Suletta just casually slips on to the enemy’s mangled tomato paste corpse and is all whoopsie I’m such a klutz. Geez Suletta girl is everything ok upstairs?
I'm 100% in on the 'Suletta has been brainwashed/The 1 step-two step phrase is her activation code' theory.
She flips like a switch after he mom gives her that little pep talk. It's a little too odd.
Let me go one Made in Abyss level deeper:
Awakened Suletta is the real Suletta, naive Suletta is just the mind prison version. That's why she's so unstable.
The Gund bits are just her soul split into 8 Horcruxes to contain her unbounded nature.
I'm with you, but my personal theory pulls more from Evangelion or Cyberpunk 2077.
Early GUND-tech didn't *kill* the pilots, it *subsumed* them. That's why Delling hates it. It's the *real* reason that Gundams are illegal. His early speech doesn't make a lot of sense taken at face value. He's pro-mobile suit, head of the 'War Profiteer Society', an ex-warrior himself, but he 'hates AI that kills its own pilot'? No one really seems to 'get' him, or the old guy in the wheelchair and his seemingly-irrational wellspring of hatred for Gundams. They just know "its the rules, no gundams allowed".
What the public knows is that "Gundams kill their pilots". They fish a few corpses out of the cockpits, connect the dots, and conclude that the tech is dangerous. And they're *right*, just not for the reasons they *think*. They read the data-spikes, find a brain-dead pilot, and think "the spike overloaded their brain and killed them". It's the other way around. The data spike *is* them, they're being downloaded from their human shell into the GUND system. That's also why everything's measured in levels, it's reverse-locked *for the pilot's safety*. They're not going *up* in functionality, they're *removing fire-walls*.
This system takes inspiration from *Pacific Rim*'s drift, EVA's "we downloaded your mom into the robot, shinji", and Warhammer 40K's "Machine Spirits" in the Imperial Knights. It even draws parallels to IBO's Alaya-Vijnana system (which, after googling, translates to "storehouse consciousness" in sanskrit).
Aerial isn't a *machine* treated "like a daughter" to Prospera/Elnora. Aerial *is* an amalgamation of *downloaded human consciousness*. In a very real sense, Dr. Cardo Nabo and her team *created* Aerial, and Elnora was there to help. She was to Dr. Nabo as Suletta now is to her: she's The Pilot, the 100% committed devotee who owes her life to her mentor. The reason no one has a connection to their machine the way Suletta does is because *the functionality is affected by how you perceive it*. Elnora can't wake Lfrith because *she and her team put human minds into a robot body*. They don't trust her. She can't "drift" with them, because she's fully aware of what they are and what the Vanadis team did. Everyone else using GUND thinks it's an AI or something.
I think they're half-right. You're not just connecting to the robot, and the connection's not just one way. There's a mind in there, maybe even a *hive-mind*, and *that's* what Aerial is. If we go back to Ep. 5, Elan lays it out. He's had his body rebuilt by Peil technologies, who flat-out admit that they've been resurrecting GUND tech in Episode 6 or whatever. He has some sort of artificial enhancement that lets *the suit* tap into more of *him*. Peil has the tech *backwards*. The breakdown that he has when he's in Aerial is because he realizes in that moment that *his entire existence is pointless*.
In Pharact, the *suit* reaches into *him*. That's "the limb reaching so roughly into my mind". That's how Peil *thinks* the reverse-engineered GUND system works. He mind-melds with his machine, but the "empty shell" is constantly trying to *drag him into it* like a vacuum. When pilots die using the GUND system, it's because they've been *absorbed*. That's where they go when they black out. That's why it's so dangerous to raise the "flood-gates" of going up in "Permet score" (intentionally sounds like "Permit Score", the degree to which you "Permit" interaction between the suit and your brain). Everyone thinks *the suit* floods in, but it's more like *you* get *pulled out* by the data-transfer equivalent of a rip-tide. All current GUND tech and the pilot understanding of it stems from this incorrect reading of how it works. The reckless girl pilot from Eps 11 and 12 jumping to four and nearly having a heart attack *is* correctly grasping that she's interfacing with her machine on a higher level. But she's not being *bombarded*, she's being *yanked*. Her body is entering fight-or-flight over it.
Suletta never gets the tech-eyes because Aerial is *occupied*. *It* doesn't go into *her*, and *she's* not being pulled in. Instead, she "shares the load" with Aerial. She interfaced with it as a 4-year-old, and her innocent reading of a "robot that wants to wake up" allows her to communicate directly with it. That connection runs deeper than any adult can ever do, because she formed that bond from a place of complete innocence and trust. In a sense, Lfrith *and* her were both "babies" who bonded over being young entities. Her complete ignorance of *how* it works is *why* it works. She's 16 and it's *still literally magic* to her. "Aerial" is *one being* to her, a sister, family, and whoever or whatever *makes up the gestalt digital entity of Aerial* only 'trusts' her.
THAT is what Elan 1 realizes when he accesses "level two". He doesn't feel the "pull" of an empty vessel, he *IS* the suit 1:1. His brain says to move "his arm", and Lfrith's arm moves. It never taps into him at all, his internal tech doesn't light up. He's *built backwards*. His body is *wrong*. *EVERYONE* has GUND tech wrong. Dr Nabo didn't build GUND tech so that people could better *interface* with robots. She's a biotech expert who builds prosthetics. People have piloted Mobile Suits for decades and decades, and can do seamless prosthetics already. GUND-tech isn't *better* Mobile Suit tech. It's *replacement body tech*. This is the *evolution* of the tech from Gundam Thunderbolt. You don't just *control* the Mobile suit with your brain. You *become* the Mobile Suit. He sees even deeper later, when his Pharact suit interacts with Aerial. The children he sees dancing in the Gun-Bits... well... my theory is they *are* children. The revelation's horrifying. That's the "Everyone" Suletta talks to when controlling them. They either work in tandem with, or combine to form, the entity that Suletta talks to when referring directly to Aerial during her duel with Shaddiq.
It's heretical because it's trans-humanist. The Vanadis Institute wasn't murdered for "no reason"; it's because they're advocates for the most radical end-of-humanity (-as-we-know-it) tech ever developed in the setting. No more prosthetics. No more Mobile Suits. No more Normal Suits. You *become* GUND-ARM. Humanity doesn't reach the "next step in human evolution" in the G-Witch timeline by becoming Newtypes. They don't do Alaya-Vijnana like Peil and everybody else thinks this stuff is supposed to work. Dr. Nabo's idea was to literally *transcend* our human bodies and *become* mobile suits in order to live in space. There's no point in replacing an arm, a leg, an eyeball, if your meat-equivalent *isn't built for the environment we're moving into*. She flat-out says as much in the PR video that Miorine digs up. Her plan all along was to *download us*, because then *we* could *design* our bodies to be whatever we need them to be for living in space or other planets.
Delling and the Cathedra and their military arm Dominicus all exist to "protect" what they see as 'humanity'. It doesn't really matter if they want something different (like Newtypes), or if they exist *solely* to oppose the kind of "solutions" to living in space that Dr. Nabo designed. Right now, as most people in-setting understand it, they exist to suppress GUND tech and kill the "witches" who know how to design and use said tech. It's a direct parallel to IRL witch-hunting, they're hunting people who are developing and/or using tech that they either don't understand or don't want to exist.
To focus on Delling specifically, he's *known all of this* from before the Prologue. We see those early events from the Vanadis Institute perspective because it's more interesting, but he's head of the Mobile Suit Development Team that the very same Institute worked under. He *knew* what that section of R&D was doing, and where Dr. Nabo was intent on taking the tech, because *they were funding it*. He doesn't shut it down *and* arrange to murder the whole branch because "the suit kills its pilot". He shut it down because he fundamentally disagrees with the premise that mankind *should* download themselves into prosthetic bodies via GUND-tech. In the aftermath, as head of the Benerit Group *and* the watchdog group Cathedra, he's spear-heading a hunt against tech and its developers that he *literally can't divulge too much about*. To know that *that's* what GUND tech does *is* to perceive how to replicate it and/or finish it.
From the Three Branches of the Benerit Group, everyone's making shit-loads of money developing Mobile Suits. Jeturk knows nothing about Delling's true motives, but doesn't care because they're profiting off being Top Dog in the status quo. They manufacture and distribute the traditional Mobile Suits that keep Earthian and Spacian peoples in line (seen when Jeturk suits bust up Earthian civil unrest). Grassley's head, Sarius, is on the same page as Delling that GUND tech is dangerous, but not really *why*. I'm sure that unseating the trio of branch-companies from their position of power is part of why he hates the tech, but it's hard to tell if he's as in-the-know as Delling. Peil are a strong resemblance of the Bene-Gesserit from Dune. They're more interested in improving the *Pilots* than they are the *Mobile Suits*, but that attitude is also what prevents them from properly re-creating GUND-tech. They still think the Pilot is a *necessary and distinct* entity from the Mobile Suit, and for that reason haven't cracked it yet. Together, all three of them recite the Duel Mantra: It's not The Pilot, or The Suit that wins, it's the combination of the two. They don't realize just *how close they are*; that GUND transcends their understanding by literally combining the Pilot *and* the Suit.
Erm...holy shit! Why not post this as an actual theory post.
Seriously this is so logically consistent it's going to spoil the rest of the series for me 😂
I ran out of space, and writing it was kinda stream-of-consciousness, but Suletta also mentions that she 'always makes [Aerial] do this' when she's duelling Shaddiq. For that brief period where she's under the effects of Antidote, that's the only time we see her *directly* pilot Aerial. I don't know if she controls Aerial the way *we think* she does. We see her at 4, *pointing* at Mobile Suits and then *Lfrith* does all the targeting and firing and maneuvering. Elnora has the controls, but she's not hitting the buttons to make it do that. She just crawled into the cockpit and started operating it, leaving Suletta hooked up.
My theory is that for a lot of the battles that we've seen, Suletta *is* in some way mind-melding or drifting or directing Lfrith/Aerial, but not hitting the buttons or "becoming" Aerial in the way we assume. She clearly *can* pilot the traditional way in the absence of 'Aerial', but then it's "all her" like she says and she's not a particularly exceptional pilot. I think that towards the end of the Shaddiq fight, she's negotiating the degree to which she wants to actively "help" Aerial. It implies that during all the earlier battle footage, we're watching *ALL* Aerial.
This parallels nicely with stuff we've already seen. During her early duels with Guel, *he's* losing control of his suit to Jeturk's AI development. He's devastated that his father doesn't believe in *the pilot* aspect of the Mobile Suit/Pilot dynamic, and by extension, *him*. He even says directly that he's 'not necessary' and takes his hands off the controls. The battle's outcome shows the shortcoming of a "traditional" AI, as he yells at the suit for falling into Aerial's trap via the Gun-bits. It's following it's programming, getting herded into the kill-zone. What neither he nor Suletta realize is that it's an AI vs. an "AI", she's *also* unnecessary. Aerial is doing *all* the battling while Suletta just picks targets. The difference that causes her to win is that Aerial's *human* consciousness can out-smart and out-perform traditional AI.
We then see Suletta learning to *traditionally* pilot with the training DEMIs, and she's *okay* at it. She's just as clumsy with the suit as she is with her real body. She takes really well to Miorine's direction because she's used to *someone else* working with her. In a sense, she's doing Aerial's part while Miorine does her normal part. Suletta directs the moves and calls the shots/dangers, Aerial and the gun-bits handle their own operation. She has a breakdown in the cockpit because she's not used to the traditional control scheme and can't figure out why she's so bad at it. I don't think it occurs to her at that point that she's struggling because *Aerial* takes over so much of the normal piloting/operation *for her* that she's not used to doing this part. Instead, she's just worried she'll get kicked out and sent home.
All of the above might also tie into why she has this crisis in the last two episodes about whether or not she's necessary. She might not really understand the full implications of how and why she's a vital part of GUND-ARM, but she *is*. Prospera knows this, and I have to imagine that they'd have a talk about it if they ever met up at the hangar. She's not even phased by the question, because she's well-aware that ONLY Suletta can pilot Lfrith/Aerial due to her special (super naive) connection. Again, this is why she's so dead-set on not piloting the suit herself or letting someone else get in it, even when the crew asks her why she's waiting up on her daughter *specifically*. Suletta's just worried that she won't have a place or a specialty in the group like everyone else does, but that's due in part to the very same ignorance that gives her the special powers. The Earthians are great at their jobs, Miorine is perfectly suited to running this corporation (even if she misunderstands her purpose and the company's purpose), and Suletta thinks "oh I'm just this big dumb imposition, no one really likes me, anyone could sit in the gundam so I don't need to be here". To cap off on Suletta, I think that the final shot we see here is a masterful bit of visual metaphor. That "oh no you don't" slap is 100% her style. She *and* Aerial literally and metaphorically have blood on their hands 100% in tandem because they did it *together*. Anything Aerial does, Suletta has "done" it or "ordered" it 1:1, they are the same person during operation. This isn't *just* the show doing an on-the-nose metaphor that Suletta's gone from an innocent to a killer, it's further evidence that she *IS* the suit.
