From: Chris Campbell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Reply-To: [email protected] To: [email protected],[email protected] Subject: Re: [gundam] (OT) Letters from Iwo Jima Date: Mon, 05 Feb 2007 12:02:23 -0600 At 02:17 AM 2/5/2007, Matthew Robinson wrote:From: Richard Ramos <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 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.But remember, he wasn't born; he was *created.* He wasn't a legitimate human being, because he didn't have parents, friends and family, and all that. He is a being created in the image of a human being who isn't really human at all, and that's why his perspective has some moral weight -- he's judging humanity from the outside, as someone who never was and never can be a part of the human race, and not as a member of said race who fared poorly.In some ways Kreuze is like a living AI, and subject to the same genre "rules."
I guess we'll have to agree to disagree on whether Kreuze's method of coming into the world made him something other than human. To me, his being deliberately created isn't all that different from the old monarchical practice of having children just for the sake of having an heir to the throne. Henry VIII went through half a dozen wives just for the sake of having a male heir; do you really think anyone resulting from that sort of situation would be treated as an individual human person for their own sake and not just as an instrument of someone else's will? IMHO Kreuze's estrangement from humanity is his own doing, the result of his bitterness about his origins, upbringing, and degenerative disease -- biological parents he might lack, but friends and family are available to anyone willing to reach out. And you don't get "victim" sympathy points for victimizing yourself.
For another perspective, consider the Invid (aka Inbit) human-mimicking characters from Mospeada/Robotech -- particularly Marlene (can't recall her name in Mospeada). Not biologically human (although probably close), no true parents unless you count the Regis, no memories. Nonetheless I'd consider her effectively human by the end of the series, because of her choices and because she's _found_ friends and family in Scott's resistance group. Corg (Batra? in Mospeada), OTOH, I'd call alien -- in this case someone who COULD be human but chooses not to be. At best, IMHO, this latter is the category Kreuze falls into.
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...Yeah. I think Richie's on to something with the Kira-as-villain angle, but it would have a lot of logistical problems (if he's not willing to kill, hard to make him all that unsympathetic; an annoyance at best). If you could overcome those, though, and turn Shin into a sympathetic character, I think it could work quite nicely.-------------------------------------------------- The Gundam Mailing List MK-II [email protected]Archives: http://www.gundam.com/gml Help: Email [EMAIL PROTECTED] with this inthe BODY: help list
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