You're listening to season 10 of Mobile Suit Breakdown, a weekly podcast covering the entirety of sci fi mega franchise Mobile suit Gundam from 1979 to today.
This is episode 10.50. The songs that remind them of the good times and we are your hosts. I'm Tom and.
And what?
Just and it conveys the limitless possibilities of life.
And I'm Mina. Almost done with Victory Gundam and wondering about the age cut off for that big dramatic battle sequence.
Would the old man Polycule be shooing me off the ship or shoving me into a half functional Mobile suit?
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CC Caleb H& Absolute aggressor. You keep us Genki this Week Victory.
Episode 50 Nikishimi ga Yobu Taiketsu aka a showdown demanded by Hate the episode was written by Oka Akira, who now finishes his run on the show. Though not credited as Victory's lead writer, Oka was responsible for writing 25 of Victory's 51 episodes. He will return for G Gundam. Yamamoto Yusuke drew the storyboards and directed the episode marking his final contributions to Victory and the mainline Gundam series, but we'll see him again for SD Gundam Force in the early 2000s. His career took off after that, and he served as chief director on shows like welcome to the NHK and Nights and Magic Joint Animation directors Itakura Kazuhiro and Shinbo Tokuro of animation studio Nakamura Pro are also signing off after this. Shinbo will return for G Gundam, but Itakura is joining the staff of rival Sunrise Mechashow J. Decker and as mechanical animation director. Now the recap. One more push. That should be all it takes to break through the crumbling Sugen and Motorrad fleets and strike at the heart of the Angel Halo. But what then? When USO lands on the Jeanne d' Arc to resupply before the next sortie, Hangaerg orders him to destroy the Halo's Key Room. Do this and humanity will survive at the price of 20,000 dead psychicers. Boduso and Shaak Ti have their own plan. Once they breach the Halo's defenses, Shaak Ti can take control of the Key Chamber and use her powers to dismantle the weapon. One more push. The exhausted joint Federation League fleet climbs out of the cloud bank to meet the Imperials.
In the thin air of the upper.
Atmosphere, the fire blossoms like flowers in the space between the two battle lines. As the first wave of mobile suits crashes into the outermost defense line. Even the mighty tires of Zanskar cannot hold this line. But behind them is a far greater threat. Katagina lose in her Gaterlasen. She opens with a massive beam blast. USO tries to neutralize it with his own Buster cannon, but only manages to scatter the beam, creating a hailstorm of deadly megaparticles too numerous and widespread even for the Wings of Light to absorb. The combined Fleet mobile suits are able to shield themselves, but their ships are caught off guard and take heavy damage. One of the Jeanne d' Arc's engines goes critical, and General Mubarak makes a fateful decision. He orders all trainees and first year soldiers off the ship. Then he and the remaining crew will charge into the heart of the enemy formation. One more push. The flagship can handle that much. And if they can do it, if they can break the back of the Zaanskar line. Don't you want to help those kids.
Any way you can? The old general asks.
But only silence answers him. The man he knows as Jin Jahannam Hangar Guan slipped secretly off the bridge and off the doomed ship as soon as he learned of Mubarak's resolve. But resolve makes for a poor shield. Mubarak is cut down before the Jeanne d' Arc can reach its objective. By none other than the Prince of Zanskar. Chronicle Asher aboard his new rig contio suit. With USO and the V2 busy on the other side of the battlefield, there is no one here to seriously challenge him. News of The Jeanne d' Arc's destruction soon reaches USO's unit, but there's nothing to be done about it now. They've nearly reached the Angel Halo. One more push and they can end it all. While the surviving Shrikes, Connie, Franny and Meliera stand guard outside, USO and Shakti enter the massive structure through a breach in one of the rings. Princess and Pilot reach the control room together. Shaak Ti convinces the technicians to help her use the Angel Halo once more to save the Psychikers and reveal its true power. With one last prayer as she prays, drawing strength from the earth and sending comfort to the embattled souls all around them. The soft sound of Shaakti's song suffuses the battlefield. Everyone who hears it pauses, astonished and delighted by the impossible sound. But for Katazina, the soft song, the soothing energy, it's all torment. It feels like her heart is being gouged out of her chest. She turns her weapons against the Angel Halo. Franny thinks this new attack must mean that Katazina has defected. But when she tries to approach her new ally, Katana turns her fury on the eager young Shrike, crushing her in a single blow and making quick work of her friend Miliera, too. Then the girl from UIG cuts her way into the Angel Halo, intending to kill Shaak Ti and put an end to the this horrible warmth, this agonizing sense of peace. USO is waiting for her outside his mobile suit. He tries to reason with her. She doesn't really believe in Kagati's omnicidal plan, does she? She does. Or perhaps she just doesn't care what happens to the world so long as she can keep her place with Chronicle. And yet, though she has USO at gunpoint, Katajina does not fire, but instead tries to justify herself. USO might still believe he can bring her around if they just talk it out, but Haro, wired into the V2's controls, has no such delusions. The Orb surprises Katajina with a barrage from the V2's head Vulcans, and in the confusion, USO manages to get back into his own cockpit as the boy slips out of her clutches once again. Kara Katagina calls out to Chronicle.