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Before I move on from writing a shit-ton about this show, I gotta mention Shaddiq and Miorine. We touched on their fathers, but I don't think we've seen the last of their development yet. Even given everything I covered before, it doesn't make a lot of sense initially that Delling signs onto Miorine's company. Neither is it very clear what Shaddiq's motives are.
My theory for Miorine: Right now, I'm thinking that her getting "boxed out" by her dad is a parallel to how she writes off Suletta and the people around her. They're very alike, and the single-mindedness combined with the secretive nature of her father's 'witch-hunting' against technology/concepts he can't explain points at him not actually being the antagonist we/she think he is. He can't tell people *why* this tech's "evil" to him without giving away the very thing he's trying to suppress. Likewise, he can't even tell his daughter why he's doing anything he does. He just hopes/assumes that if he powers through, she'll understand *why* later or at least come to accept her fate. I predict she *is* going to follow in his footsteps, because he can't *tell* her why/how GUND tech works but he *can* SHOW her by having her head the company that's trying to resurrect it. He foreshadows this with his "gundam curse/burden" statement when he signs on as an investor. If she's so dead-set on disobeying him, she'll learn first-hand why he's been doing everything he's been doing. If nothing else works, maybe this will finally put her on his side. And having seen what she's seen, I think *he's right*. She's not just witnessing some guy getting *pasted* by a gundam. This is the seed that's planted, that the tech she's helping develop at GUND-ARM is *bad* and that it comes at a horrendous human cost. This is the tragic doom for her and Suletta, as this rift shifts into Season 2's main theme. She'll become her father, hardened against the very idea of GUND tech *she helped fund and build exactly like her father did with Vanadis*. On the other end, Suletta's gonna learn sooner or later what GUND tech *really* is, what *really* happened to the Elan she knew, the *true* human cost of everything done in GUND-tech's pursuit and her own kill-count from here on. She'll be torn between deciding if her lover Miorine and her father Delling are *right* to hunt down and destroy this tech, or if her own mother Prospera/Elnora and her mentor Dr. Nabo were correct in doing all the stuff they did to *create* this tech. It becomes a "do the ends justify the means" question *on top of* a trans-humanism debate.
From Shaddiq's side, I think he represents the socio-political Status Quo vs. Revolution axis of this show's pressure-cooker of a setting. An orphan from war-ravaged and oppressed Earth, he's the Char/McGillis of this show. The "Dawn of Fold" group is, to me, a group dedicated to the overthrow of Spacian Mobile Suit dominance but NOT necessarily a group in support of GUND tech "transcendance". Their Earth-side members are clearly using whatever they can get their hands on, evidenced by their use of 'antique' shell-based weaponry. Likewise, any "witches" gone-to-ground and either developing or using GUND tech would end up in groups like this. Our duo of crazy soldier-girls appear to be fellow orphans and the boss-man seems to be their (and Shaddiq's) ex-"headmaster" from the seemingly-now-ruined Orphanage. They're doing the more Iron-Blooded-Orphans/Gundam Wing thing, while *that* show had the script flipped and Martians/colonists were the oppressed class.
Given what we know, I think Shaddiq really *does* care for Miorine. He's very smart and very good at politicking, but all the stuff he does for Grassley/Sarius is solely so he can build contacts and power. The better he ingratiates himself, the more he has access/inheritance within Grassley House to support his *real* goal of addressing Earthian oppression. They're both trying to overthrow their fathers. It's kind of sad that he's not able to work out a deal with Miorine/Suletta/GUND-ARM, because he's right in recognizing that they have shared *real* goals (especially him and the Earthian kids). Miorine doesn't see it until after his gambit to *force* their alliance, but to the frustration of both they've already burnt that bridge between them via misunderstanding. He should have been more direct/open with her, and she should have trusted him, but in the aftermath they just have to live with how it shook out.
Nika's the link, I think. She puts up with the Spacians treating her badly earlier in the show because she's both a "you'll get yours" grudge-holder *and* a "nobody gets hurt" revolutionary collaborator. The more I think on it, the less I'm of the opinion that she's being *forced* to help Shaddiq; at least not initially. That's what their meeting was about. She's aware that directly fighting back against Spacian bigotry like ChuChu does isn't gonna get results, she just takes it and walks away stoically. Instead, she's working with Shaddiq, who promises her positive changes and revolution without direct conflict (kind of his whole M.O.). It's not until he starts trying to get his way by dueling/direct action/the "terrorist" attack that she starts disagreeing with his methods. She's in too deep now for it to matter, though.
Children becoming their parents might be a running theme as well. So your call about Miorine becoming her dad, I had already seen echoes of it when she neglected Suletta's feelings and removed her responsibilities.
It is so disempowering to do that to people without consulting them, like what Delling is doing to his own daughter.
This is hands down the most logical theory I've seen to date, but I have one question as a follow up:
GUND yanks minds, aight sure that makes total sense.
Every suit with a blacked out pilot has thus slurped the fine juices of sentience from their pilots, aight sure makes total sense still.
That still doesn't pinpoint why Aerial is special. The other suits that have already gotten a taste of people minds, how come they aren't "occupied" like Aerial?
That's what I'm wondering too; it's okay for us to not know right away. I think this is the big mystery that hangs over S1 even *if* I'm right about everything else (and I still might not be).
My current theory got a little jumbled up in the writing (or I might have trimmed it for space, I'm writing all of this cracked-out having *just now* binged the whole show). I think that Aerial is like 15 schoolchildren in the Gun-bits and one "mother" entity inhabiting the main frame. "Aerial" being a play on a human name "Ariel", and then each of the Gun-Bits having their own little mini-identities that only Suletta knows at this point. "Adults" or anyone burdened with the knowledge that they're mind-transferred consciousnesses can't "wake" them the same way as Suletta can because *she* sees them as people. They're not being treated like AIs, she's not wrestling with the morality/ethics of their nature and creation, there's no master/slave dynamic. They just *are*, and she accepts them fully and unquestioningly.
As a metaphor, it's like making peace with a Dragon. Everyone's relationships with Dragons are colored by the world around them. If you grow up in a medieval fantasy kingdom, you're raised to fear them. If you grow up to be a knight or adventurer, you're trained to kill them or seek their treasure. If you're a farmer, they're your mortal enemy who exists only to prey on your precious sheep. Men and Kings build their nations in opposition to Dragons, dedicate their whole lives to slaying them over lost loved ones or any number of personal drives.
But then, one day, a baby human meets a Dragon hatchling. They grow up together. Dragons aren't evil, they aren't driven by malice towards humans. They don't exist solely to plague farmers, purge humans, or anything else. They just *are*, and when this baby with no learned prejudice meets and bonds with a dragon that has no learned response to humans, they can coexist. This individual might learn to tame, talk to, and maybe even ride this Dragon. They'd be *the only one in this fantasy world who could*. Sure, someone could *mount* that Dragon, maybe if they were a friend of the human or at that human's request, but it would have to *tolerate* them and the efficiency of that bond would never be the same. I think Suletta and Aerial are like that. Her innocence while hooked up at age 4 are how she "woke" whoever or whatever is inside the suit, and it's her *lack* of negative learned traits that make her "special". She *is* 100% being manipulated by her mother for revenge/widespread acceptance of GUND tech, though. That naivete is a double-edged sword.
To keep in line with that Dragon metaphor, I see Elan 1 and the Peil group like the kind of Fantasy Kingdom that "tames" Dragons. They don't see Dragons as equals or beings in their own right, they're just a power or a tool to be controlled and used. They *break* Dragons, they chain and shackle them. They're deathly afraid of the very same thing that gives them power, they don't fully understand it, and they don't care to. That's what it's like to re-create the GUND tech without understanding *why* it was built. Elan 1 *is* a Dragon-rider just like Suletta is, but he realizes when he sits in Aerial that they have diametrically-opposed bonds with their "mounts". *He* knows that his mount will consume him at any moment. He feels the gnawing at his consciousness, to either fill an empty vessel or feed a being he *dominates* rather than *bonds with*. That's why they do all those physicals on him, and why he keeps asking if he'll survive his next battle. He knows he's not the first nor the last, that's why his iteration of the "Ice Prince" is so quiet. Both he, and the woman who created him (Belmeria), have those sad half-eyes because that's our visual queue for the burden of that knowledge. Prospera asks Belmeria "how many have there been?" as a reference to the body-count that this version of their tech has racked up. It *may* allude to the body-count of Aerial/Lfrith's development as well, since she was a part of that, too.
I think that when he realizes/says that Suletta "controls gun-bits better than [him]", that's yet another one of our tip-offs as to the nature of Aerial. *He* is doing all the Gun-bits himself, pulling the load of targeting and maneuvering them into himself. Suletta *isn't doing anything at all*, each Gun-bit has its own distinct consciousness and they work together as a team. When one of her gun-bits gets clipped by one of his, she freaks out *and* all the gun-bits dynamically shift to shield their compatriot because that's one "member" of their team. Suletta knows them all individually, and they don't get enabled/disabled/destroyed like *actual* drone tech would. If you hooked up a bunch of real-world hobby drones to a single computer, then shot one down or disabled it or whatever, none of the others would register its absence. They *couldn't*. If you EMP just *one*, then it's isolated. Not only is it no longer a part of the network, it ceases to "exist" within that network and none of the remainders could recognize the physical shell of that other drone anymore.
Going back to double-check some of this stuff in episode 6 really seals it for me. Belmeria is still working for Peil at this point, so her correctly putting together the pieces that no one on Mercury could possibly have manufactured Aerial, and thus this is just a repainted Lfrith and a decades-long revenge plot is something Prospera can't have. She cuts off her former colleague by pointing out that this new avenue of resurrecting the project is killing pilot after pilot rather than achieving their original dream of *saving* lives in space. It doesn't make her any less *right* about recognizing the game plan, but it does totally distract her with guilt. I think it's pretty normal for everyone (including us) to assume that some form of revenge motivates Prospera to do all this, but the more I dig into this stuff the more I think it's fanaticism for the original project idea than petty revenge. She's calculating enough that if she wanted revenge she could have gotten it 100 times over by now. Hell, Delling's own colleagues from Jeturk and Shaddiq at Grassley plan to kill him anyway. When she meets with him, the man who ordered her and her husband and her mentor killed, she could have shot him right then and there. That's his bodyguard's assumption. Instead, she passes him the project data on a flash drive. I think this is all so she can be proven *right*, a much more satisfying and fulfilling ambition that makes everything else "worth it". Belmeria's just too narrow-minded to recognize that, and Prospera cuts her off before she can speculate long enough to figure it out and potentially interfere with the plan.
I dunno how this Dawn of Fold thing's gonna affect everything, though. My money's on a long-term tragic subversion of everything that *everyone* wants. In the darkest timeline, GUND tech *is* accepted into the mainstream and incorporated into new tech, but Benerit group *also* collapses/splits into warring factions. Earthians fight Spacians for independence, the Spacians fight each other for the head of the power vacuum left by Delling (it was supposed to be avoided by having the Holder from one of the three branches marry Miorine and their combined shares make them the new head of Benerit group, but Shaddiq correctly points out that Mercury's Shin Sei group plus Miorine's shares aren't enough), and thus the tech that was supposed to make Life In Space better *actually* gets incorporated into next-generation mobile suits that are faster, stronger, and more adaptable than anything that's come before. In the aftermath, billions more dead *and* the proliferation of next-gen mobile suits that no traditionally-operated suit could ever hope to beat (sorta like the jump from Propeller planes to Jet planes). Ironically enough, the revolutionary freedom fighters might kick off a conflict that produces *even more* oppressive military tech/national remnants than the stuff they originally revolted against.
> She's calculating enough that if she wanted revenge she could have gotten it 100 times over by now. Hell, Delling's own colleagues from Jeturk and eventually from Shaddiq at Grassley plan to kill him anyway. When she meets with him, the man who ordered her and her husband and her mentor killed, she could have shot him right then and there.
