Finally Finished Turn A Gundam - more thoughts and Spoilers
Anthony D. Baranyi
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The strength and appeal of "Turn A Gundam" rests in its characters, both
major and supporting. Battle scenes are battle scenes, and there are only so
many turns that a plot can take, but when characters are convincingly
developed all of the other factors in a story are enhanced.
Of course, the story turns around Rolan, Diana and Kiel. Rolan is not just a
reluctant hero, he is very much the opposite of a "type A male". He adores
Diana almost as a goddess and wants peace as much to allow him to serve her
as for any other reason. So it is fascinating to see his character develop
and grow up, particularly once he realizes that Diana is masquerading as
Kiel. One of the great, quiet scenes in the series comes out at the end of
one of the middle episodes, at which point Rolan and Diana dance without
music under the starlight. But even then there is always a social gap
between the two, which shows up in the final, enigmatic scenes.
Time passes after the final battle and the people of the Earth and the Moon
start to find ways to live and prosper together. Rolan goes back to being
the Heim family chauffeur, despite being the hero who won the final battle.
Kiel eventually goes back to the Moon as "Diana", and Diana goes off as
"Kiel" with Rolan. We see fragments of their quiet life together in their
isolated retreat - Diana wears a wedding band, but Roland continues to serve
her. Diana appears to be more fragile, and Rolan watches out for her more
closely. Finally, in the very last scene, Rolan puts Diana to bed and wishes
good night, but he doesn't go to bed with her, despite the wedding band.
Although they may be married, they aren't really husband and wife, and
probably can't be due to their social relationship.
Kiel isn't quite as well developed, because the story spends much more time
on Diana. But we do get the hints early on as to why Kiel is able to take
over the role of Queen so readily. Kiel was also born to a powerful, landed
family, only not of the same political stature as Diana. And as in most
feudal societies, Kiel was faced with being slotted into the only acceptable
roles for a "respectable" woman - daughter/wife/mother. She tried to get
around that at first by becoming an aid to Gwen in his political
machinations, but got her real chance once the "mirror game" with Diana got
out of control. Never-the-less, we do see Kiel's influence on the position
of Queen - while her initial vision is quite similar to that of Diana, she
eventually develops her own perspective, which is firmer and more decisive
than Diana's.
The secondary characters aid dramatically in the development of the main
characters. Soshie, Diana's younger sister, is the true tragic figure in the
story. She is the same age as Rolan, ( Kiel is two years older ) and feels
that Rolan is "hers" to win, particularly when Diana takes an interest in
Gwen. Therefore it is hard on Soshie as Rolan becomes more attached to
"Kiel", particularly after he finds out that it is Diana masquerading as
Kiel. Soshie watches as Rolan eventually falls in love with Diana and is she
is frustrated that she can't do anything about it. Her last meeting with
Rolan is especially poignant - Rolan is taking "Kiel" away and kisses Soshie
goodbye on the lips for the first and last time, while Diana looks the other
way from inside the car. Soshie has grown up and no longer is the tomboy
mecha pilot of most of the series - she is now an elegant and beautiful
woman, but she has lost the man whom she loved. Soshie later rides her bike
off to the river where she and Kiel first met Rolan and throws away his fish
keepsake, all the while crying out her anguish.
The other characters get off more gently. Harry, the suave, ever loyal
captain of the Queen's guard learns early on that Kiel is masquerading as
Diana. But he lets it go, because she is doing the right job. Later, when
Kiel confesses her love for Harry, he is oblique in his answer - he says
that it is his "duty" to love and obey the "Queen", but he then kisses Kiel
fully on the lips. Harry then also tells Kiel how he can tell her and Diana
apart - he sees Diana as always being a little sad, while Kiel is always a
little lively. But Harry accepts Kiel in the role - essentially Kiel has
"become" the Queen, and Harry adjusts his perspective to accept his role of
Consort to the new "Diana".
Gwen is one of the odder figures in the story. He is essentially a "modern"
man in a feudal world, and as such, doesn't quite fit in as well as his
ambitions would hope. He sees himself as the grand leader, and has the
smarts to be so in a modern society, but in the feudal society of Earth, he
lacks a key leadership factor - Gwen isn't a "warrior". This means that
while his Militia leaders acknowledge his Machiavellian intelligence, they
don't respect him, because they want a war leader. The same thing happens to
Diana at first - her military forces have trouble backing her because they
don't feel that she is a "soldier". But this changes when Kiel takes charge
as "Diana" and leads the forces into battle.
