From: Richard Ramos <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [gundam] (OT) Letters from Iwo Jima
Date: Mon, 05 Feb 2007 06:44:55 +0800
Chris Campbell wrote:
As I've said, I really liked SEED. It was a nice reimagining of the
original Gundam storyline, and Kreuze was a wonderful villain (made all
the more compelling by the fact that he was in a unique position to judge
the ultimate worth of humanity). I just think it should have stopped
there, as Destiny didn't really do anything to advance the storyline.
Kreuze was one incredible character - I couldn't really define him properly
as a villain through and through, since he was a disturbing mirror for all
of humanity to look at. I found him more interesting, in fact, than Kira.
Personally I just can't see Kreuze as far enough removed from humanity to
judge it as some sort of outside observer. IMHO his mind and body are still
human, and I'm sure he's hardly the first person who was born for the
purpose of being an heir, treated as such to the point of abuse, and failed
to live up to his creator's expectations. I still look at himself as just
another psychopath with a lousy childhood and a huge ego, albeit with a
slightly more unusual origin.
My take on Destiny is that it was an interesting attempt to show how things
do not stop at "happily ever after", and actually reminds me of Treize's
concept of the Endless Waltz. However, some of the characters developed in
ways that had so much potential, but were underutilized. Kira, for example,
I found to be interesting at some points because of the possibility that he
was crossing certain lines at some points, even with his supposed "no kill"
policy; I found much in his personality to be similar to Durandal, to be
honest. But then, he developed into an ultimate solution, and that sucked
out a lot of the potential for development in the character.
Only up to the current US release on Destiny, but I never understood Kira's
"no kill" rule to be an absolute, just an "if at all possible." Didn't he
kill Kreuze, after all? (Or did he just leave him for dead after their
duel? I can't recall.)
I recall somewhere seeing a mention of some fans calling Kira almost a "Mary
Sue" type character like you'd see in a fanfic -- TOO competent and
exceptional. It may be a good thing for the rest of the SEED universe that
he grew up without knowing his full potential; something tells me that
growing up in the habit of KNOWING you're at the absolute upper physical and
mental limits of the human form would turn most people into a royal asshole.
Plenty of people are insufferable just from THINKING they're the best. At
the same time, if the truth about Kira became widely known within the SEED
universe, I could see equal numbers of people wanting to kill him, and
forming an "Overman" cult around the poor guy. Let's see him handle that...
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