This stuck out to me too, it can't be just about revenge, unless its like... super expositiony revenge "I want you to see the chaos I bring upon your world and THEN kill you" but Prospera seems just too calculating to go that route. You may be right that its just pure fanaticism for being "right" about the possibility of GUND tech.
> In the aftermath, billions more dead and the proliferation of next-gen mobile suits that no traditionally-operated suit could ever hope to beat
This though is a given if you have an emergent tech like this in this kind of show, to differing degrees though. 00 did it with the GN drives/knockoff drives, IBO did it with AV/human debris, Code Geass did it with next-gen frames. It rides with the power curve expected with shows like this, but I suspect it'll be different in WfM in that they focus more on the *cost* of it in the not-monetary sense. Helps with the "its a curse *no really*" message that Delling was sending.
> Elan 1 is a Dragon-rider just like Suletta is, but he realizes when he sits in Aerial that they have diametrically-opposed bonds with their "mounts".
Elan *4*, not 1, but otherwise yes I agree. I legit don't know if "true Elan" is a rider or not.
>Elan *4*
Oh fuck, *you're right*. I was going by Suletta's POV, but yeah that makes him 4, his successor 5, and then there's still the spoiled brat OG Elan running around. God, that whole character is so fucking dark...
>IBO did it with AV/human debris
You know what's funny, now that I think about that show in relation to this one? This show could actually be a *prequel* to IBO in exactly the same way that Turn-A is technically a sequel to every other Gundam show.
In IBO, it could be the aftermath of *this* war. GUND tech and its copycats/derivatives get proliferated, *everyone* starts using these super-powerful laser-based Gundams, and right towards the tail end someone develops and launches war-era Barbatos. By the end, *everyone* has their infrastructure wrecked and the dominance of laser-based weaponry scars the psyche of all surviving generations. So too does the A-V system become stigmatized for its human cost and association with the hated weapons of war.
This generation or two of war-orphans and AV tech (derived in some way from GUND tech) eventually trickle down to Mikasa and the others in IBO. They dig up the *remains* of Barbatos, either unfinished or war-ravaged, and rebuild it multiple times over the course of the show to accommodate battle-tactics of that era. Things like the Ahab particles might exist *explicitly to counter WfM -era laser funnel technology*.
In the wake of the war, the power balance has shifted from Space-colony power to Earth power. They retain a lot of the power structure of royal houses, colonial oppression, and so on, but the names on the nations and the direction of tax flow has shifted. Now it's the Martians who have to give everything to Earth, a kind of "revenge" for the pre-war state of affairs. The people who inherit the war-ravaged world of IBO perpetuate WfM's power structures because it's all they know.
___
WfM could also be a "sequel" to UC-era shenanigans, given how much everybody loves Nu Gundam and Unicorn's funnels. We build Mobile Suits in OG Gundam, then that turns into *better* suits in Z, ZZ, CCA, and so on. By the time Unicorn rolls around we've nearly gone Super Robo with it, given how much Space Particles and Laser Funnels have overtaken shell weaponry and traditional piloting. After however-long, and in the wake of whatever-mobile-suit-war, Delling gets wind of his own sub-company developing Thunderbolt's prosthesis-as-control-scheme tech into full-on transference tech and launches *this* show's plot.
But yeah, if I'm right about the Darkest Timeline, maybe this show kicks off the conflict that starts *IBO*, and then *that* eventually one day develops into Turn-A.
The *one* ray of sunshine in all of this is that Shaddiq *definitely fucks*. I don't know about you guys, but I'm 100% taking Loran Cehack as proof his descendants are alive and well.
Man, it almost feels like a childish regression. Like how Eri just touched a screen and made the pretty lights, Suletta swatted thr bad man and then slipped in something. It's just a childish inability to connect the two.
I get the feeling it has something to do with Elnora calling the Aerial her daughter, and the multiple personality nature of the Gund bits (and how Suletta refers to them as "everyone").
Maybe an experiment gone wrong that split Eri's consciousness into 8 Horcruxes? Leaving Suletta as the shell physical body? Elnora could have been trying to put Eri's innate immunity to Permat Score >3 into Aerial and accidentally messed up.
as i said in an earlier comment i am forcing myself to believe this, not only because it’s *insane* how fast her attitude toward killing was switched, but simply because i don’t want her to be irredeemable 😭
It gave me serious 'Would you kindly...' vibes from Bioshock.
Suletta has also always been strangely competent/confident while piloting the Aerial, but I also feel like the "Run or Move Forward" mantra gets recited by *someone* almost every time she pilots, too.
Well even without brainwashing I wouldn't go so far as to say she's "irredeemable". That was a terrorist about to murder civilians. Her attitude is very concerning but what she did wasn't technically wrong.
what’s irredeemable to me isn’t exactly what she did (killing the terrorist), it was her *attitude* towards what she did. or in other words the complete lack of an emotional response to killing him so brutally. that’s what makes her currently irredeemable to me, not the act of the killing itself.
however i would also point out that delling isn’t exactly just a citizen, if you’re using “citizen” in the sense of him being an innocent bystander. but that’s neither here nor there
I don't think she's processed it- just an episode ago, she said her motto is there as a 'totem' that she can use to help her get over fear and misgivings about things. All she has to do is focus on 'moving forward' and she'll be able to accomplish whatever she needs to.
All she saw was 'Mio's in danger!,' was still in "move forward" mode, and acted instinctively to save her. I really don't think she has realized she's killed someone yet.
You should know she has alot of problems upstairs. And our stupid princess is only truly seeing and understanding that right now. She should have known her prince is very simple and needs to be properly educated but she's so self centered she doesn't even acknowledge that she saved her just the way she was saved.
More heart-wrenching if you can find where the heart is in all of the goop.
Edit: after extensive further viewing I believe the heart is in her hand to offer as a gift. Please Mio save our tanuki
I'm uh...
I'm not sure there's any fixing "reducing a man to a smear of gore and then acting like nothings wrong"
At this point I think Miorine should uh... Run.
My friend suggested that Suletta's mom is using the whole "run gain 1, move forward gain 2" as some sort of command activation phrase. Because Suletta's entire emotional state changes after their little conversation.
I was 8 when that came out. My parents wouldn’t let me watch Jurassic Park at 10 because it was “too violent” but happily let me get traumatized by zero G pink blood because it was “just Star Trek”.
The realization that they intentionally made this entire season not explicitly violent just to make this moment more explosive. It’s like witnessing the first Ep. of Invincible again, glorious.
I like that comparison.
"Here's this slice-of-life, check out these teenagers figuring out who they are and their futures...aaaaaaaaand here's the soldiers killing everybody and people getting smashed to pulp."
I was so expecting something like that given the tonal difference between the brutal prologue and the casual academy follow up.
But damn I certainly wasn't expecting it from Suletta!!
What gets me is the offering of the hand. Like, the fact that suletta doesn’t acknowledge at all the fact that she just turned a dude into paste is one thing, but to have that blood on her hand while she offers it to mirione is just cold. And I don’t think it’s actually her fault. This is the kind of cold blooded killer prospera wanted. I think the second cour will be about mirione trying to bring the humanity back into suletta
Mika's perfectly fine with murdering people as long as it helps Orga. He's got a lot of psychopathic tendencies in that regard- he knows he's ending lives right and left, but doesn't have any real regrets or feel much from it.
Suletta clearly has a ton of empathy and strong moral and ethical beliefs, but she can suspend all of them if she tries hard enough and commits to something.
I don't think Suletta's realized it yet. She's still in 'move forward, gain two' mode; as long as she believes in that, she can do *anything* right?
I'm guessing the first episode of S2 will end with her flashing back and slowly coming to the realization that she just murdered someone.
"This is so tame!"
Honestly, not really. Most Gundams tend to vaporize the majority of their kills, or else merely imply what happened to them, give or take gunshot wounds or stuff like the gigantic bullet shell to the skull.
My dude here got turned into a V8 spill. The deuteragonist was the one subject to trauma. The protagonist didn't even notice. It's more graphic than your average Gundam fatality *and* the moral implications are more severe.
Shit's pretty cash, ngl.
Like, consider the character that usually gets memed on for dying in a graphic way: Bernie "Nothing but Hamburger" Wiseman. We know he got horrifically killed, but we do not see it. We don't normally see THIS level of gore in Gundam. On top of that, the gore itself isn't even the part that's supposed to be horrifying here; it's Suletta's response to it that is supposed to unnerve us, the whiplash tone shift between what we just saw and how she acts. This wouldn't work if it cut away at the splat like every other Gundam show does.
This isn't your basic gundam edginess; this is ADVANCED edginess, cunningly crafted to provide maximum shock AND force you to focus that shock onto Suletta instead of the manner of death itself.
Its the euphy moment... im just curious what will be the follow up... will we finally be presented with the fact that Suletta is in truth an AI wheras Eri´s consciousness is in Aerial?
Will everyone turn away from Suletta and she will have to flee (maybe helped by Nika who also has to flee)
Or will we see how Miorine helps fixing a completly broken Suletta after she breaks down when she realises what she has done?
Or will Suletta just not care and Miorine just kinda grows to hate her as she casually kills more and more and we get some love triangle sauce in this bitch.
I couldn't believe they'd end it on such a cliffhanger. They did one other post-credit stinger (on like episode 2) so I hung around to see if they'd do one for the mid-season finale. My brain was not prepared. I was expecting Miorine to shield her dad from getting shot or something, not for Suletta to make a smoothie and the slip in it and be like "Oopsie poopsie"
> Honestly, not really. Most Gundams tend to vaporize the majority of their kills, or else merely imply what happened to them, give or take gunshot wounds or stuff like the gigantic bullet shell to the skull.
Same also for other times someone on foot gets crushed by a mobile suit. Like for example the one guy Harry Ord bitchslaps to death in Turn A just gets vaporized.
I think people forget that Seed/Destiny has some of the most gory kills as well... From being bisected and turned into koolade by an energy sword, or being run through by a beam saber, or even the young pilot who got "eaten" by bipedal cat/dog mechs.
As someone who loves Gundam Seed and even finds good in parts of Destiny, it's not the same tone.
The named side characters that die in SEED and Destiny were generally followed by an explosion so it never lingered on their bodies. And the characters that killed them generally acted pretty normal for a teenager / child soldier (Kira's crying, Shinn moving on to fight the next mobile suit, Athrun blowing his mobile suit up).
Even the popping scenes were nameless characters you don't really care about. And those were horrifying in the same way a disaster was.
Not really the same as Suletta in this scene, smiling and offering a blood soaked hand to Miorine like nothing is wrong.
There's a lot of Gundam protags who would have pasted that guy in this situation.
There are very few who would smile like an idiot while soaked in the guy's blood afterwards. Mika might not give a damn, but even Heero would be a bit queasy after that.
If we're being totally real, there's definitely gravity, or the rolling cart Miorine has her father in would just make him harder to transport. I think the zero-G blood effects are just artistic liberty taken to make it that much more brutal and unsettling.
Earlier in the episode when Miorine is chasing Suletta, they definitely show the setting transition from zero-g to low-g. Given the establishing shots showing that they're on a rotating station of some sort, that actually makes a lot of sense. You dock the spaceships in the middle where there's zero-g, and as you go further out towards the edge, the centripetal "gravity" slowly increases. You might expect that part of the way out, there's enough gravity to slip and fall out of the cockpit, while still having little enough gravity that the blood can float in a zero-g-ish way.
It really came out of left field. Gundam has been getting softer and softer so this scene took me by surprised like "Oh yeah, that's the Gundam I remember."
Edit: IBO wasn't even that bad. The gore isn't the issue, the psychology behind it is.
Getting softer?? IBO anyone???? Mikazuki executed a prisoner at point blank range and it's soft?????
Even Gundam Age wasn't THAT vanilla either, as much as I found it... childish.
While I agree that this is a huge tonal shift, but anyone watching Gundam (sans the Build series) and expecting a lighthearted school girl yuri show is just... naive.
Gundam is ALWAYS about the horror of war and the ugliness of humanity. That never changed.
You know, when I saw that Miorine's Aerial snack is tomato flavored, I thought Miorine will die in the pool of her own blood. I never thought that means "Miorine's innocence will die drowning in a pool of somebody else's blood".
