If you really want to put those situations under a microscope, they aren't remotely the same.

And by the logic of neither side caring about civilian casualties, no one should be shedding a tear over the fact that a kid got killed as collateral damage. No one should care if they just dropped a bomb and wiped out the refugees. But if they did, everyone would be complaining about Benerit going too far when you know that DoF would do the same if they had the chance.

And do you really think Delling knew how close they were to solving the Gund issue? From what we know, he saw an opening to launch the attack and went ahead with it instead of just everyone else's plans of seizing the assets once the legislation was passed. It's entirely possible he only gained a hint as to how close they were long after Vandis were gone and he started looking into it after his wife died.

And I'm still questioning what was the point of all the setups to get Aerial scrapped in the First Season if Delling had been working with Prospera for as long as Su got enrolled? Like everything brought Gundams to attention was due to him not just going along with Prospera's drone technology excuse. Like, if it was after Gund-Arm was established I would understand, but any earlier and it starts getting fuzzy.

[Kazu-kun]

Originally Posted by Twi

a quick google search tells you how Hathaway ends in the novel, so...

Well, yeah. It's a tragedy. No one wins. But I hope you don't think he ended up like that because his actions were morally questionable. That's not the point of the story.

Originally Posted by Twi

Not playing fair is Gurella tactics like this episode. That's different than opening with a terrorist attack against a largely civilian compound for a high-risk assassination plot spearheaded by a teen with way too much ambition for his age. If you really want to put those situations under a microscope, they aren't remotely the same.

You do understand that in a war, even official armies bombard civilian settlements, right? The reason groups like DoF are called terrorists is not because they're willing to do worse shit than official military forces. It's simply because they are independent forces. That's why they're called terrorists.

And do you really think Delling knew how close they were to solving the Gund issue?

Yes, there's a scene in which the top guys from way back discuss about that. They know that Cardo is working on perfecting the Gund (namely, solving the problem of the data storm) and Vanadis has a deadline the Space corporations seem to have agreed with. The top honchos are discussing about taking actions against Vanadis before the deadline is up, but are concerned about overstepping their bounds. Then Delling shows up and says something like "Who cares about that? If we wait until they perfect the Gund, it will be too late."

So yeah, he definitely knew. He didn't want the Gund to be fixed, and if I had to guess why, it's probably because that would have leveled the playing field between Earth and Space.

[azarhal]

Someone enumerated what could be hints that Suletta = Lfrith AI.

I must admit, I missed the "she doesn't know how to hold a spoon properly" in my viewing...

[Obelisk ze Tormentor]

Ok, let's learn some Japanese with Suletta before she gets some mental & emotional damage later on :

YouTube

https://youtu.be/hWU0z0i5rlA

Sorry; dynamic content not loaded. Reload?

[kuroyanagi]

Badly needed breather episode.

Spoiler for Spoiler:

Despite touching on several disturbing topics, it felt almost lighthearted after last week's carnage. Lauda's reaction to Guel coming back was particularly hilarious. Elan making that incredibly annoying smug face when talking to Peil was also great.

Anyway, things are slowly coming to a head on the Vanadis front, Prospera spills the beans to Miorine on the massacre and Belmeria is mentally backed into a corner. I'm still cheering for Belmeria to do the right thing and stand up to Prospera and Peil. She certainly has the bargaining chips to do so, though she seems not to realize it.

[ryllharu]

The Lauda, Petra, Guel reunion was awfully cute. It feels like Guel has no intention of taking over though, particularly because he killed their father and seems to have an agenda. I really appreciate that it just jumped straight from last episode to him arriving back at the school, instead of a belabored journey to the space elevator on Earth.

But on the other side, Felsi was up to something that they didn't touch back on during the episode. Was she intending to do one last duel and steal Miorine back for Jeturk House?

The Space League also seems to know that Elnora and the Benerit Group are collaborating. Shin Sei is a dummy corp, and they're sure of it now. I think those two may be the first ones to really find out what her true intentions are with Quiet Zero.

It wasn't all sunshine and rainbows though, Elan's encounter with Eri was pure Cosmic Horror. I think the only reason he survived at all was because of Bel's modifications. Eri pushed his body well beyond the point that the other gundams killed Sophie or Eri's own father. I don't think we've seen the red data storm start to flake like that. That must be Permet Score 7+.

Miorine is finally understood the depth that Elnora warped Suletta. I like her declaration of war on Elnora's control.

[Kanon]

I'm glad Guel got back this fast. I wonder what exactly he intends to do, fulfill his father's long cherished dream of owning the Beneritt group by participating in the election?

I'm glad Miorine is blaming the right person for Suletta's behavior. She got to know just how much she's been brainwashed. Sadly, Prospera isn't just good at manipulating Suletta, she's trying to guilt trip Miorine into helping her.

Happy Nika is more or less fine for now. I wonder what the writers intend to do with her.

El5n's meeting with Eri was quite something. I don't think she intended to kill him, just scare him off enough he wouldn't try anything like that again. It worked.

[azarhal]

So this is The Tempest, but with Prospero's goal being to free Aeriel instead of taking revenge. Or at least that's what she tells Bel.

Lady Prospera is really good at guild tripping people. I wonder if she tried it on Delling yet. Probably keeping that in her cards for later.

It's 5 days later, so Guel didn't actually teleport. Also, goal post moved for the boys! Before it was winning Miorine's hand, now it's getting the Presidency directly. Guel "I'm taking care of everything" makes me think he's aiming for it too. If they duel for that.

Oh and it's looks like the Space Assembly League is some sort of agency that investigate companies. I have a crack theory about this posted at the end.

Sabina has shipped Nika somewhere else. I wonder how she's going to re-integrated the story. Also, it was mentioned that Miorine's birthday was getting close.

El5n meet Eri(s), it didn't go well. And looks like it was nice knowing you Bel (going by what Prospera said about her, I think Bel is part of her vengeance).

Prospera has zero shame. Straight up tells Miorine that Delling is the aim of her family's vengeance and then ask her to become the Group President. Oh and that scene will increase the amount of Prospera/Miorine femslash stuff.

Crack theory time:
Looks like Prospera haven't hide her tracks very well and the Space League is now sniffing around her company and the Group because of it. The Peil Hags don't like it. I'm now wondering if Prospera is purposely leaving that trail to have the Group get into poo-poo.

Another thing, going by Prospera's explanation at the start of the episode, she's well aware that Eri in the data storm is just data. And going by Elan trying to take control and the "unable to link" that flash. Suletta has "Eri's body", because only Eri managed to link to it with her biometrics. Elnora wasn't able to.

Also, Quiet Zero might actually just end up being a huge antenna to broadcast the prologue attack to everyone. Going by Miorine's reaction, what actually happened isn't common knowledge.

[quagmire]

Great episode.

Though I think the shows short run( 25 episodes) is starting to come back to bite in some regards. The fast pace worked for the first cour for what it was trying to do. And it sprinkled some good character development in as well. I’ll of course reserve final judgement until the end though. But it would have been nice to slow things a little bit this episode where maybe half of it was spent still on Earth and getting Guel more development and having a talk with Olcutt along the way. Then the other half back at the school sort of speak. Then have the next episode be all the big reveals.

With that said, still a very well written episode and curious where things unfold still. Prospera just revealing everything. Curious how she reveals to Mio that she wants vengeance against Delling, but still asks her to become the next president to keep quiet zero safe.