At the other end of the battlefield.
Chronicle slips through the lean Horse's perimeter.
Defenses and is on the verge of.
Destroying its bridge when the psychic pulse from Katazina envelops him. He hesitates just a moment before firing. Time enough for Odello and Tomash to crash a setter transport into the raid. Kantio. The Prince's beam goes wide, striking the ship's engine instead of its bridge. Like the Jeanne d' Arc, it must now eject the engine or risk a catastrophic explosion. And like the Jeanne d' Arc, its commander makes a fateful choice. After coming all this way, it'd be a shame to give up now, after living so many years. Maybe it's time to make peace with their fate. As their young comrades reluctantly abandoned ship, the old men of the Camion team, Captain Gomez of the Federation's Ireland Garrison, and Jin Jahannam, whoever he was before he became the League's figurehead, ready themselves for one more push. Romero even drags a broken down ganeasy out to the flight deck to use like a turret. Zanskar mobile suits swarm over the stricken ship, blasting it to pieces, killing the old man one after another. But they are too late. Even the destruction of the bridge is not enough to stop the Lean Horse's final push. Its beam Ram snaps one battleship like a twig. And the explosion of the two ships together wipes out the rest of the motorad fleet. Now Shaak Ti's prayer reaches its apex. Golden motes shower the battlefield. And warm vibrations embrace all those still fighting. All except for Katajna Cross Chronicle and uso. Prince and Pilot clash, saber to saber and heart to heart. Katajina is intoxicated by the sight. They're fighting over her after all. When Connie, the last Shrike, tries to join the melee, Katagina shoots her down. No one, no one can be allowed to interfere. Not now. Not when she has promised herself forever and ever to the winner. Will they die for love of her? Will they kill on her command? Perhaps if she gives them both just one more push.
This episode has it all.
Dramatic combat, high stakes, psychosexual drama. But I'm gonna be real with you. It is also a huge bummer and I really didn't want to have to close watch it. I didn't want to have to take my notes. I'm finally starting to want to talk about it, but did not after the first time we watched it.
Well, I'm glad you're starting to come around on it. I was gonna propose that maybe we could talk about something else. Something a little less depressing, like when kids get incurable diseases or a puppy shivering in the rain.
Oh God.
Yeah, I knew this was coming. This was one of the few things.
I remembered about the ending of Victory.
From my prior watch through.
So it's memorable.
It is very memorable. And it still gets me every time. Perhaps. I mean, definitely the most emotional I felt watching Victory, and probably the most emotional I've felt watching Gundam in a while. For characters who are not super present in the story for most of the run, I nonetheless felt real attached to the old man Polycule and their heroic last ride into battle. It is a good bit of cinema.
The loss of the old man Polycule.
The death of Franny, who has just barely been a character at all.
Though as Shrikes go, Franny has shown up when she's on screen. I'll say that for her. There is a character there who has expressed herself to us. We basically know what Franny's deal is. Her friend Meliera, not so much. And Connie, despite being the longest surviving Shrike of them all, mad respect for what she's doing out there. She's a good fighter, she's fighting the good fight. But as characters go, not a lot.
To work with There another embarrassing confession. When Miliera is killed I really thought that was Connie. And then when Connie appears later, I was like, wait, aren't you dead?
Wouldn't be the first time that a woman came back from the dead to protect the protagonist. Though they don't usually get mobile suits in which to do it, there were.
A few points where the narrative gets a bit confused. Really beautiful episode. Lots of interesting effects, lots of beautiful sequences, incredible animation on parts of it. But for instance, at the end of the last episode, the Lean Horse Junior had landed on the sea, and yet now suddenly we're in high atmosphere, like just barely inside Earth's atmosphere. And most of the action of this episode takes place in high atmosphere and sort of very slowly descending toward Earth. What? Why? When did we do that?
Well, they have to go to the Angel Halo. They have to go to where the Halo is to bring it down.
But the Angel Halo was also falling to ear.
Well, yes, but I assume in order to get like, effective range to actually blast all the peoples of earth with its 3 billion years reversal ray, the Angel Halo has to be a certain elevation just to be able to get like, good coverage of the ground. So whether the Angel Halo was in the air already or returned to the air for this final operation, either way, the League needs to go and get it.
Okay, but then why have the Lean Horse Junior land on the sea at the end of last episode? Why do that at all?
Well, they needed time to refit, okay? Pick up supplies of water.
You can make excuses for them if you like, but here's one that I know you had a problem with, which is when, from inside Angel Halo, Shakti is doing her Earth Mother thing of the power that dwells in the Earth has begun to envelop us. It then cuts to a bunch of explosions. And it makes it seem when you cut like that, you create the impression that the previous scene caused the subsequent.
The Kuleshov effect, the coolest of all the effects.
So it looks as though the power of the Earth itself is helping Shakti and the psychicurse blow up a bunch of the fleet. That's what it looks like is happening, listeners. That is not what was happening. The Psychikers did not blow up the entire fleet.