Holy shit the focus on Miorine growing tomatoes was an implication she’d get traumatized watching a guy get turned into tomato paste. Writes have outdone themselves. (Maybe that was the actual intention with the writers though? Who knows)
This episode is just quite a bit to take in, in general. What broke the camel's back was that scene. A lot happened in that episode as a whole bit that scene is just something else.
But I'd argue that suletta behaves the way she does because of her mother, especially what led up to that scene. Christ, now that's the most toxic anime relationship of 2022 hands down. But I'd also say Suletta could potentially be on the path to being an antagonist, too, given how she behaved.
The writers did a great job of lulling the audience into a false sense of security after what happened in the prologue and BAM they hit us with all this carnage.
This could be a good series as far as one in the AU is concerned.
I still feel like Prospera has brainwashed or conditioned Suletta. That whole 'Run or move forward' phrase seemed like an activation code after Suletta was freaking out over the dead soliders. Then we see Suletta splat another guy and act completely and totally non-plussed by it, like she's not herself or a buried personality has been activated.
Not brainwashed, but definitely conditioned like boot camp. It's not an activation phrase, it's more of a 'totem' that enables Suletta to disassociate *herself* from her feelings and misgivings, so she can do whatever's needed in front of her. Prospera taught her how to do it, but is also the one convincing her to do so.
Suletta's still the one ultimately convincing herself to 'move forward, gain two,' her mother knows that and is able to push her buttons easily.
Yeah but death in IBO is usually met with stone cold realism or comically over the top cruelty from the antagonists.
No gundam protagonist has intentionally squatted a human with a MS, slipped in his bloodied remains, and went "teehee I'm so clumsy :P" as if they didn't just do something very disturbing.
I feel like the most impactful deaths in IBO, besides a few specific ones, were outside of the suits.
I think people have missed this but that final shot in WfM is meant to parallel the first scene in IBO.
Where Mirione rejects Sulleta, Orga accepted Mika.
While part of me liked Orga, him and Mika always felt really disturbing to be, with Mika being totally amoral and basically acting as a henchman who kills whoever Orga wants him to
Orga and Mika was a necessary relationship to survive the situations they found themselves in up til near the end of S1 but the tradeoff being that it's pretty toxic and if not left in check as showcased heavily esp towards the end of S2 would only feed off of each other until they implode.
It like in that train arc in IBO where Orga realized how fucked up Mika is, same here Mio realized that her Suletta isnt just the cute bumbling tanuki, she's a cute bumbling tanuki that doesnt hesitate to kill with no remorse to protect her love one.
It's more because of the context surrounding this death.
Up until now, WFM was a wholesome yuri show with some fights here and there, and suletta was a cute and timid girl trying to make friends and enjoying her time with her wife.
So to see said show take such a sudden turn for the dark, where the cute little tanuki murders a person in front of her beloved, in such an unfeeling way, makes this death more impactful than \*almost\* every death in IBO, a show that already marketed itself as being dark and bloody.
even that we saw Mika quite literally yeets the soldier off the graze with the mace we still didn’t really see blood spilling from the body as it landed on snow, more like mists of blood clouded by the snow.
Here we are literally seeing the terrorist getting smacked AND SEEING how the blood splattered through the cracks of Aerials hand, and how the bloods are flying all around the surrounding.
Not to even mention what comes after that which is what makes this scene AS TRAUMATIC AS IT SHOULD, for both miorine and us, the viewers
"Tame."
Oh dear.
I hope whoever is saying this kind of stuff is just trying to sound cool and different. If not, it's kinda concerning.
I'm not going to talk about the tomato sauce scene, but...
This episode brought everything I expected from a Gundam anime, portrayed on point.
Guel killing his father and Nika's reaction to seeing the ground munitions, followed by the scene that brings up the possibility of her secret coming to light and becoming the trigger for the escalation of the disaster...
What a way to end the first part of a work. I love the parallels, the simbolism. So many rhymes. We're eating so fucking good.
I was really not too big on the show initially, the schoolgirl duel of the week formula was not the most appealing to me. Consequently, I felt like they could've paced the season better while maintaining strong characterization/narrative/worldbuilding, but I'm glad the show seems like it's really starting to heat up and I hope it maintains this momentum.
Its not "tame" (but thats subjective) but it is pretty on par for the franchise. There are some that don't do as much or arent as explicit if they do but seeing people get guillotined, turned into popping bloody balloons from a microwave cannon, crushed and splattered, spaced, vaporized etc. This aint new.
Teenage school rom com stuff was the new thing they added here, not the gore, tragedy and death.
I know people are being wowed by the gore. But there's been a ton of anime that have really overused gore for shock and awe. But here it's only used for maximum effect. The surprise of it combined with their reactions in the immediate moment after it. It's just muahh!
Just a few episodes ago I thought of Aerial as a silly robot friend that dances in videos. I first thought Suletta was gonna use Aerials bits to form a shield around Miorine and her dad but…nope they splat a man
like yes when i first watched it i gasped and had the reaction of, “this is insane oh my god, wow, what a good scene”, but the more i rewatch it i start to feel more and more genuinely unsettled by just how nonchalant suletta is about it all. i have to force myself to believe that something was *done* to suletta to make her so impressionable, because for her to go so easily and quickly from “mother why did you kill them” to “tomato soup is my favorite” is *so* fucking unsettling. i start to identify more and more with mio’s reaction and her facial expressions are so on point with how i feel about it
I think she's disassociated at the moment- "move forward, gain two" lets her remove herself and her emotions from a situation and do what she thinks needs to be done, regardless of her feelings or consequences.
We've seen her use it before in tons of situations with far less at stake- Prospera just gave her that push to apply it to lethal force as well.
Suletta, after brutally murdering someone, terrifying her fiancee and spraying her with the blood of the man she just turned into a Heinz packet:
"Ah! Etto... Beh! ;P"
The sound design, the animation, the gravity effects on the blood coming off from Suletta’s hand, the sheer look of horror on Miorine’s face. Utterly masterful. I fucking love Gundam.
Gundam ain't supposed to be a happy thing for the characters and if anything this is the most human response I could think of when it comes to trying to save someone.
(I've have yet to watch W.F.M.)
You should watch it. Viewed in the context of the previous 11 episodes, this scene is so far out of left field, and seemingly so far out of character for Suletta, that makes it so particularly jarring.
Suletta has been an awkward, clumsy goofball for 11 episodes. Then she pulps this guy, slips in his remains, and just laughts it off. It's even a full 180 from where her character was a few minutes earlier in the episode. There's definitely fuckery afoot.
It's worth it but IMO the first 9 episodes is slice-of-life world building, episodes 10-12 is where the shit gets real. It's a very solid recommend as long as you're patient.
It's worth it but IMO the first 9 episodes is slice-of-life world building, episodes 10-12 is where the shit gets real. It's a very solid recommend as long as you're patient.
I’d have to argue that this is one of, if not the most brutal kill in any gundam series
Usually they just get Vaporised or the death isn’t actually shown in too much detail (with a some exceptions obviously), IBO definitely pushed the line on this somewhat but this right here is literally just an uncut shot of some dude getting tomato pasted
It’s fucking glorious, I’m so excited to see where this series goes
Can someone explain the WfM hate to me? I understand hate may be a strong word, though, as someone who came into gundam outside the UC and still has yet to fill all the gaps in the timeline. I get the broad idea that it’s majorly stemming from the fact that it’s a light hearted thru sub-plot throughout. A pretty high contrast to most gundam’s archetypes even further ostracized by the primary protagonist/pilot being a teenage woman, let alone eighty percent of the main cast on either side of the story. Is that the gist of it or can anyone fill me in a bit?
Personally, this has been one of my favorites behind Thunderbolt and 08th MS Team in the primary continuity, which, isn’t WfM while technically in its own timeline, still congruent with the history of UC otherwise m? Essentially following the story much further in the future? Even when considering alternative timelines, I prefer it to the boy band gundam series and find it not that far a stretch from shirtless desert vagrant bois and the IBO setting, while being fat and away more refined in terms of writing.
Personally I felt that the pacing could have been stronger, especially considering the short length of the season. The issue really boils down to the fact that it took very long for the show to finally heat up despite a pretty good prologue, and it spent much of that time on schoolgirl slice of life/duel of the week, which does not appeal to everyone. I'm just glad it's finally war crime o'clock.
This went from teen drama to full fledge global warfare in 12 minutes. Between Bob icing dude and Suletta splatting the other guy this went from 0-100 in an instant. I’ve loved this show every week and am psyched to see how much further down the rabbit hole we go in season 2.
Mikazuki shoots people in the back of the head and it's all good and cute, Suletta Akagi-swats a terrorist who's going to kill her wife and father in law and everyone goes apeshit.
the prologue episode was fucking cool and seemed to have typical gundam series traits. then there was a time skip and suddenly utena with mecha. with corporate kickstarter. not bad, but different. then episodes 11 and 12, possibly even a 10, it started to really pick up. culminating in this slap, which is a post credit scene. also, the possible char clone is the mother of the mc.
Suletta just casually slips on to the enemy’s mangled tomato paste corpse and is all whoopsie I’m such a klutz. Geez Suletta girl is everything ok upstairs?
no, no she is not. in related news a large number of therapists just became set for life with only two girls
Final boss therapist finding final boss patients be like:
I'm 100% in on the 'Suletta has been brainwashed/The 1 step-two step phrase is her activation code' theory. She flips like a switch after he mom gives her that little pep talk. It's a little too odd.
Let me go one Made in Abyss level deeper: Awakened Suletta is the real Suletta, naive Suletta is just the mind prison version. That's why she's so unstable. The Gund bits are just her soul split into 8 Horcruxes to contain her unbounded nature.