The other odd thing about Gwen is his obsession with Rolan, who he insists
on calling "Laura". Right to the end Gwen can't accept that Rolan is a guy -
the final scene with Lily of Louisiana shaking her head in disbelieve at
Gwen's insistence can be compared with the final scene in "Some Like it Hot"
when Jack Lemon can't convince Joe E. Brown that they can't get married. Yet
Gwen doesn't come over as gay - instead he is probably just too
self-centered to accept any reality other than his own. The final scene of
Gwen, now with a beard and sailing in some distant sea, with the equally odd
Marybell ( now dressed normally instead of in her clown-like outfit ),
suggests that Gwen has found someone equally odd enough to care about.
Lily is probably my favorite character in the series. She is so
self-confident, high-spirited and energetic that she leaves everyone around
her in the dust. She is the only daughter of the ruler of Louisiana, and
effectively "rules from the field" in her father's place. And there is no
doubt in the minds of her troops that she is in charge - she even leads the
Louisiana troops into the final attack, all the while totally maintaining
her style as she wears her May West outfits and colorful parasol. Lily does
go after Gwen every so often, but this is as much just to compete for the
hell of it with Kiel as anything else. So when Gwen runs off at the end with
Marybell, Lily is more puzzled than anything else. She essentially shrugs
and goes off to do other "interesting" things.
One of the oddest scenes with Lily is near the end, when she sits alone in a
room in Diana's castle on the Moon, drinking some Moon tea that she finds
totally delightful. Lily repeatedly takes a sit, giggles to herself about
how good it tastes, then takes another sip. The scene is very reminiscent of
the scenes of Tomoyo in CCS watching her home movies of Sakura. If you want
to know what a grown up Tomoyo would be like, Lily is probably a good
example.
Dave Baranyi
Rodrick Su
news:64mp9.8763$vX....@news04.bloor.is.net.cable.rogers.com:
> Some more thoughts, and lots of character spoilers for "Turn A Gundam"
>
> S
> P
> O
> I
> L
> E
> R
>
> S
> P
> A
> C
> E
>
> The other characters get off more gently. Harry, the suave, ever loyal
> captain of the Queen's guard learns early on that Kiel is masquerading
> as Diana. But he lets it go, because she is doing the right job.
> Later, when Kiel confesses her love for Harry, he is oblique in his
> answer - he says that it is his "duty" to love and obey the "Queen",
> but he then kisses Kiel fully on the lips. Harry then also tells Kiel
> how he can tell her and Diana apart - he sees Diana as always being a
> little sad, while Kiel is always a little lively. But Harry accepts
> Kiel in the role - essentially Kiel has "become" the Queen, and Harry
> adjusts his perspective to accept his role of Consort to the new
> "Diana".
Harry Ord is the ONLY mask (his large sunglasses sort of double as a
mask) character of Gundam who didn't turn against his superior. Char
Aznable (Gundam), Kycilia Zabi (Gundam), Karozo Ronah (F91), Chronicle
Asher (Victory), Zechs Merquise (Wing). Since he was sort of build as a
Char clone, his absolute devotion to both his duty and role comes as a
pleasant surprise (and sort of tweak Gundam fans' expectation). (yes, I
didn't count Schwarz Bruder from G Gundam, but he didn't have a superior
to betray.
Anthony D. Baranyi
"Rodrick Su" <r...@tigana.com> wrote in message
news:Xns92A3C1534BC...@64.152.81.183...
Actually, they aren't sunglasses, but a fairly high-tech vision system with
various data screens built in. ( Thank goodness for a very large hi-def TV
screen to check out the small, quick details. )
>character of Gundam who didn't turn against his superior. Char
> Aznable (Gundam), Kycilia Zabi (Gundam), Karozo Ronah (F91), Chronicle
> Asher (Victory), Zechs Merquise (Wing). Since he was sort of build as a
> Char clone, his absolute devotion to both his duty and role comes as a
> pleasant surprise (and sort of tweak Gundam fans' expectation).
One of the great advantages of not being a Gundam fan is that I was able to
take everything in Turn A at face value and judge it as an independent
effort.
Dave Baranyi
Leaping Larry Jojo
> Some more thoughts, and lots of character spoilers for "Turn A Gundam"
>
> S
> P
> O
> I
> L
> E
> R
>
> S
> P
> A
> C
> E
>
>
> Time passes after the final battle and the people of the Earth and the Moon
> start to find ways to live and prosper together. Rolan goes back to being
> the Heim family chauffeur, despite being the hero who won the final battle.
> Kiel eventually goes back to the Moon as "Diana", and Diana goes off as
> "Kiel" with Rolan. We see fragments of their quiet life together in their
> isolated retreat - Diana wears a wedding band, but Roland continues to serve
> her. Diana appears to be more fragile,
I believe Diana plans to live out her last years of life. Wasn't she
kept alive through cryogenics and deep sleep?