You don't know that. Maybe Shaak Ti has finally gotten bloodthirsty. She's using her psychic powers for awesome.
Tom is in a perverse mood today. He's going to disagree with everything I say, apparently.
I mean, I assume what happened there is that that explosion is actually from the Lean Horse Junior taking out the remains of the Motorrad fleet, which is what I think Sugen, Admiral Sugen says immediately after that scene. But then it's only after that that the warm vibrations from Shakti's prayer in the form of flurries of golden snowflakes begin to descend upon the battlefield. So yes, I think the way it has been edited, the way those scenes are cut, does confuse the chronology of events a little bit. But who could get bogged down in the chronology of events when we're dealing with such heroic sacrifices, such a villainous descent into madness For Katagina, it's true.
This episode hand waves a bunch of minor details in favor of minor details.
Like what's going on?
Oh yeah, super minor. When instead we're talking about big issues. Tom, what are you willing to live for? To fight for, to die for?
Absolutely.
Are women crazy?
Okay, for once, for once, for once, this is all about Katagina. This is not a woman problem. This is not a gender issue. This is a Katagina problem.
I think you're wrong. Or at least in as much as the position that this episode takes, I think this is decidedly a woman problem.
You didn't let me finish.
Oh, sorry.
I was going to say that the specific thing that they're saying is wrong with Katagina is, yes, very much feminine coded, but it is not really a woman's problem. It is merely a problem that we treat as though it was a woman's problem. And maybe now we should talk about what that is. Let's get specific. What about Katagina's deal do you think is meant to apply to women as a whole?
There are two things about this. I think most of it is much broader and is really more of an indictment on like Zanskar and the type of people that Zanskar is a stand in for than specifically women or Katagina. But one of the things that points to this being. Well, maybe not. I just remembered a point in favor of your argument, which is that Connie is shocked to find that this particular enemy is a woman. She finds this particular enemy's behavior like anti woman. Like no woman would act this way. No woman would behave this way.
But on the other hand, isn't that an argument for your position that the show has a very restricted idea of what it means to be a woman?
Plus all of the imagery of Katagina's body focuses on symbols of women's sexual power. The hair, the cleavage. Like this is about women using their bodies as a source of power.
Hang on, that's unfair. I was just arguing for your position. You can't switch Back to arguing your own points.
I was the one who brought up that point that I thought was maybe in your favor. So let me just make. Let me say what I'm gonna say.
I just thought we were gonna switch sides and each argue the other one's position. I think that'd be a fun, you know, team building exercise.
Should we swap notebooks so we can see what kind of sense you make of my notes? And I can see what kind of sense I make of your notes.
Well, you won't be able to read mine, so that gives me a huge advantage.
His handwriting's not that bad.
It could be. I could get worse.
We could make you worse. Beyond the symbolism of things like hair and breasts, it is a long running stereotype of women, of a certain type of woman that she wants men to fight over her.
Yeah, and this is what I meant when I said that the Katagina problem, as it's presented in this episode, is very much feminine coded. It is a thing that we typically associate with women, but not, I think, if you break it down to the pure psychology of it, I don't think it has anything to do with gender.
Well, so I theoretically agree with you, but that's in a world with, like, no patriarchy or sexism, which doesn't exist. So, like, that's an interesting theoretical possibility, I guess.
Sideline, while we're here to talk about the patriarchy, isn't it so funny, Kaga being like that idiot Chronicle. He foolishly allowed himself to be lured out in a mobile suit by a woman. This from the guy who was talking about creating a matriarchy in Zanskar.
Well, because he never actually. We'll talk about Chronicle and Cagate later.
What is it with men from Jupiter talking up women while being huge misogynists? This is exactly what Jupiter Headbandio did back in Zeta when he was like, I believe that the next leader of the universal century will be a woman.
Well, what about Katagina talking about how she wants to support Maria ism. And it will be so great to have a woman in charge and then to be like, I am the prize. I am chattel for you to win. Menfolk fight over me. And you know, rewind all the way back to the early parts of this show. Remember Katajina's disdain or disappointment or sadness about her mother and her mother's affair. But how is what Katagina is doing any different? She, like, we don't even know her mother's motives for having the affair in the first place. But here is Katagina wanting to control these two men to make them fight for her amusement, and then offering herself up as a prize. Even though I can't imagine her actually going through with that. Because, oh, you're going to love with all your soul whoever wins. Even a kid like USO who you have repeatedly told him he's a child. Even if USO despises you and never forgives you for the things you've done. Like what even are you talking about?
But in those earlier episodes, didn't it seem like her real problem was not with her mother for running out, but with her father for being so pathetic that her mother would run out, for not going and getting her back, for not caring enough about it, for not being a worthy man. What I think is going on for Katajina is she has critically low self esteem and she gets her affirmation from being desired by these men. The more high status the man who desires her, and the more ardently he does desire her, the better she feels about herself.
But that's what's so sad and pathetic, both in the I find it despicable, but also in the inspires pathos sense. Because she wants this power. She wants the power that derives from having men fight over her, but not for anything. She can't use it to accomplish anything. She has no real goals.