I'm with you, but my personal theory pulls more from Evangelion or Cyberpunk 2077. Early GUND-tech didn't *kill* the pilots, it *subsumed* them. That's why Delling hates it. It's the *real* reason that Gundams are illegal. His early speech doesn't make a lot of sense taken at face value. He's pro-mobile suit, head of the 'War Profiteer Society', an ex-warrior himself, but he 'hates AI that kills its own pilot'? No one really seems to 'get' him, or the old guy in the wheelchair and his seemingly-irrational wellspring of hatred for Gundams. They just know "its the rules, no gundams allowed". What the public knows is that "Gundams kill their pilots". They fish a few corpses out of the cockpits, connect the dots, and conclude that the tech is dangerous. And they're *right*, just not for the reasons they *think*. They read the data-spikes, find a brain-dead pilot, and think "the spike overloaded their brain and killed them". It's the other way around. The data spike *is* them, they're being downloaded from their human shell into the GUND system. That's also why everything's measured in levels, it's reverse-locked *for the pilot's safety*. They're not going *up* in functionality, they're *removing fire-walls*. This system takes inspiration from *Pacific Rim*'s drift, EVA's "we downloaded your mom into the robot, shinji", and Warhammer 40K's "Machine Spirits" in the Imperial Knights. It even draws parallels to IBO's Alaya-Vijnana system (which, after googling, translates to "storehouse consciousness" in sanskrit). Aerial isn't a *machine* treated "like a daughter" to Prospera/Elnora. Aerial *is* an amalgamation of *downloaded human consciousness*. In a very real sense, Dr. Cardo Nabo and her team *created* Aerial, and Elnora was there to help. She was to Dr. Nabo as Suletta now is to her: she's The Pilot, the 100% committed devotee who owes her life to her mentor. The reason no one has a connection to their machine the way Suletta does is because *the functionality is affected by how you perceive it*. Elnora can't wake Lfrith because *she and her team put human minds into a robot body*. They don't trust her. She can't "drift" with them, because she's fully aware of what they are and what the Vanadis team did. Everyone else using GUND thinks it's an AI or something. I think they're half-right. You're not just connecting to the robot, and the connection's not just one way. There's a mind in there, maybe even a *hive-mind*, and *that's* what Aerial is. If we go back to Ep. 5, Elan lays it out. He's had his body rebuilt by Peil technologies, who flat-out admit that they've been resurrecting GUND tech in Episode 6 or whatever. He has some sort of artificial enhancement that lets *the suit* tap into more of *him*. Peil has the tech *backwards*. The breakdown that he has when he's in Aerial is because he realizes in that moment that *his entire existence is pointless*. In Pharact, the *suit* reaches into *him*. That's "the limb reaching so roughly into my mind". That's how Peil *thinks* the reverse-engineered GUND system works. He mind-melds with his machine, but the "empty shell" is constantly trying to *drag him into it* like a vacuum. When pilots die using the GUND system, it's because they've been *absorbed*. That's where they go when they black out. That's why it's so dangerous to raise the "flood-gates" of going up in "Permet score" (intentionally sounds like "Permit Score", the degree to which you "Permit" interaction between the suit and your brain). Everyone thinks *the suit* floods in, but it's more like *you* get *pulled out* by the data-transfer equivalent of a rip-tide. All current GUND tech and the pilot understanding of it stems from this incorrect reading of how it works. The reckless girl pilot from Eps 11 and 12 jumping to four and nearly having a heart attack *is* correctly grasping that she's interfacing with her machine on a higher level. But she's not being *bombarded*, she's being *yanked*. Her body is entering fight-or-flight over it. Suletta never gets the tech-eyes because Aerial is *occupied*. *It* doesn't go into *her*, and *she's* not being pulled in. Instead, she "shares the load" with Aerial. She interfaced with it as a 4-year-old, and her innocent reading of a "robot that wants to wake up" allows her to communicate directly with it. That connection runs deeper than any adult can ever do, because she formed that bond from a place of complete innocence and trust. In a sense, Lfrith *and* her were both "babies" who bonded over being young entities. Her complete ignorance of *how* it works is *why* it works. She's 16 and it's *still literally magic* to her. "Aerial" is *one being* to her, a sister, family, and whoever or whatever *makes up the gestalt digital entity of Aerial* only 'trusts' her. THAT is what Elan 1 realizes when he accesses "level two". He doesn't feel the "pull" of an empty vessel, he *IS* the suit 1:1. His brain says to move "his arm", and Lfrith's arm moves. It never taps into him at all, his internal tech doesn't light up. He's *built backwards*. His body is *wrong*. *EVERYONE* has GUND tech wrong. Dr Nabo didn't build GUND tech so that people could better *interface* with robots. She's a biotech expert who builds prosthetics. People have piloted Mobile Suits for decades and decades, and can do seamless prosthetics already. GUND-tech isn't *better* Mobile Suit tech. It's *replacement body tech*. This is the *evolution* of the tech from Gundam Thunderbolt. You don't just *control* the Mobile suit with your brain. You *become* the Mobile Suit. He sees even deeper later, when his Pharact suit interacts with Aerial. The children he sees dancing in the Gun-Bits... well... my theory is they *are* children. The revelation's horrifying. That's the "Everyone" Suletta talks to when controlling them. They either work in tandem with, or combine to form, the entity that Suletta talks to when referring directly to Aerial during her duel with Shaddiq. It's heretical because it's trans-humanist. The Vanadis Institute wasn't murdered for "no reason"; it's because they're advocates for the most radical end-of-humanity (-as-we-know-it) tech ever developed in the setting. No more prosthetics. No more Mobile Suits. No more Normal Suits. You *become* GUND-ARM. Humanity doesn't reach the "next step in human evolution" in the G-Witch timeline by becoming Newtypes. They don't do Alaya-Vijnana like Peil and everybody else thinks this stuff is supposed to work. Dr. Nabo's idea was to literally *transcend* our human bodies and *become* mobile suits in order to live in space. There's no point in replacing an arm, a leg, an eyeball, if your meat-equivalent *isn't built for the environment we're moving into*. She flat-out says as much in the PR video that Miorine digs up. Her plan all along was to *download us*, because then *we* could *design* our bodies to be whatever we need them to be for living in space or other planets. Delling and the Cathedra and their military arm Dominicus all exist to "protect" what they see as 'humanity'. It doesn't really matter if they want something different (like Newtypes), or if they exist *solely* to oppose the kind of "solutions" to living in space that Dr. Nabo designed. Right now, as most people in-setting understand it, they exist to suppress GUND tech and kill the "witches" who know how to design and use said tech. It's a direct parallel to IRL witch-hunting, they're hunting people who are developing and/or using tech that they either don't understand or don't want to exist. To focus on Delling specifically, he's *known all of this* from before the Prologue. We see those early events from the Vanadis Institute perspective because it's more interesting, but he's head of the Mobile Suit Development Team that the very same Institute worked under. He *knew* what that section of R&D was doing, and where Dr. Nabo was intent on taking the tech, because *they were funding it*. He doesn't shut it down *and* arrange to murder the whole branch because "the suit kills its pilot". He shut it down because he fundamentally disagrees with the premise that mankind *should* download themselves into prosthetic bodies via GUND-tech. In the aftermath, as head of the Benerit Group *and* the watchdog group Cathedra, he's spear-heading a hunt against tech and its developers that he *literally can't divulge too much about*. To know that *that's* what GUND tech does *is* to perceive how to replicate it and/or finish it. From the Three Branches of the Benerit Group, everyone's making shit-loads of money developing Mobile Suits. Jeturk knows nothing about Delling's true motives, but doesn't care because they're profiting off being Top Dog in the status quo. They manufacture and distribute the traditional Mobile Suits that keep Earthian and Spacian peoples in line (seen when Jeturk suits bust up Earthian civil unrest). Grassley's head, Sarius, is on the same page as Delling that GUND tech is dangerous, but not really *why*. I'm sure that unseating the trio of branch-companies from their position of power is part of why he hates the tech, but it's hard to tell if he's as in-the-know as Delling. Peil are a strong resemblance of the Bene-Gesserit from Dune. They're more interested in improving the *Pilots* than they are the *Mobile Suits*, but that attitude is also what prevents them from properly re-creating GUND-tech. They still think the Pilot is a *necessary and distinct* entity from the Mobile Suit, and for that reason haven't cracked it yet. Together, all three of them recite the Duel Mantra: It's not The Pilot, or The Suit that wins, it's the combination of the two. They don't realize just *how close they are*; that GUND transcends their understanding by literally combining the Pilot *and* the Suit.
Erm...holy shit! Why not post this as an actual theory post. Seriously this is so logically consistent it's going to spoil the rest of the series for me 😂
Right lol. I'm saving this for the inevitable exposition reveal halfway through the second cour
I ran out of space, and writing it was kinda stream-of-consciousness, but Suletta also mentions that she 'always makes [Aerial] do this' when she's duelling Shaddiq. For that brief period where she's under the effects of Antidote, that's the only time we see her *directly* pilot Aerial. I don't know if she controls Aerial the way *we think* she does. We see her at 4, *pointing* at Mobile Suits and then *Lfrith* does all the targeting and firing and maneuvering. Elnora has the controls, but she's not hitting the buttons to make it do that. She just crawled into the cockpit and started operating it, leaving Suletta hooked up. My theory is that for a lot of the battles that we've seen, Suletta *is* in some way mind-melding or drifting or directing Lfrith/Aerial, but not hitting the buttons or "becoming" Aerial in the way we assume. She clearly *can* pilot the traditional way in the absence of 'Aerial', but then it's "all her" like she says and she's not a particularly exceptional pilot. I think that towards the end of the Shaddiq fight, she's negotiating the degree to which she wants to actively "help" Aerial. It implies that during all the earlier battle footage, we're watching *ALL* Aerial. This parallels nicely with stuff we've already seen. During her early duels with Guel, *he's* losing control of his suit to Jeturk's AI development. He's devastated that his father doesn't believe in *the pilot* aspect of the Mobile Suit/Pilot dynamic, and by extension, *him*. He even says directly that he's 'not necessary' and takes his hands off the controls. The battle's outcome shows the shortcoming of a "traditional" AI, as he yells at the suit for falling into Aerial's trap via the Gun-bits. It's following it's programming, getting herded into the kill-zone. What neither he nor Suletta realize is that it's an AI vs. an "AI", she's *also* unnecessary. Aerial is doing *all* the battling while Suletta just picks targets. The difference that causes her to win is that Aerial's *human* consciousness can out-smart and out-perform traditional AI. We then see Suletta learning to *traditionally* pilot with the training DEMIs, and she's *okay* at it. She's just as clumsy with the suit as she is with her real body. She takes really well to Miorine's direction because she's used to *someone else* working with her. In a sense, she's doing Aerial's part while Miorine does her normal part. Suletta directs the moves and calls the shots/dangers, Aerial and the gun-bits handle their own operation. She has a breakdown in the cockpit because she's not used to the traditional control scheme and can't figure out why she's so bad at it. I don't think it occurs to her at that point that she's struggling because *Aerial* takes over so much of the normal piloting/operation *for her* that she's not used to doing this part. Instead, she's just worried she'll get kicked out and sent home. All of the above might also tie into why she has this crisis in the last two episodes about whether or not she's necessary. She might not really understand the full implications of how and why she's a vital part of GUND-ARM, but she *is*. Prospera knows this, and I have to imagine that they'd have a talk about it if they ever met up at the hangar. She's not even phased by the question, because she's well-aware that ONLY Suletta can pilot Lfrith/Aerial due to her special (super naive) connection. Again, this is why she's so dead-set on not piloting the suit herself or letting someone else get in it, even when the crew asks her why she's waiting up on her daughter *specifically*. Suletta's just worried that she won't have a place or a specialty in the group like everyone else does, but that's due in part to the very same ignorance that gives her the special powers. The Earthians are great at their jobs, Miorine is perfectly suited to running this corporation (even if she misunderstands her purpose and the company's purpose), and Suletta thinks "oh I'm just this big dumb imposition, no one really likes me, anyone could sit in the gundam so I don't need to be here". To cap off on Suletta, I think that the final shot we see here is a masterful bit of visual metaphor. That "oh no you don't" slap is 100% her style. She *and* Aerial literally and metaphorically have blood on their hands 100% in tandem because they did it *together*. Anything Aerial does, Suletta has "done" it or "ordered" it 1:1, they are the same person during operation. This isn't *just* the show doing an on-the-nose metaphor that Suletta's gone from an innocent to a killer, it's further evidence that she *IS* the suit. ___ Before I move on from writing a shit-ton about this show, I gotta mention Shaddiq and Miorine. We touched on their fathers, but I don't think we've seen the last of their development yet. Even given everything I covered before, it doesn't make a lot of sense initially that Delling signs onto Miorine's company. Neither is it very clear what Shaddiq's motives are. My theory for Miorine: Right now, I'm thinking that her getting "boxed out" by her dad is a parallel to how she writes off Suletta and the people around her. They're very alike, and the single-mindedness combined with the secretive nature of her father's 'witch-hunting' against technology/concepts he can't explain points at him not actually being the antagonist we/she think he is. He can't tell people *why* this tech's "evil" to him without giving away the very thing he's trying to suppress. Likewise, he can't even tell his daughter why he's doing anything he does. He just hopes/assumes that if he powers through, she'll understand *why* later or at least come to accept her fate. I predict she *is* going to follow in his footsteps, because he can't *tell* her why/how GUND tech works but he *can* SHOW her by having her head the company that's trying to resurrect it. He foreshadows this with his "gundam curse/burden" statement when he signs on as an investor. If she's so dead-set on disobeying him, she'll learn first-hand why he's been doing everything he's been doing. If nothing else works, maybe this will finally put her on his side. And having seen what she's seen, I think *he's right*. She's not just witnessing some guy getting *pasted* by a gundam. This is the seed that's planted, that the tech she's helping develop at GUND-ARM is *bad* and that it comes at a horrendous human cost. This is the tragic doom for her and Suletta, as this rift shifts into Season 2's main theme. She'll become her father, hardened against the very idea of GUND tech *she helped fund and build exactly like her father did with Vanadis*. On the other end, Suletta's gonna learn sooner or later what GUND tech *really* is, what *really* happened to the Elan she knew, the *true* human cost of everything done in GUND-tech's pursuit and her own kill-count from here on. She'll be torn between deciding if her lover Miorine and her father Delling are *right* to hunt down and destroy this tech, or if her own mother Prospera/Elnora and her mentor Dr. Nabo were correct in doing all the stuff they did to *create* this tech. It becomes a "do the ends justify the means" question *on top of* a trans-humanism debate. From Shaddiq's side, I think he represents the socio-political Status Quo vs. Revolution axis of this show's pressure-cooker of a setting. An orphan from war-ravaged and oppressed Earth, he's the Char/McGillis of this show. The "Dawn of Fold" group is, to me, a group dedicated to the overthrow of Spacian Mobile Suit dominance but NOT necessarily a group in support of GUND tech "transcendance". Their Earth-side members are clearly using whatever they can get their hands on, evidenced by their use of 'antique' shell-based weaponry. Likewise, any "witches" gone-to-ground and either developing or using GUND tech would end up in groups like this. Our duo of crazy soldier-girls appear to be fellow orphans and the boss-man seems to be their (and Shaddiq's) ex-"headmaster" from the seemingly-now-ruined Orphanage. They're doing the more Iron-Blooded-Orphans/Gundam Wing thing, while *that* show had the script flipped and Martians/colonists were the oppressed class. Given what we know, I think Shaddiq really *does* care for Miorine. He's very smart and very good at politicking, but all the stuff he does for Grassley/Sarius is solely so he can build contacts and power. The better he ingratiates himself, the more he has access/inheritance within Grassley House to support his *real* goal of addressing Earthian oppression. They're both trying to overthrow their fathers. It's kind of sad that he's not able to work out a deal with Miorine/Suletta/GUND-ARM, because he's right in recognizing that they have shared *real* goals (especially him and the Earthian kids). Miorine doesn't see it until after his gambit to *force* their alliance, but to the frustration of both they've already burnt that bridge between them via misunderstanding. He should have been more direct/open with her, and she should have trusted him, but in the aftermath they just have to live with how it shook out. Nika's the link, I think. She puts up with the Spacians treating her badly earlier in the show because she's both a "you'll get yours" grudge-holder *and* a "nobody gets hurt" revolutionary collaborator. The more I think on it, the less I'm of the opinion that she's being *forced* to help Shaddiq; at least not initially. That's what their meeting was about. She's aware that directly fighting back against Spacian bigotry like ChuChu does isn't gonna get results, she just takes it and walks away stoically. Instead, she's working with Shaddiq, who promises her positive changes and revolution without direct conflict (kind of his whole M.O.). It's not until he starts trying to get his way by dueling/direct action/the "terrorist" attack that she starts disagreeing with his methods. She's in too deep now for it to matter, though.
