WARNING! I have dispensed with spoiler tags for my comments!
Paul said:
This mirrors her confused state of mind. She isn't in her role because she believes in the Titans, she (like Reccoa) is simply in love with Scirocco and when push comes to shove, she opts against the Titan philosophy of mass murder. Sarah is basically just a confused kid with something of a crush on Katz and has split loyalities; her only true strength is her love of Scirocco and in the end, she sacrifices herself for him- depending on how you look at this, it's either a sweet romantic gesture or some extreme manipulation on the part of Scirocco- he is surrounded by soliders willing to lay their lives down for him in an instant.
Fair enough.
I doubt Kamille has the time to spend mourning over his friends and family. I actually saw this as a sign of the growing maturity in Kamille, after all, you never see Char breaking down in public.
Yes, that could be one way of looking at it. But Kamille barely gives it a second thought. He really comes off as quite cold at that moment in that he is able to forget a person close to him (granted that it is probably a good thing that he gets over it whereas
CHAR'S COUNTERATTACK SPOILER Char and Amuro eventually destroy themselves over a similar heartbreak). Then again, perhaps he's one of those people who don't absorb these things till later, or is just too disconnected from the real world through most of ZG to notice. It is interesting you draw similarities between him and Char though. I feel Char is more thick-headed than Kamille (in a sense) because he cuts himself off from a lot of possible friends throughout Gundam (Kills Garma, leaves Haman, etc - it's like he never fits in anywhere, or doesn't want to), or considers them as tools to use in his schemes (with the exception of Lalah, of course). Char is definately an interesting case though.
But then the Argama is hardly the most organised of ships. You often see kids running around, even getting up to the bridge at some points. You wouldn't see this happening on a Titans' ship and it just goes to show the marked difference in culture and philosophy between the AEUG and the Titans. To be honest, I found the amount of times Katz steals out of the Argama really annoying too- the kid just won't listen; but he eventually pays for his apparent disregard for the rules!
Point taken, but the AEUG is still supposed to be a serious rebellion force. Generally, the rule for these things is that you are organised efficiently and maintain order and morale within the ranks. I find it ironic in this way that Kamille gets the crap pounded out of him by Wong Lee near the beginning for being late, but Katz manages to get away with a punch from his foster parent after his theft of the MkII, and virtually no other reprimand for doing exactly the same thing later on in a larger and more powerful force than Karaba! (maybe it's an age thing?) I mean, Henken thinks virtually nothing of it when he steals the 'fensor at one point - it's a unique piece of military hardware for crying out loud! You put a 12 year old in there, then common sense dictates you keep them in line! True, like you said, Katz dies for this very reason (I love that asteroid - one of the best Gundam characters ever), but I think the Argama shares some of that responsibility for the amount of times they never didn't keep him in line. Then again, Judau and his friends do exactly the same thing in ZZ -
repeatedly. Who knows?
I'm not really sure what you expect from a Gundam series, but I didn't find this spirtual element to be distracting at all. It's the perfect culmination to the whole Newtype thing; psychic powers et all, it's bound to lead to stranger things. After all, do we even know why the Newtypes exist? Why they have the powers they do? What depths can their minds reach? It seems logical to assume that if characters can feel each other with psychic "tension", they a feeling a kind of human "soul" or spirit, so what happens to that spirit and those feelings when the body dies? It's ambiguous, but I suppose it's just Tomino expressing his own personal beliefs when it comes to spirituality and the future of mankind.
The way it all culminates in the last few episodes make it seem like a "get out clause" for Kamille; but stuff tends to happen when emotions are frayed and passion overcomes sense- in the biggest fight of the series, Kamille reveals his true strength to survive.
Ah, but it wasn't the Newtypism I was annoyed with - I'm cool with that, I wouldn't be watching UC Gundam otherwise. I just hated the way that it was brought out to make Kamille a veritable God on the battlefield (If now, when he was under a time of stress/emotions wrought, then why not at Four's Death? The time he almost killed Haman?). The final fight would have been more interesting if the energy Kamille gathered had empowered the Zeta rather than disabling The-O - then we could have had a nice little fight between Scirocco and Kamille rather than the one-sidedness we got. It's also rather strange that while Scirocco had the power to cripple Kamille's mind (at near-death too) , he couldn't move The-O after Kamille's ghost buddies disabled it. Of course, we could argue a machine is a more difficult thing to mainpulate than a human mind, but then we'd be getting into a whole different level of things. It doesn't help that other Tomino Gundams are lousy comparisons for Newtype powers, because the strength of Newtypism varies in each. Gah, I've babbled and not made much sense.
For this series, I'd suggest that Kamille was his own worst enemy. I don't feel like he needed a typical rival, though Jerid was a cool character... a dumb, thick headed character but a cool one none the less. He lived and died as a hyper-competitive loner; I guess that sometimes, desire just isn't enough.
True enough, but throughout the series he was presented as a rival for Kamille, not necessarily one that was particularly strong, but powerful enough to take several of Kamille's friends and family away from him. Jerid also lost a lot, perhaps not as much as Kamille, but enough to make you think he'd be a far more dangerous threat to Kamille than he was. In the end, Kamille just flicks him off, as if to say 'you're not worth my time'. For all the build-up, it feels anti-climactic. Funny how Tomino works.
Lots of spoilers
Never was Ctrl+A more appropriate :lol:.
Heh, I'd forgotten how much fun a good ZG discussion can be.