She just wants to feel good about herself. And she never will. Because the problem is internal. And that's why her hunger for this affirmation is. Is never sated. No matter how much she gets, the adoration of USO is worthless to her. Even the love of Prince Chronicle is not enough.
She always wants more.
She always wants to push it farther. And the way she pushes it farther at this point is to say, here are these two men. You must love me enough to be willing to kill for me, to be willing to die for me, for fight each other. Prove how valuable I am to you by fighting over me. And she may say, oh, I'll be, you know, I'll be with whichever one of you wins, I'll belong to you, etc. But whether she means it or not, it's not true. After this, there will be another insatiable hunger for yet another affirmation. And nothing will ever fill that void in her.
We're kind of circling around a point I want to make that applies to Katagina, to Chronicle, and to most of Zanskar that we've seen, with the possible exception of Maria maybe, which is that.
This episode shows us what separates the.
Lieg Militaire and the Federation, many of them from Zanskar. Many of them is that the League Militaire and Federation have higher ideals they're not just willing to fight for, but willing to die for. There is purpose outside of themselves for which they are willing to self sacrifice.
With one very notable exception.
Yeah, we'll talk about that later, don't you worry. But then you have Katagina, who, without thought for how this might play in the rest of the battle, calling out to Chronicle for help for herself personally. Which causes him to miss his shot horse.
Junior credit where it's due, as long as Chronicle is not obliged to fight anyone competent, he can perform quite well.
You know, Chronicle being chased by mobile suits. I'm not going to fight and die here with you. Are you gonna fight and die anywhere? Is anything worth that to you?
You wouldn't do it for your sister.
You know, Shakti, when she starts projecting new prayers out into the universe, she follows Tomino's advice and she keeps things close to personal. She's not thinking that she can end all war forever. She's trying to end this battle right now. And she's not trying to control anyone's behavior. She's not saying stop fighting. She's saying let's make a world where.
People who love each other can be.
Together, can live together, where people can be with the ones closest to them. And Katagina is so discomfited by this emotion coursing through the universe that she starts firing on the angel halo. She starts destroying the thing that ostensibly she's here to protect and help.
She describes Shaki's like warm vibrations as gouging out her heart.
Well, here's the thing. Right after she has that clutching at her chest moment, that's when Franny sees her firing on the angel halo and goes out like, oh, are you changing sides? Are you helping us? Come on. And gets killed for her trouble. And Katagina says, oh, you thought you could frolic over here and be my friend? Katagina has not just no women friends. No friends, period.
Right.
There is not a single person in this world that Katagina would call a loved one, except maybe Chronicle. And not even him, really.
No, not herself, not Chronicle, nobody.
That's why it's gouging her heart out. That world where loved ones can be together. What's for her there? She doesn't have any loved ones.
All it does is make her feel more of what she already feels, which is alone, abandoned, devalued, and her blame of Shakti.
Her line about everywhere I go, you make a fool of me made me realize she feels competitive with Shakti. She feels like Shakti displaced her in some way. Well, it's a possibility because think about it. Shakti shows up and suddenly Shakti is very important to Maria. Shakti shows up and even though she tries to kill Chronicle, Chronicle won't let Katagina kill her.
I see the argument.
I see where you're going.
Shows up. And in a world where before, Katagina could have been the second most important woman in Zanskar, now Shakti is.
Mm. But even if Shakti hadn't been there, I don't think Katagina would have been satisfied or happy. No.
But her desire to blame all of this on other people around her.
Mm. See what I thought was happening there when she's talking to USO and Shakti and she says, chronicle gave me a place, he was kind to me. But you just sneered at that. This is Katajina's own self criticism. This is her own lack of confidence, lack of self esteem, which she is projecting into the mouths of USO and Shakti. She feels bad about herself and so she imagines that everyone around her is constantly judging her for that.
This is another moment that is so illustrative of the like conceitedness and self centeredness of various Zanskar characters. USO confronts her about Kagati's plan and her response is, well, Chronicle made a place for me, like Chronicle made me feel better. And therefore, yeah, it's totally fine that Kagati wants to kill thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions of people. It's all good because I have a place with them.
Well, but even beyond that, she and Kagati share a lot in common. Both of them are Atama Dekachi. Both of them are like, big headed, arrogant, out of touch. Both of them value the lives of the entire human species less than their own personal psychological satisfaction.
Well, in both Katajina and Chronicle describe USO and Shakti, or one or the other of them as, ugh, everywhere I go, you are constantly getting in my way. As though this is personal and not ideological. Like, I'm sorry, sweetie, but I'm pretty sure there's more at play here than just this boy used to have a crush on you.
Do you think Katajina's appeal to Chronicle is that Chronicle spends his whole life surrounded by people with ambitions? It's sort of inevitable in his position as prince that he's going to be surrounded by the powerful and social climbers who want to be powerful, who want to use him as a stepping stone. He's going to be surrounded by the finest young officers of the Zanskar Military Academy. Katajina is the first person to come along who just, like, also doesn't really want anything specific. Both of them have this hunger to prove themselves, but no real ideas, no intentions, nothing that they really want to accomplish. At least nothing that has been conveyed to us through the plot of the show.