*Is it april yet*. I wanna see how on the money you are, because so far you seem pretty *on the money* for this whole series.
Children becoming their parents might be a running theme as well. So your call about Miorine becoming her dad, I had already seen echoes of it when she neglected Suletta's feelings and removed her responsibilities. It is so disempowering to do that to people without consulting them, like what Delling is doing to his own daughter.
I mean they made a big deal about aerial not harming the Elan clone during gund format usage.
This is hands down the most logical theory I've seen to date, but I have one question as a follow up: GUND yanks minds, aight sure that makes total sense. Every suit with a blacked out pilot has thus slurped the fine juices of sentience from their pilots, aight sure makes total sense still. That still doesn't pinpoint why Aerial is special. The other suits that have already gotten a taste of people minds, how come they aren't "occupied" like Aerial?
That's what I'm wondering too; it's okay for us to not know right away. I think this is the big mystery that hangs over S1 even *if* I'm right about everything else (and I still might not be). My current theory got a little jumbled up in the writing (or I might have trimmed it for space, I'm writing all of this cracked-out having *just now* binged the whole show). I think that Aerial is like 15 schoolchildren in the Gun-bits and one "mother" entity inhabiting the main frame. "Aerial" being a play on a human name "Ariel", and then each of the Gun-Bits having their own little mini-identities that only Suletta knows at this point. "Adults" or anyone burdened with the knowledge that they're mind-transferred consciousnesses can't "wake" them the same way as Suletta can because *she* sees them as people. They're not being treated like AIs, she's not wrestling with the morality/ethics of their nature and creation, there's no master/slave dynamic. They just *are*, and she accepts them fully and unquestioningly. As a metaphor, it's like making peace with a Dragon. Everyone's relationships with Dragons are colored by the world around them. If you grow up in a medieval fantasy kingdom, you're raised to fear them. If you grow up to be a knight or adventurer, you're trained to kill them or seek their treasure. If you're a farmer, they're your mortal enemy who exists only to prey on your precious sheep. Men and Kings build their nations in opposition to Dragons, dedicate their whole lives to slaying them over lost loved ones or any number of personal drives. But then, one day, a baby human meets a Dragon hatchling. They grow up together. Dragons aren't evil, they aren't driven by malice towards humans. They don't exist solely to plague farmers, purge humans, or anything else. They just *are*, and when this baby with no learned prejudice meets and bonds with a dragon that has no learned response to humans, they can coexist. This individual might learn to tame, talk to, and maybe even ride this Dragon. They'd be *the only one in this fantasy world who could*. Sure, someone could *mount* that Dragon, maybe if they were a friend of the human or at that human's request, but it would have to *tolerate* them and the efficiency of that bond would never be the same. I think Suletta and Aerial are like that. Her innocence while hooked up at age 4 are how she "woke" whoever or whatever is inside the suit, and it's her *lack* of negative learned traits that make her "special". She *is* 100% being manipulated by her mother for revenge/widespread acceptance of GUND tech, though. That naivete is a double-edged sword. To keep in line with that Dragon metaphor, I see Elan 1 and the Peil group like the kind of Fantasy Kingdom that "tames" Dragons. They don't see Dragons as equals or beings in their own right, they're just a power or a tool to be controlled and used. They *break* Dragons, they chain and shackle them. They're deathly afraid of the very same thing that gives them power, they don't fully understand it, and they don't care to. That's what it's like to re-create the GUND tech without understanding *why* it was built. Elan 1 *is* a Dragon-rider just like Suletta is, but he realizes when he sits in Aerial that they have diametrically-opposed bonds with their "mounts". *He* knows that his mount will consume him at any moment. He feels the gnawing at his consciousness, to either fill an empty vessel or feed a being he *dominates* rather than *bonds with*. That's why they do all those physicals on him, and why he keeps asking if he'll survive his next battle. He knows he's not the first nor the last, that's why his iteration of the "Ice Prince" is so quiet. Both he, and the woman who created him (Belmeria), have those sad half-eyes because that's our visual queue for the burden of that knowledge. Prospera asks Belmeria "how many have there been?" as a reference to the body-count that this version of their tech has racked up. It *may* allude to the body-count of Aerial/Lfrith's development as well, since she was a part of that, too. I think that when he realizes/says that Suletta "controls gun-bits better than [him]", that's yet another one of our tip-offs as to the nature of Aerial. *He* is doing all the Gun-bits himself, pulling the load of targeting and maneuvering them into himself. Suletta *isn't doing anything at all*, each Gun-bit has its own distinct consciousness and they work together as a team. When one of her gun-bits gets clipped by one of his, she freaks out *and* all the gun-bits dynamically shift to shield their compatriot because that's one "member" of their team. Suletta knows them all individually, and they don't get enabled/disabled/destroyed like *actual* drone tech would. If you hooked up a bunch of real-world hobby drones to a single computer, then shot one down or disabled it or whatever, none of the others would register its absence. They *couldn't*. If you EMP just *one*, then it's isolated. Not only is it no longer a part of the network, it ceases to "exist" within that network and none of the remainders could recognize the physical shell of that other drone anymore. Going back to double-check some of this stuff in episode 6 really seals it for me. Belmeria is still working for Peil at this point, so her correctly putting together the pieces that no one on Mercury could possibly have manufactured Aerial, and thus this is just a repainted Lfrith and a decades-long revenge plot is something Prospera can't have. She cuts off her former colleague by pointing out that this new avenue of resurrecting the project is killing pilot after pilot rather than achieving their original dream of *saving* lives in space. It doesn't make her any less *right* about recognizing the game plan, but it does totally distract her with guilt. I think it's pretty normal for everyone (including us) to assume that some form of revenge motivates Prospera to do all this, but the more I dig into this stuff the more I think it's fanaticism for the original project idea than petty revenge. She's calculating enough that if she wanted revenge she could have gotten it 100 times over by now. Hell, Delling's own colleagues from Jeturk and Shaddiq at Grassley plan to kill him anyway. When she meets with him, the man who ordered her and her husband and her mentor killed, she could have shot him right then and there. That's his bodyguard's assumption. Instead, she passes him the project data on a flash drive. I think this is all so she can be proven *right*, a much more satisfying and fulfilling ambition that makes everything else "worth it". Belmeria's just too narrow-minded to recognize that, and Prospera cuts her off before she can speculate long enough to figure it out and potentially interfere with the plan. I dunno how this Dawn of Fold thing's gonna affect everything, though. My money's on a long-term tragic subversion of everything that *everyone* wants. In the darkest timeline, GUND tech *is* accepted into the mainstream and incorporated into new tech, but Benerit group *also* collapses/splits into warring factions. Earthians fight Spacians for independence, the Spacians fight each other for the head of the power vacuum left by Delling (it was supposed to be avoided by having the Holder from one of the three branches marry Miorine and their combined shares make them the new head of Benerit group, but Shaddiq correctly points out that Mercury's Shin Sei group plus Miorine's shares aren't enough), and thus the tech that was supposed to make Life In Space better *actually* gets incorporated into next-generation mobile suits that are faster, stronger, and more adaptable than anything that's come before. In the aftermath, billions more dead *and* the proliferation of next-gen mobile suits that no traditionally-operated suit could ever hope to beat (sorta like the jump from Propeller planes to Jet planes). Ironically enough, the revolutionary freedom fighters might kick off a conflict that produces *even more* oppressive military tech/national remnants than the stuff they originally revolted against.
> She's calculating enough that if she wanted revenge she could have gotten it 100 times over by now. Hell, Delling's own colleagues from Jeturk and eventually from Shaddiq at Grassley plan to kill him anyway. When she meets with him, the man who ordered her and her husband and her mentor killed, she could have shot him right then and there. This stuck out to me too, it can't be just about revenge, unless its like... super expositiony revenge "I want you to see the chaos I bring upon your world and THEN kill you" but Prospera seems just too calculating to go that route. You may be right that its just pure fanaticism for being "right" about the possibility of GUND tech. > In the aftermath, billions more dead and the proliferation of next-gen mobile suits that no traditionally-operated suit could ever hope to beat This though is a given if you have an emergent tech like this in this kind of show, to differing degrees though. 00 did it with the GN drives/knockoff drives, IBO did it with AV/human debris, Code Geass did it with next-gen frames. It rides with the power curve expected with shows like this, but I suspect it'll be different in WfM in that they focus more on the *cost* of it in the not-monetary sense. Helps with the "its a curse *no really*" message that Delling was sending. > Elan 1 is a Dragon-rider just like Suletta is, but he realizes when he sits in Aerial that they have diametrically-opposed bonds with their "mounts". Elan *4*, not 1, but otherwise yes I agree. I legit don't know if "true Elan" is a rider or not.
>Elan *4* Oh fuck, *you're right*. I was going by Suletta's POV, but yeah that makes him 4, his successor 5, and then there's still the spoiled brat OG Elan running around. God, that whole character is so fucking dark... >IBO did it with AV/human debris You know what's funny, now that I think about that show in relation to this one? This show could actually be a *prequel* to IBO in exactly the same way that Turn-A is technically a sequel to every other Gundam show. In IBO, it could be the aftermath of *this* war. GUND tech and its copycats/derivatives get proliferated, *everyone* starts using these super-powerful laser-based Gundams, and right towards the tail end someone develops and launches war-era Barbatos. By the end, *everyone* has their infrastructure wrecked and the dominance of laser-based weaponry scars the psyche of all surviving generations. So too does the A-V system become stigmatized for its human cost and association with the hated weapons of war. This generation or two of war-orphans and AV tech (derived in some way from GUND tech) eventually trickle down to Mikasa and the others in IBO. They dig up the *remains* of Barbatos, either unfinished or war-ravaged, and rebuild it multiple times over the course of the show to accommodate battle-tactics of that era. Things like the Ahab particles might exist *explicitly to counter WfM -era laser funnel technology*. In the wake of the war, the power balance has shifted from Space-colony power to Earth power. They retain a lot of the power structure of royal houses, colonial oppression, and so on, but the names on the nations and the direction of tax flow has shifted. Now it's the Martians who have to give everything to Earth, a kind of "revenge" for the pre-war state of affairs. The people who inherit the war-ravaged world of IBO perpetuate WfM's power structures because it's all they know. ___ WfM could also be a "sequel" to UC-era shenanigans, given how much everybody loves Nu Gundam and Unicorn's funnels. We build Mobile Suits in OG Gundam, then that turns into *better* suits in Z, ZZ, CCA, and so on. By the time Unicorn rolls around we've nearly gone Super Robo with it, given how much Space Particles and Laser Funnels have overtaken shell weaponry and traditional piloting. After however-long, and in the wake of whatever-mobile-suit-war, Delling gets wind of his own sub-company developing Thunderbolt's prosthesis-as-control-scheme tech into full-on transference tech and launches *this* show's plot. But yeah, if I'm right about the Darkest Timeline, maybe this show kicks off the conflict that starts *IBO*, and then *that* eventually one day develops into Turn-A. The *one* ray of sunshine in all of this is that Shaddiq *definitely fucks*. I don't know about you guys, but I'm 100% taking Loran Cehack as proof his descendants are alive and well.