> Kiel isn't quite as well developed, because the story spends much more time
> on Diana. But we do get the hints early on as to why Kiel is able to take
> over the role of Queen so readily. Kiel was also born to a powerful, landed
> family, only not of the same political stature as Diana. And as in most
> feudal societies, Kiel was faced with being slotted into the only acceptable
> roles for a "respectable" woman - daughter/wife/mother. She tried to get
> around that at first by becoming an aid to Gwen in his political
> machinations, but got her real chance once the "mirror game" with Diana got
> out of control. Never-the-less, we do see Kiel's influence on the position
> of Queen - while her initial vision is quite similar to that of Diana, she
> eventually develops her own perspective, which is firmer and more decisive
> than Diana's.
I think Kiel's youth is to her advantage. She's more decisive than
Diana, but she isn't as wise. I felt that Diana may have been a firm
and headstrong ruler once upon a time, but she seems to have tired of
politics by the time this show has started. Hence, Diana is probably a
very capable ruler, (as shown by her brief spurts of decisive
authority) but ultimately tired and disillusioned with the endless
cycles of war that accompanies her position. I really thought that
Tomino did a good job with the complexity of Diana, even if she
doesn't have the idiosyncrasies to be a "favourite" character of fans.
>
> Lily is probably my favorite character in the series. She is so
> self-confident, high-spirited and energetic that she leaves everyone around
> her in the dust. She is the only daughter of the ruler of Louisiana, and
> effectively "rules from the field" in her father's place. And there is no
> doubt in the minds of her troops that she is in charge - she even leads the
> Louisiana troops into the final attack, all the while totally maintaining
> her style as she wears her May West outfits and colorful parasol. Lily does
> go after Gwen every so often, but this is as much just to compete for the
> hell of it with Kiel as anything else. So when Gwen runs off at the end with
> Marybell, Lily is more puzzled than anything else. She essentially shrugs
> and goes off to do other "interesting" things.
Lily seemed to lose interest in Gwen about 3/4 of the way through the
series.
> One of the oddest scenes with Lily is near the end, when she sits alone in a
> room in Diana's castle on the Moon, drinking some Moon tea that she finds
> totally delightful. Lily repeatedly takes a sit, giggles to herself about
> how good it tastes, then takes another sip. The scene is very reminiscent of
> the scenes of Tomoyo in CCS watching her home movies of Sakura. If you want
> to know what a grown up Tomoyo would be like, Lily is probably a good
> example.
Good thought. It never occurred to me how similar she might be to
Tomoyo. She seems just slightly more cunning than Tomoyo, but then,
she is older, so it might very well be exactly how Tomoyo would grow
up to be.
Jojo
Anthony D. Baranyi
"Leaping Larry Jojo" <macr...@excite.com> wrote in message
news:8fd15176.02101...@posting.google.com...
Correct - despite her looks, she is several centuries old.
In keeping with my thesis about the feudal aspects of the two societies,
Diana's actions bring to mind the last few years of Louis X of France, who
went on one last crusade to Egypt, with no real hope of any significant
success, but with something of a wish to achieve sainthood out of it, which
he eventually did.
> >
> > Lily is probably my favorite character in the series. She is so
> > self-confident, high-spirited and energetic that she leaves everyone
around
> > her in the dust. She is the only daughter of the ruler of Louisiana, and
> > effectively "rules from the field" in her father's place. And there is
no
> > doubt in the minds of her troops that she is in charge - she even leads
the
> > Louisiana troops into the final attack, all the while totally
maintaining
> > her style as she wears her May West outfits and colorful parasol. Lily
does
> > go after Gwen every so often, but this is as much just to compete for
the
> > hell of it with Kiel as anything else. So when Gwen runs off at the end
with
> > Marybell, Lily is more puzzled than anything else. She essentially
shrugs
> > and goes off to do other "interesting" things.
>
> Lily seemed to lose interest in Gwen about 3/4 of the way through the
> series.
>
I think that Lily gets tired of Gwen being so focussed on his politics -
Lily isn't the sort to wait around for attention too long.
>
> > One of the oddest scenes with Lily is near the end, when she sits alone
in a
> > room in Diana's castle on the Moon, drinking some Moon tea that she
finds
> > totally delightful. Lily repeatedly takes a sip, giggles to herself
about
> > how good it tastes, then takes another sip. The scene is very
reminiscent of
> > the scenes of Tomoyo in CCS watching her home movies of Sakura. If you
want
> > to know what a grown up Tomoyo would be like, Lily is probably a good
> > example.
>
> Good thought. It never occurred to me how similar she might be to
> Tomoyo. She seems just slightly more cunning than Tomoyo, but then,
> she is older, so it might very well be exactly how Tomoyo would grow
> up to be.
>
If Lily ever got really focussed she could be that time's Catherine the
Great.
Dave Baranyi