I think Katajina's appeal to Chronicle is that he got to save her.
Hmm.
So Katajina makes him feel like a good person, and he really wants to feel like a good person. He just doesn't want to actually do things that would make him a good person. Is that too mean?
No, no, I. I mean, no, I don't think so.
We saw him kind of sorta try, like, wave a hand in that direction, and when it got swatted back, he gave up.
Look, the truth is an absolute defense against slander charges. I actually think in the books, I haven't read all of the Victory novels, but in the books, Katagina gets horribly injured. She's really badly burned. And then Chronicle rescues her and takes her to the hospital and treats her very well during her recovery. So it's even more the case that he saves her and that allows him to feel like a good person, to feel like a savior.
As the series progresses, it becomes clear that she does have expectations of him, and they are beyond his expectations or abilities himself. And I honestly don't. I mean, we are in the heat of battle and everything, but the sort of hints at romance or passion between the two of them ended some time ago.
The most romantic thing he could possibly do for her at this point is to die for her. And maybe he will. While we're talking about Chronicle, side note, there's a cool little detail that the show really does not draw attention to here. But when Chronicle goes out in his Rig Contio mobile suit, he's accompanied by a bunch of Kantios. I choose to believe that these are the same Kantio pilots from Chronicles personal Kantio Squadron that they made such a big deal of back around episode 25 or so before all of the Ainarads were introduced.
I do like the horns on his new mobile suit.
They're pretty cool.
That's pretty cool.
Yeah. And it's nice to see that, like, tiny little background element return here at the end.
There are a couple of moments where other Zomskar generals or captains commanders are commenting about Chronicle and his fleet. Like at the very beginning, someone mentions that Chronicles Adrastia fleet is not moving and I'm like, oh, is Chronicle trying to sabotage those guys? Like, is he being inept on purpose?
No, it seems he's just gone out to fight personally and left his fleet to just hold station, I guess.
Yeah. And then they get destroyed and Sugin's, damn you, Chronicle. How will you make up for this? And me sitting there thinking, oh, I think it's too late for that. I think you are beyond that particular problem.
It is remarkable that Zanskar seems to have no plan except hold the line and try to make the Angel Halo work.
Here's a question. The psychic projection of Shakti makes a couple of comments about USO and Chronicle in this final fight, one of which I think I more or less understand, and one of which I'm like, excuse me, what? What now? First she says, a deep hatred wrapped in kindness is after you. And this is about Chronicle. And I think the deep hatred is that USO has basically been embarrassing him super publicly for 50 episodes at this point, and continually defeating him at stuff. And he hates that.
That's a valid interpretation.
And the wrapped in kindness is about his feelings for Katajina and that Katagina called him over, called to him for help, and that that's why he's there.
Hmm.
Perhaps alternative reading. Maybe Shakti is saying, like, at his core, Chronicle is not a very nice person. There's a superficial layer of kindness, gentility, decorum. He can do nice things for people like Katagina, but at his core, he is mean and embittered and full of hatred.
Well, then how do you make sense of her next comment? That it is the kindness within each of them that made them enemies of each other. I get describing USO as kind and why that has thrown him into conflict with Chronicle, but what kindness and Chronicle has thrown him into conflict with uso?
Well, the kindness that he shows Katajina.
Mmm.
That limited, specific personal kindness.
But it could be broader than Katagina. It could be a kindness that extends to his sister. It could be a kindness that extends to Zans' scar as a whole. This is another way of saying that each of them has things to fight for, things that they believe in and are willing to fight and die for. And because of the conflict between the things to which they have pledged themselves, these two people, who might in civilian life have been at least friendly with each other, are nonetheless forced into this deadly duel. That would at least be what we might call the conventional Gundam message.
I'm not entirely certain the Chronicle would. Well, let me put it this way. Chronicle may die for Katagina but I don't know if it will be his intention.
Hard to know. The show just hasn't given him that many opportunities to display his character. That's sort of unfortunate here. As we reach the end, we lose in this episode a bunch of really interesting characters who got a fair amount of development in that first arc, in the first 10 episodes or so, but have mostly been non presences just chugging along much, occasionally showing up in the background to deliver dialogue that doesn't really expand them much. As characters, they're rarely shown getting into the kind of conflicts that would help to articulate who they are and what they stand for. And this is especially bad on the Zanskar side. So many antagonists of the week and so little time given to people like Chronicle or Katagina, who, especially with Katajina, when she's on screen, she's got the juice, but she's just not around all that often. And when she is, she rarely gets an opportunity to interact with anybody except uso.
We learned a lot more about Katagina when she was with the Kamyon. We learned a lot more about her when she was serving under Lupe Fiasco.
And we learned more about Lupe and the Camion team through their interactions, through their friction with Katagina.
Just reminded me of more things that annoy me about Katagina. She didn't really try to find a place with the commune. She didn't really, because nobody singled her out and made her feel special. She didn't feel welcome. Even though there was plenty to do for anybody with a willingness to do it. She didn't really seem to make any effort to befriend anybody.