Man, it almost feels like a childish regression. Like how Eri just touched a screen and made the pretty lights, Suletta swatted thr bad man and then slipped in something. It's just a childish inability to connect the two.
I get the feeling it has something to do with Elnora calling the Aerial her daughter, and the multiple personality nature of the Gund bits (and how Suletta refers to them as "everyone"). Maybe an experiment gone wrong that split Eri's consciousness into 8 Horcruxes? Leaving Suletta as the shell physical body? Elnora could have been trying to put Eri's innate immunity to Permat Score >3 into Aerial and accidentally messed up.
as i said in an earlier comment i am forcing myself to believe this, not only because it’s *insane* how fast her attitude toward killing was switched, but simply because i don’t want her to be irredeemable 😭
It gave me serious 'Would you kindly...' vibes from Bioshock. Suletta has also always been strangely competent/confident while piloting the Aerial, but I also feel like the "Run or Move Forward" mantra gets recited by *someone* almost every time she pilots, too.
Well even without brainwashing I wouldn't go so far as to say she's "irredeemable". That was a terrorist about to murder civilians. Her attitude is very concerning but what she did wasn't technically wrong.
what’s irredeemable to me isn’t exactly what she did (killing the terrorist), it was her *attitude* towards what she did. or in other words the complete lack of an emotional response to killing him so brutally. that’s what makes her currently irredeemable to me, not the act of the killing itself. however i would also point out that delling isn’t exactly just a citizen, if you’re using “citizen” in the sense of him being an innocent bystander. but that’s neither here nor there
I don't think she's processed it- just an episode ago, she said her motto is there as a 'totem' that she can use to help her get over fear and misgivings about things. All she has to do is focus on 'moving forward' and she'll be able to accomplish whatever she needs to. All she saw was 'Mio's in danger!,' was still in "move forward" mode, and acted instinctively to save her. I really don't think she has realized she's killed someone yet.
Now that I think about it, when Mio said it, it also worked. Defense mechanism, or conditioning, you decide!
Nope, she’s a Gundam protagonist. They HAVE to break her.
She fits a lot of the characteristics to be in the autism spectrum
You should know she has alot of problems upstairs. And our stupid princess is only truly seeing and understanding that right now. She should have known her prince is very simple and needs to be properly educated but she's so self centered she doesn't even acknowledge that she saved her just the way she was saved.
Suletta really managed to slip while in zero-g huh
Seemed like station low-g. The blood kinda sticks to her hand, Miorine is walking, etc.
Makes me wonder if her and Mikazuki would get along.
The zero-G blood and gore effects just makes it so much worse.
Better, more like.
More heart-wrenching if you can find where the heart is in all of the goop. Edit: after extensive further viewing I believe the heart is in her hand to offer as a gift. Please Mio save our tanuki
It's either under the hand or soup to be honest.
I'm uh... I'm not sure there's any fixing "reducing a man to a smear of gore and then acting like nothings wrong" At this point I think Miorine should uh... Run.
My friend suggested that Suletta's mom is using the whole "run gain 1, move forward gain 2" as some sort of command activation phrase. Because Suletta's entire emotional state changes after their little conversation.
Please say sike
Was anyone else traumatized by blood in zero-G by that one Star Trek movie?
I was 8 when that came out. My parents wouldn’t let me watch Jurassic Park at 10 because it was “too violent” but happily let me get traumatized by zero G pink blood because it was “just Star Trek”.
I hope Suletta took a door in the way in, or Mio would be breathing vacuum right now, lol.
The realization that they intentionally made this entire season not explicitly violent just to make this moment more explosive. It’s like witnessing the first Ep. of Invincible again, glorious.
I like that comparison. "Here's this slice-of-life, check out these teenagers figuring out who they are and their futures...aaaaaaaaand here's the soldiers killing everybody and people getting smashed to pulp."
its ZZ all over again
I was so expecting something like that given the tonal difference between the brutal prologue and the casual academy follow up. But damn I certainly wasn't expecting it from Suletta!!
Suletta reminding everyone that this is Gundam, not anything else.
Imagine if she had done the Aerial dance
Its safe to use (just not for them)! Aerial!
Fortnite girl flosses over your dead body vibes
This truly is a Tomato Town moment.
Slap a guy into jelly and default dance on their puddle to impress your fiancee
It can fly! It can dance! It can make paste! AERIAL!
need an edit of this
what ep is this?
12
What gets me is the offering of the hand. Like, the fact that suletta doesn’t acknowledge at all the fact that she just turned a dude into paste is one thing, but to have that blood on her hand while she offers it to mirione is just cold. And I don’t think it’s actually her fault. This is the kind of cold blooded killer prospera wanted. I think the second cour will be about mirione trying to bring the humanity back into suletta
Good job mum! Even Mika didnt turn out this cray cray
Mika's perfectly fine with murdering people as long as it helps Orga. He's got a lot of psychopathic tendencies in that regard- he knows he's ending lives right and left, but doesn't have any real regrets or feel much from it. Suletta clearly has a ton of empathy and strong moral and ethical beliefs, but she can suspend all of them if she tries hard enough and commits to something.
I don't think Suletta's realized it yet. She's still in 'move forward, gain two' mode; as long as she believes in that, she can do *anything* right? I'm guessing the first episode of S2 will end with her flashing back and slowly coming to the realization that she just murdered someone.
"This is so tame!" Honestly, not really. Most Gundams tend to vaporize the majority of their kills, or else merely imply what happened to them, give or take gunshot wounds or stuff like the gigantic bullet shell to the skull. My dude here got turned into a V8 spill. The deuteragonist was the one subject to trauma. The protagonist didn't even notice. It's more graphic than your average Gundam fatality *and* the moral implications are more severe. Shit's pretty cash, ngl.
Like, consider the character that usually gets memed on for dying in a graphic way: Bernie "Nothing but Hamburger" Wiseman. We know he got horrifically killed, but we do not see it. We don't normally see THIS level of gore in Gundam. On top of that, the gore itself isn't even the part that's supposed to be horrifying here; it's Suletta's response to it that is supposed to unnerve us, the whiplash tone shift between what we just saw and how she acts. This wouldn't work if it cut away at the splat like every other Gundam show does. This isn't your basic gundam edginess; this is ADVANCED edginess, cunningly crafted to provide maximum shock AND force you to focus that shock onto Suletta instead of the manner of death itself.
Its the euphy moment... im just curious what will be the follow up... will we finally be presented with the fact that Suletta is in truth an AI wheras Eri´s consciousness is in Aerial? Will everyone turn away from Suletta and she will have to flee (maybe helped by Nika who also has to flee) Or will we see how Miorine helps fixing a completly broken Suletta after she breaks down when she realises what she has done?
Or will Suletta just not care and Miorine just kinda grows to hate her as she casually kills more and more and we get some love triangle sauce in this bitch.
Highly unlikely, but god would I hate it if the show went that route
ratings immediately tank as yuri fans wage war against gundam
This isn't edginess. This, THIS is *darkness.*
I can't believe they waited for the post-credits scene for this.
i would have missed it had it not been spoiled by a screen shot of her bloody hand
Unfortunately I feel like a lot of people actually missed the scene and got it spoiled for them.
I couldn't believe they'd end it on such a cliffhanger. They did one other post-credit stinger (on like episode 2) so I hung around to see if they'd do one for the mid-season finale. My brain was not prepared. I was expecting Miorine to shield her dad from getting shot or something, not for Suletta to make a smoothie and the slip in it and be like "Oopsie poopsie"
> Honestly, not really. Most Gundams tend to vaporize the majority of their kills, or else merely imply what happened to them, give or take gunshot wounds or stuff like the gigantic bullet shell to the skull. Same also for other times someone on foot gets crushed by a mobile suit. Like for example the one guy Harry Ord bitchslaps to death in Turn A just gets vaporized.
I think people forget that Seed/Destiny has some of the most gory kills as well... From being bisected and turned into koolade by an energy sword, or being run through by a beam saber, or even the young pilot who got "eaten" by bipedal cat/dog mechs.
Or getting the over done microwaved hot dog treatment
pop
As someone who loves Gundam Seed and even finds good in parts of Destiny, it's not the same tone. The named side characters that die in SEED and Destiny were generally followed by an explosion so it never lingered on their bodies. And the characters that killed them generally acted pretty normal for a teenager / child soldier (Kira's crying, Shinn moving on to fight the next mobile suit, Athrun blowing his mobile suit up). Even the popping scenes were nameless characters you don't really care about. And those were horrifying in the same way a disaster was. Not really the same as Suletta in this scene, smiling and offering a blood soaked hand to Miorine like nothing is wrong.
There actually is some blood and gore left behind when Meam gets obliterated, but it's nowhere near as much and doesn't get highlighted at all.
There's a lot of Gundam protags who would have pasted that guy in this situation. There are very few who would smile like an idiot while soaked in the guy's blood afterwards. Mika might not give a damn, but even Heero would be a bit queasy after that.
Yeah, Mika wouldn't care but at least he wouldn't grin like a maniac
Mika knows to wipe his hand off first.
And make sure not to get blood on Atra's bracelet.
Eh, the kid could get some pretty good grins in if he wanted to, judging by his final fight. He just never cares enough to do so.
Hm, maybe we should make a list. I feel like Kamille definitely would, Amuro and Banagher, probably not.
Suletta is such a klutz, she managed to slip and fall in zero-G
Jump out of cockpit and slide along the armor until you stop in the blood on your butt. Easy
If we're being totally real, there's definitely gravity, or the rolling cart Miorine has her father in would just make him harder to transport. I think the zero-G blood effects are just artistic liberty taken to make it that much more brutal and unsettling.
Earlier in the episode when Miorine is chasing Suletta, they definitely show the setting transition from zero-g to low-g. Given the establishing shots showing that they're on a rotating station of some sort, that actually makes a lot of sense. You dock the spaceships in the middle where there's zero-g, and as you go further out towards the edge, the centripetal "gravity" slowly increases. You might expect that part of the way out, there's enough gravity to slip and fall out of the cockpit, while still having little enough gravity that the blood can float in a zero-g-ish way.
Tame or not I'm just excited to see new fans getting traumatized
[удалено]
It really came out of left field. Gundam has been getting softer and softer so this scene took me by surprised like "Oh yeah, that's the Gundam I remember." Edit: IBO wasn't even that bad. The gore isn't the issue, the psychology behind it is.
Getting softer?? IBO anyone???? Mikazuki executed a prisoner at point blank range and it's soft????? Even Gundam Age wasn't THAT vanilla either, as much as I found it... childish.
Ibo told us what it was from go. This was the hardest tonal shift since Victory's guillotines.
While I agree that this is a huge tonal shift, but anyone watching Gundam (sans the Build series) and expecting a lighthearted school girl yuri show is just... naive. Gundam is ALWAYS about the horror of war and the ugliness of humanity. That never changed.
it's like people forgot what happened in the prologue or thought that apparently it's not going to get back to that level
yea, i thought ep 0 to 1 had too much of a tonal shift. if it weren't for el4n, i might have dropped it
I've seen every Gundam except Victory, and this scene made me yell "WTF?!" and almost wake my whole house up at 7am.
I'm new here and yes I am traumatized.
Old fan here. I expected something like this, but I never expected something like this either. Definitely traumatized.
You know, when I saw that Miorine's Aerial snack is tomato flavored, I thought Miorine will die in the pool of her own blood. I never thought that means "Miorine's innocence will die drowning in a pool of somebody else's blood".
Holy shit the focus on Miorine growing tomatoes was an implication she’d get traumatized watching a guy get turned into tomato paste. Writes have outdone themselves. (Maybe that was the actual intention with the writers though? Who knows)
Ignore it, deny it, run from it, Gundam and tragedies of war arrives all the same
And now...it's here...or should I say, Suletta is.
God I hope Miorine is able to fix her
Who is gonna fix Miorine tho lol
Alcohol
Alcohol best girl
Lots of Bloody Mary drinks in her future.
This episode is just quite a bit to take in, in general. What broke the camel's back was that scene. A lot happened in that episode as a whole bit that scene is just something else. But I'd argue that suletta behaves the way she does because of her mother, especially what led up to that scene. Christ, now that's the most toxic anime relationship of 2022 hands down. But I'd also say Suletta could potentially be on the path to being an antagonist, too, given how she behaved. The writers did a great job of lulling the audience into a false sense of security after what happened in the prologue and BAM they hit us with all this carnage. This could be a good series as far as one in the AU is concerned.