By the time she arrived, USO had already been designated special, and I think she was jealous of him. With the benefit of hindsight and what we've learned about her since then, I think a lot of what Katajina had to say about uso, about trying to get him out of the mobile suit, came from a place of jealousy because he was being treated as the special boy. And he's not supposed to be special. He's just the rural bumpkin who watches from outside my window. I'm the pretty one. I'm Katagina of uig. I should be the special one. He's not even supposed to be here. He's an illegal. That's what they call him.
I know. And we see that once she gets hit with the wow. Cool robot, all of her complaints about none of us should be fighting are pretty hollow too.
And once she switches over to Zans' garbage. Thanks to the intervention of Prince Chronicle, she gets to be the special one. She gets special treatment. She gets all the latest mobile suit technology. She gets to have her suit rearmed.
First because she's Chronicles woman.
Something that makes her feel good in the moment, but in the long run only serves to further undermine her already pretty weak sense of self esteem. She's probably got that imposter syndrome, but bad. Which is silly because she's not an imposter. The imposter is Katajina 2's the clone body double that was made of her in a secret lab to ensure that Chronicle would always have an army of little Katajinas running around.
Is that why this one does not have the under normal suit turtleneck?
I was wondering what happened to that. It's in my notes. Bring up the turtleneck.
Oh, me too. Nope. Now she's naked under there.
Well, she was always naked under there.
She's not literally naked. It's a metaphor.
I don't know.
Tomino seems like a no underwear in space kind of guy.
Absolutely. I'm being silly. We've probably complained enough about Kata and by proxy Chronicle. And it's time to talk about the other big topic this episode.
Sacrifice. Who will and who won't.
Hangarg makes no bones about his orders to to USO and Shakti. He says you are to destroy the key room. And before we move on to the substance of his orders, I would like to point out how dismissive Hangurg is towards Shakti here. He asks how she's doing, but he doesn't really care.
Hmm, disagree.
Okay, well, let me continue. Of course, he describes her job as being to guide and help uso. Whereas it's pretty clear from what USO and Shakti do that the two of them at some point come into agreement that the plan is actually Shakti is doing the heavy lifting of this. She is going to save the psychic ers and get the Angel Halo to not be dangerous anymore. USO just has to like, get her there and keep the Angel Halo safe while she does it.
He's just her Uber driver.
Yeah, in a very dangerous Uber situation. But yeah, I felt like Hanger was decidedly dismissive towards Shakti and somewhat uncaring. Though I do wonder when she says he wants me dead, that really feels like an exaggeration. But also, she's a psychic, so maybe not. When she says he thinks I'm the real enemy. If you knew that there was a person who, combined with the right technology, could destroy all, all of humanity pretty easily. Yeah. On some level, you might think it would be better if this person were dead.
Sure.
Well, it's hard to know what to think of Shaak Ti's intuition here, since she has been so wrong so often, but also so right. In the early episodes, Shaak Ti seemed to be perceiving what no one else could see and doing so quite accurately, quite wisely. See, I don't think he's dismissive of Shakti. I think when he first starts talking to her, he seems very solicitous, yet there is obvious emotional strain. Every time he looks at her, he has a facial twitch. Classic animation shorthand for this person is experiencing emotional turmoil. So he's very solicitous when he first talks to her. But then when she rejects his concern, that's when he abruptly turns away from her. I think he believes initially that he'll be able to convince her to go along with his plan, that the key chamber must be destroyed. She's just a child. She's just a girl. She'll agree to do this. And uso? USO is a good little soldier, and his son, USO will definitely follow orders. When it turns out that Shaak Ti will not just accept whatever he says, that's when he turns away from her and back to USO quite sharply, and his whole affect changes. And when he talks to Shakti again later, the kindness does not come back. So I think it's that he thought they were going to go along with him, and so he was willing to put on the mask, the veil of dadness of good old uncle hunger. And when they're not willing to go along, he's back to commander mode. He is Jin Jahannam again.
I did find myself wondering later if USO would have ignored his father's orders even if he didn't think his father was dead, or if there would have been a little more like hand wringing and emotional turmoil expressed over it if he thought his father was still alive. No, but I think he and Shakti had already decided on the plan before they ever talked to Hanger. And he knows he needs to be like, yes, sir. Yes, sir, I will destroy the key room. Sure.
Yes, precisely.
And then he's going to go do what he's going to do.
Mm.
Yeah.
Hanger's argument here is it's 20,000 psychickers, but that it's not worth risking all of humanity for those 20,000 people.
It's a decent argument.
It's a Kagati like argument.
I was also going to point that.
Out because Once you accept this necessary sacrifice framing, you're just haggling over numbers.
Well, what it is, is a trolley problem, which I imagine most of our listeners are familiar with the idea. But if you're not, it's an ethical thought experiment where you imagine that there is a trolley barreling down the tracks. There are 20 people in the way of the trolley. There is a lever you can throw which will send that trolley onto a different track. It will not hit the 20 people, but then it will hit one person. And then the question is, do you throw the lever or not? Do you accept the active responsibility of throwing the lever and dooming one person, or the passive responsibility of not throwing the lever and dooming 20 people? And then, of course, there's a bajillion different variations.
But I really think this kind of gets at the crux of some of what Tomino has said about keeping your power and your decision making within the realm of the personal. Because, you know, and we could argue, you know, what makes the sacrifice of the old man Polycule any different, that is also a sacrifice of a few to ostensibly save many.
And it may not even work. They may sacrifice themselves and not actually save anybody.
And there's the thing we've already talked about with age, right, that they're old, they've lived good lives. You know, there is a time to stop fighting. There's a time to let go and move on. But even more important is that it's their choice. Hanger's not talking about sacrificing himself or anyone close to him. He's talking about 20,000 strangers who he's perfectly happy to sacrifice only to later not be willing to sacrifice himself.
That's the key part of this, because his argument sounds pretty good on paper. Yes, if you have to choose, if you are compelled in some way to choose between killing 20,000 people and killing 10 billion people, yes, 20,000 is a smaller number, that's fewer lives, that's less suffering, etc. But that kind of true binary choice doesn't exist in the world. What exists in the world is a vast cloud of possibilities. And USO rejects the idea of the choice. USO says we're not going to do either.
Remember USO's argument to we will find a better way, and if we don't, someone else will, and it's worth fighting to find a better way.
So, yes, while Hankerg's argument seems good in a vacuum, when push comes to shove and he is personally called upon himself to make a sacrifice for the good of others. He refuses to do so. A person must be willing to make a sacrifice in their own person before they earn the right to ask it of another. You don't necessarily have to sacrifice yourself. You may not be in a position to do so. You may need to live for other reasons, but you have to be willing to make the sacrifice.
Well, part of what is so compelling about Marbet as a character is she's torn between her desire to live and her responsibility to her and Oliver's baby and her responsibility to all these living people who she also wants to protect, and to this mission that she's been on for the entire show. And she's trying her best to honor both responsibilities, and the people around her are trying to support that in whatever way they can. Whereas then with Hunger, when Mubarak says to him, don't you want to help those kids any way you can? Like, oh, we're not going to jettison that engine, we're just going to turn ourselves into a human bomb. Look on hunger's face. I couldn't tell if he was horrified, scared, scared or angry. But it was not a good face.
Don't you want to sacrifice yourself for the good of the kids? Don't you want to help those kids any way you can? Lmao. No. I'm out of here.
The way I wrote it in my notes was, haha. Nope.
Truly, no one has ever said rip to you, but I'm different, more than hanger.
And here's the other place where I got momentarily stuck and then was like, no, no. There is a reason that generals don't fight on the front lines, and it is a good one. But his secretiveness in leaving undercuts that possible excuse. Because if the argument is someone has to lead what remains of our forces, why wouldn't you just say that and evac with all the young folks? Like, why would you disappear without a word?
It's a remarkable and delightful switching of places for Hangurg. The true quotation marks the true Jin Jahannam to turn tail and run like a coward, while the cowardly Jin Jahannam of the Lean Horse is the one to suggest the suicide run. He's the one who says, well, it's come to this, don't you think? So, Captain Gomez?
Gomez too. Gomez was super. Not into any of this the first time we meet him, but he's come around and all of them smacking all the young folks upside the head. Get out of here.
Get out of here, kid.
You kids get off my lawn.
This is great. Throughout the whole show, when they've been given the opportunity to actually say something. The old men, Polycule, have talked about the necessity of fighting, about the necessity of sacrifice. But lots of characters in Gundam talk about their ideology all the time and very few of them get. Get the opportunity to prove they really mean it. Because now after this, after what you see the old men do here at the end, you have to look back on everything they've said up until now with a different light. They really mean this. They're really committed to it. It's not for their own personal benefit, it's not for glory, it's not for.
Well, for Jinjanaham of the Lean Horse, it's at least a little for glory.
Okay, yes. Actually I have a whole fan fiction worked out about him where he likes, was disgraced under whatever his birth name was and has been like looking for an opportunity to overcome that disgrace, to do something grand, to make everybody remember him kindly and has finally found his opportunity. Anyway, yeah, they live their values and.
Admittedly that is, at least in the view of the show, an easier decision to make when you're already old.
Is it because look at Kagati.
And I grant you. Well, alright. What I actually think the show is saying is that for a psychologically and emotionally healthy old person, they should be able to meet death without fear, avoidance, regret. That they should be able to say like, ah, my time has come and I am at peace with that. Obviously that's not true for everybody. That's. I don't even know if that's true for most people. But Tomino has talked about this a great deal. He's very forthright about it. That's how he thinks older folks should be as they approach death.
Live well and die for something. There's that great line where I think it's Romero is like, well, if I'm not going to cut loose now, when am I? Who's piloting a mobile suit when he says this? He's the oldest member of the Polycule. He is old enough. He's actually the same age that Al from 0080 is. Oh, so he was around 12 during the one year war. This means he was around 18 or 19 during Zeta and double Zeta. He was 25 during Shar's counter attack. So there's a good chance that Romero like flew for the Ayug at some point. I've seen people suggest he may have been one of the mobile suit pilots who helped push Axis back at the end of Shar's Counterattack.