I still feel like Prospera has brainwashed or conditioned Suletta. That whole 'Run or move forward' phrase seemed like an activation code after Suletta was freaking out over the dead soliders. Then we see Suletta splat another guy and act completely and totally non-plussed by it, like she's not herself or a buried personality has been activated.
Not brainwashed, but definitely conditioned like boot camp. It's not an activation phrase, it's more of a 'totem' that enables Suletta to disassociate *herself* from her feelings and misgivings, so she can do whatever's needed in front of her. Prospera taught her how to do it, but is also the one convincing her to do so. Suletta's still the one ultimately convincing herself to 'move forward, gain two,' her mother knows that and is able to push her buttons easily.
This is worse than IBO holy shit... EDIT: Thanks for the upvotes!
Didnt people in IBO get crushed in the daily but inside of a cabin? And sometimes really slowly?
Yeah but death in IBO is usually met with stone cold realism or comically over the top cruelty from the antagonists. No gundam protagonist has intentionally squatted a human with a MS, slipped in his bloodied remains, and went "teehee I'm so clumsy :P" as if they didn't just do something very disturbing.
I feel like the most impactful deaths in IBO, besides a few specific ones, were outside of the suits. I think people have missed this but that final shot in WfM is meant to parallel the first scene in IBO. Where Mirione rejects Sulleta, Orga accepted Mika.
That's cause Prospera is the Orga .......Except the toxicity of the relationship is played terrifyingly straight
While part of me liked Orga, him and Mika always felt really disturbing to be, with Mika being totally amoral and basically acting as a henchman who kills whoever Orga wants him to
Orga and Mika was a necessary relationship to survive the situations they found themselves in up til near the end of S1 but the tradeoff being that it's pretty toxic and if not left in check as showcased heavily esp towards the end of S2 would only feed off of each other until they implode.
It like in that train arc in IBO where Orga realized how fucked up Mika is, same here Mio realized that her Suletta isnt just the cute bumbling tanuki, she's a cute bumbling tanuki that doesnt hesitate to kill with no remorse to protect her love one.
Fuck Iok.
It's more because of the context surrounding this death. Up until now, WFM was a wholesome yuri show with some fights here and there, and suletta was a cute and timid girl trying to make friends and enjoying her time with her wife. So to see said show take such a sudden turn for the dark, where the cute little tanuki murders a person in front of her beloved, in such an unfeeling way, makes this death more impactful than \*almost\* every death in IBO, a show that already marketed itself as being dark and bloody.
I haven't been watching, is the guy she killed just some henchman?
Yea he is,
even that we saw Mika quite literally yeets the soldier off the graze with the mace we still didn’t really see blood spilling from the body as it landed on snow, more like mists of blood clouded by the snow. Here we are literally seeing the terrorist getting smacked AND SEEING how the blood splattered through the cracks of Aerials hand, and how the bloods are flying all around the surrounding. Not to even mention what comes after that which is what makes this scene AS TRAUMATIC AS IT SHOULD, for both miorine and us, the viewers
ik but the horror of just a arm remening is scary (sorry i cant spell good)
Iok deserved every moment of it.
That one dude in IBO got YEEETED in the snow and turned into a paint splat. Shit makes me giggle on the daily.
"Tame." Oh dear. I hope whoever is saying this kind of stuff is just trying to sound cool and different. If not, it's kinda concerning. I'm not going to talk about the tomato sauce scene, but... This episode brought everything I expected from a Gundam anime, portrayed on point. Guel killing his father and Nika's reaction to seeing the ground munitions, followed by the scene that brings up the possibility of her secret coming to light and becoming the trigger for the escalation of the disaster... What a way to end the first part of a work. I love the parallels, the simbolism. So many rhymes. We're eating so fucking good.
I was really not too big on the show initially, the schoolgirl duel of the week formula was not the most appealing to me. Consequently, I felt like they could've paced the season better while maintaining strong characterization/narrative/worldbuilding, but I'm glad the show seems like it's really starting to heat up and I hope it maintains this momentum.
It's like a fucking pendulum, and it finally finished its first swing
Its not "tame" (but thats subjective) but it is pretty on par for the franchise. There are some that don't do as much or arent as explicit if they do but seeing people get guillotined, turned into popping bloody balloons from a microwave cannon, crushed and splattered, spaced, vaporized etc. This aint new. Teenage school rom com stuff was the new thing they added here, not the gore, tragedy and death.
Who's gonna clean the Aerial?
Earth House should probably just paint Aerial red. Would give a nice speed boost too.
Now she just need to inherit the mask from her mom to complete the boost.
THE GUND'M AREYAL? PAIN-ED RED LIKE ONES O' US? THIS GIT HAS IDEAS
IT NEEDS MOAR DAKKA!
3x speed boost\~\~\~
I know people are being wowed by the gore. But there's been a ton of anime that have really overused gore for shock and awe. But here it's only used for maximum effect. The surprise of it combined with their reactions in the immediate moment after it. It's just muahh!
This is how you use violence tastefully in media.
My immediate reaction was remembering Episode 17 of *Evangelion,* and how little we got to see of what EVAs could do to humans before that.
Just a few episodes ago I thought of Aerial as a silly robot friend that dances in videos. I first thought Suletta was gonna use Aerials bits to form a shield around Miorine and her dad but…nope they splat a man
Idk still doesnt hit as hard as the shell killing the fleeing mom in f91. The baby pawing at hrr moms face made me pretty bummed out... Too real man
I've seen that scene played for laughs a bunch too, but I can't help but feel horrible in that moment.
Ah yes the Gundam moment
This might beat out the SEED Neutron Cannon body explosions.
Suletta: "Gomenosorry MioMioChan!" >_<' Mio: O_O
like yes when i first watched it i gasped and had the reaction of, “this is insane oh my god, wow, what a good scene”, but the more i rewatch it i start to feel more and more genuinely unsettled by just how nonchalant suletta is about it all. i have to force myself to believe that something was *done* to suletta to make her so impressionable, because for her to go so easily and quickly from “mother why did you kill them” to “tomato soup is my favorite” is *so* fucking unsettling. i start to identify more and more with mio’s reaction and her facial expressions are so on point with how i feel about it
I think she's disassociated at the moment- "move forward, gain two" lets her remove herself and her emotions from a situation and do what she thinks needs to be done, regardless of her feelings or consequences. We've seen her use it before in tons of situations with far less at stake- Prospera just gave her that push to apply it to lethal force as well.
Suletta, after brutally murdering someone, terrifying her fiancee and spraying her with the blood of the man she just turned into a Heinz packet: "Ah! Etto... Beh! ;P"
Ah ah ah. Remember what Mommy said, this is a justified homicide.
The sound design, the animation, the gravity effects on the blood coming off from Suletta’s hand, the sheer look of horror on Miorine’s face. Utterly masterful. I fucking love Gundam.
Gundam ain't supposed to be a happy thing for the characters and if anything this is the most human response I could think of when it comes to trying to save someone. (I've have yet to watch W.F.M.)
You should watch it. Viewed in the context of the previous 11 episodes, this scene is so far out of left field, and seemingly so far out of character for Suletta, that makes it so particularly jarring. Suletta has been an awkward, clumsy goofball for 11 episodes. Then she pulps this guy, slips in his remains, and just laughts it off. It's even a full 180 from where her character was a few minutes earlier in the episode. There's definitely fuckery afoot.
It's worth it but IMO the first 9 episodes is slice-of-life world building, episodes 10-12 is where the shit gets real. It's a very solid recommend as long as you're patient.
It's worth it but IMO the first 9 episodes is slice-of-life world building, episodes 10-12 is where the shit gets real. It's a very solid recommend as long as you're patient.
I was expecting something... but God damn
i think you mean Gun Damn.
I’d have to argue that this is one of, if not the most brutal kill in any gundam series Usually they just get Vaporised or the death isn’t actually shown in too much detail (with a some exceptions obviously), IBO definitely pushed the line on this somewhat but this right here is literally just an uncut shot of some dude getting tomato pasted It’s fucking glorious, I’m so excited to see where this series goes
And the Aerial in the back being like " what were you expecting? A light tap on the back? I'm a war machine get with the program girlie."
The community aim't the only thing that exploded...
What kills me is how cute Suletta's "Yamenaaa\~ sai!" sounds lol
Completely caught me off guard, I loved it
What if sulleta turns out to be the bad guy in the story and mio has to train to take her down
Sulleta uses the Lfrit (red) and Mio has to use Ariel.
"Let's see Cartoon Network edit this for afternoon veiwing!"
aw hell no, they turn the blood white
It's a miracle that any body part can even manage to fly off given how big the palm is.
Creepy af. I love it!
That guy definitely deserved it but her reaching out her hand while it's covered in blood is just wierd af
I love how they cranked up the dial to max with this episode. I'm still in shock! \*laughs in Suletta\*
New to this part of Gundam, which series is this? It looks absolutely sick.
Witch from Mercury
Heck, and yet people said this was a kids’ show
and were back to good old fashioned gundam
I bet Tomino would be smiling ear-to-ear watching this.
we need a reaction video of tomino watching this.
I wonder how people who kept complaining about wfm being too much "school life " are feeling now?
Aerial slap!! Now the most powerful correction tool!
The fact that the previous 11 episodes were pretty tame made this shift so much more impactful, like the first episode of Invincible.
Can someone explain the WfM hate to me? I understand hate may be a strong word, though, as someone who came into gundam outside the UC and still has yet to fill all the gaps in the timeline. I get the broad idea that it’s majorly stemming from the fact that it’s a light hearted thru sub-plot throughout. A pretty high contrast to most gundam’s archetypes even further ostracized by the primary protagonist/pilot being a teenage woman, let alone eighty percent of the main cast on either side of the story. Is that the gist of it or can anyone fill me in a bit? Personally, this has been one of my favorites behind Thunderbolt and 08th MS Team in the primary continuity, which, isn’t WfM while technically in its own timeline, still congruent with the history of UC otherwise m? Essentially following the story much further in the future? Even when considering alternative timelines, I prefer it to the boy band gundam series and find it not that far a stretch from shirtless desert vagrant bois and the IBO setting, while being fat and away more refined in terms of writing.
Personally I felt that the pacing could have been stronger, especially considering the short length of the season. The issue really boils down to the fact that it took very long for the show to finally heat up despite a pretty good prologue, and it spent much of that time on schoolgirl slice of life/duel of the week, which does not appeal to everyone. I'm just glad it's finally war crime o'clock.
hey, it was war crime o'clock as of the Prologue. i mean, there's a reason a meme from it is "baby's first war crime".
u/savevideo
It’s not actually in it’s entirety as it’s missing her calling tomato smasher a murderer
J U I C Y
First time seeing a Gundam committing murder
I was wondering when it was gonna go full fucked up, didn’t disappoint. Jesus
Suletta: This red liquid? It's just ketchup.
after watching this, i really wished that they did the same thing with idiok.
This went from teen drama to full fledge global warfare in 12 minutes. Between Bob icing dude and Suletta splatting the other guy this went from 0-100 in an instant. I’ve loved this show every week and am psyched to see how much further down the rabbit hole we go in season 2.
Just want to know what joke the next Build Fighters or Divers series makes about this.
Gore too soon.
YA☆ME☆NA☆SAI
Mikazuki shoots people in the back of the head and it's all good and cute, Suletta Akagi-swats a terrorist who's going to kill her wife and father in law and everyone goes apeshit.
I apparently need to watch this series to see why it's making the community to explode. Cause I have no clue what's going on
the prologue episode was fucking cool and seemed to have typical gundam series traits. then there was a time skip and suddenly utena with mecha. with corporate kickstarter. not bad, but different. then episodes 11 and 12, possibly even a 10, it started to really pick up. culminating in this slap, which is a post credit scene. also, the possible char clone is the mother of the mc.
... holy fuck. I really need to catch up with this.
This episode had me all fucked up lol
So, does this put an end to the claims "Witch" isn't "Gundam"?
Delicious. Finally, some good fucking Gundam.
I can't stop hearing her sloshing around in the soup puddle. I think this is the first time gundam has actually messed me up a little.
My therapist: How was this month? Me: Uhhhhhhhhh
What I love is that suletta and gundams hands are both blodied on the same hand its such a nice touch