My heart My heart right.
Let us all endeavor to live our lives so that we can, in our last moments, get a powerful rock ballad playing.
The true audience stand in character of this episode is Haru going. He left me in control of the V2. What do I do? I'm so nervous. We all want to be Gundam protagonists. We all want to think we would steal the robot and fight the baddies, but actually we are all harrow. Oh no. Someone gave me the killer robot. What do I do?
And with that, the last of the Shrikes has gone. This famed group of pilots were brash, fearless, and seemed almost to laugh in the face of death. They fought for pride and for loyalty, for each other, for Oliver and Marbet and their future child. They fought for their fallen comrades and for USO to get through it alive. In their honor, I'd like to share the poem the Next War by Wilfred Owen, a World War I veteran whose work was, as he himself described it, about the pity of war. Dylan Thomas wrote of Owen that his poetry showed an intolerant world, the foolishness, unnaturalness, horror, inhumanity and insupportability of war. This poem focuses on the relationship soldiers have with the looming omnipresence of death, emphasizing that in the end, soldiers fight for their lives, not for flags. I think Tomino would agree. The poem opens with an excerpt. War's a joke for me and you While we know such dreams are true Siegfried Sassoon out there We've walked quite friendly up to death Sat down and eaten with him cool and bland Pardoned his spilling mess tins in our hand We've sniffed the green thick odor of his breath Our eyes wept but our curse, courage didn't rise he spat at us with bullets and he's coughed shrapnel we chorused when he sang aloft we whistled while he shaved us with his scythe oh, death was never enemy of ours we laughed at him, we leagued with him, old chum no soldiers paid to kick against his powers we laughed knowing that better men would come and greater wars. When each proud fighter brags he wars on death for lives, not men for flags. The Shrikes pass one after another, completing their mission to get USO and Shaak Ti in and out of the angel halo. But the losses come thick and fast. Here in the penultimate episode of Victory, Gundam. As their ships take heavy damage, the older members of the crews decide to sacrifice themselves to destroy the last of the Zanskar fleet, first sending the younger crew members to safety. Here, Owen is the less appropriate in that same passage from Dylan Thomas. He also describes Owen's poetry as exposing so that all could suffer and see the heroic lies, the willingness of the old to sacrifice the young. And yet here we have an inversion of the usual when story heroic sacrifice. What is in some ways one of the most perverse aspects of war, that any society at war is, in a very real and literal sense, killing. Its future is upended here, where older men and some not so old offer themselves up to save the next generation. Because, as USO says, we must struggle to find a better, better way. And if we can't, we must trust that the generations after us will find it so. This one is in honor of Romero, Leonid, Otis, Captain Gomez and the lean horses Jin Jahannam, old and elder and older still, gaily in a fury town, tutting as they shoo the young away. You have more and greater work to do tomorrow. Hands that shake with age are steady with experience. A life well lived, an end met face to face. Knowing why? What better comfort than pride at a task well done? Danger bravely met for the sake of beloved friends, children and grandchildren of the heart. If the grinder must be fed, we will feed it whole lives. Flower buds blossomed to fullness, dry petals drifting, Ripened fruit fall into the earth to nourish the life that gives us. Next year's flowers and our children will remember us in the beauty of the world we saved. Next time on episode 10.51 Victory we.
Research and discuss Victory Gundam episode 51 and the end. Please listen to it.
Mobile Suit Breakdown is written, recorded and produced by us, Tom and Nina in scenic New York City within the ancestral and unceded land of the Lenape people and made possible by listeners like you. The opening track is Wasp by Misha Dayoxin.
The closing music is Long Way Home by Spinning Ratio.
The recap music is Slow by Lloyd Rogers.
The music for the memorial is Unnecessary Anxiety, composed by Alejandro Arvizu and performed by John Calanchini.
You can find links to the sources.
For our research, the music used in the episode, additional information about the Lenape.
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Thank you for listening.
I wish I could shake my cheeks out like that, but I can do lip trills, which I think you struggle with some.
I do. Well, it's the tongue trill that really kills me. Oh yeah. Well, I can go.
That sounds mildly gross when you do it into the microphone.
Shall we do it?
Yeah, let's.
Let's get last week's episode finally recorded. We are having a time. Everybody. I mean, I know everybody's having a time. If you're not. If you're not having a time, you're blessed. I don't have a funny retort to that.
You could say yes and we could end the recording.
I have no response to. To that, so I don't know. But I was wondering if the bells rang for a full hour because they announced who the new Pope is.
Oh, would be fast. I feel like the conclave only just started.
It's only been like a day. Two days, but let me see. White smoke. Sistine Chapel, seven minutes ago.
All right.
Yeah, we picked up an awkward time to try to record the talk back, I guess. Yes, everyone.
Haha. Which one of us is forgetting the episode title now on account of not writing it down?
Sa.