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Though there was a point when I was worried that things were calming down too much, this show continues to bring on the crack! And the absurdly complicated politics! And the explosions! And lots and lots of fast-moving plotty goodness! And much more insanity from the gundam pilots! Though Heero, disappointingly, only attempts suicide twice in five episodes, the last attempt was a doozy. Even so, I suspect that nothing can ever top unbuckling his parachute in mid-fall.
Episode 6:Tears of a Clown Party Night.
Trowa, as I mentioned, is moonlighting as a circus clown, in a mask and poofy clown pants. (Trowa has either bad taste or bad luck in lower garments; he also gets the Nazi combat shorts.) Some knife-throwing girl throws knives at him as part of their act. Then she suddenly realizes that he doesn’t fear death! That he craves death! He angstily spins in a metaphoric blackness—still in his clown suit! He doesn’t bother to dodge her knife, which cuts his face!
Knife Girl (later backstage): “Um… Are you all right?”
Trowa (still in clown suit; idly playing with circus lions): “I really don’t care if I live or die, so I couldn’t be bothered to dodge your knife.”
Knife Girl: “…WTF?”
Meanwhile, Relena barges into Heero’s room at the high school he is still inexplicably attending. He pulls a gun on her. Hee. However, he later shows up for the school dance. But gundams attack! He attacks back! Or maybe he attacked first! I have no clue what was going on here, to be honest, except that Treize ordered Relena to be killed, then randomly rescinded the order. But not too soon to have Heero debate, in his gundam looming over her, over why he couldn’t bring himself to step on her.
Treize has an intimate moment with some birds, which he releases from their cage, only to have them return on their own. I think he thinks they are like the colonies or people or something: they want to be ruled. Maybe the birdies told him not to kill Relena?
Episode 7: Scenario For Bloodshed.
This episode was so confusing. I think Treize organizes a coup d' etat, with the poorly motivated help of Zechs (still pompous; still in bird mask) and Noin (still pretty cool). Une throws a general out of a plane, then shoots him as he falls. (Une: still awesome.) Treize and his devilish forked eyebrows sucker Heero into blowing up a plane with all the pacifists and negotiators on it. Oops.
All five gundam pilots meet! Woo-hoo! After the obligatory fighting amongst themselves, Wu Fei explains that a) they’re on the same side, b) they’ve been had.
Episode 8: The Treize Assassination.
By now I was so confused about who was on which side and who was taking orders and who was acting on their own and why anyone was doing anything, that I began taking notes. They didn’t help with that purpose, but I did acquire a lot of out-of-context comments about the pilots.
For instance, “Quatre is smart.” This is true, though I don’t recall what I was specifically referring to. Also, “Wu Fei is crazy.” I think this had to do with his conversation with his gundam, Nataku. (Dude, his gundam is named Nataku! How cool is that?!)
Finally, “Wu Fei: idjit.” I think this is because he accepted Treize’s offer to duel him with swords rather than killing him with his gundam. Treize kicks his ass, then lets him go for no reason. A lot of Treize’s decisions seem entirely motivated by the fact that if he did the logical thing, the series would end then and there.
Heero attempts suicide briefly, by deliberately getting in the line of fire.
Oh: this whole episode was the pilots’ (Heero-tachi, as the narrator amusingly calls them) attempt to kill Treize for making them patsies.
Other notable bits: Sally Po remembers Heero from when he leaped off the cliff; Zechs is Milliardo Peacecraft, Missing Prince of the Kingdom of Impractical Pacifists, and presumably Relena’s brother; Heero totally saves everyone from blowing up.
Episode 9: Portrait of a Ruined Country.
Duo and Heero go back to school! Duo points out that Heero would be less conspicuous if he tried acting less ostentatiously broody. Heero broods at him. (“Duo is smart.”)
Nooo! It’s Relena, previously blissfully absent, and her pink Cadillac! Duo notes that she is insane for going all googly-eyed over a guy who wants to kill her. I love Duo. He and Quatre are the only non-crazy pilots.
Speaking of Quatre, he is hanging out with his friends in fezzes and his right-hand man, Rashid, who looks exactly like Wolverine. Quatre casually mentions that the soul of outer space is talking to him. Strike my last comment.
Trowa and Wu Fei are lurking at the circus with Knife Girl, who for no apparent reason is in a bikini. They are strange and silent together, which amuses Knife Girl.
Zechs gets the prototype gundam, Tallgeese, which hasn’t corrected for g-force or something like the other gundams are, and so is hard to use without killing the pilot. Zechs pilots it. It nearly kills him. He ends up in a field hospital with an oxygen mask over his bird mask.
I’m sorry, I just find Bird-Mask Zechs impossible to take seriously— not even when he reveals that without the stupid bird mask, he is surprisingly hot. It’s just, if you’re concealing your identity, don’t draw attention to the fact by wearing a bird mask. It’s like Heero’s ostentatious brooding, only ten times so.
Then some dude who I thought was working for Zechs, except by now I have no idea whose side anyone is on, steals Tallgeese and suicide-bombs Zechs’ country with it.
Episode 10: Heero, Distracted By Defeat
A giant cyborg hand fills Heero’s viewscreen. Ah-ha, so at least one of them is receiving actual orders. I had wondered about that. It’s the scientist cyborg mechanical hand guy. The pilots all go on some mission, which involves dueling Zechs in the presumably repaired Tallgeese. Une, who has become quite the megalomaniac, threatens to bomb the colonies if the pilots don’t surrender. Mr. Mechanical Hand pops up on the screen and surrenders. But Treize doesn’t want Une to bomb the colonies, because it would end the series.
Heero self-detonates! OMG! He actually blew up his gundam with himself in it!
Quatre, way away in his own gundam, doubles over in pain, clutching his chest. Interesting. Quatre must be an empath. Maybe that stuff about the soul of the universe was not so nutty after all.
Trowa grabs the injured but not dead (because he’s clearly indestructible) Heero, and all the pilots flee in shame and dismay.
As always, anyone who posts spoilers for upcoming episodes will be detonated. But if anyone wants to explain the politics as we know them at this point, that would be very welcome.
Episode 6:
Trowa, as I mentioned, is moonlighting as a circus clown, in a mask and poofy clown pants. (Trowa has either bad taste or bad luck in lower garments; he also gets the Nazi combat shorts.) Some knife-throwing girl throws knives at him as part of their act. Then she suddenly realizes that he doesn’t fear death! That he craves death! He angstily spins in a metaphoric blackness—still in his clown suit! He doesn’t bother to dodge her knife, which cuts his face!
Knife Girl (later backstage): “Um… Are you all right?”
Trowa (still in clown suit; idly playing with circus lions): “I really don’t care if I live or die, so I couldn’t be bothered to dodge your knife.”
Knife Girl: “…WTF?”
Meanwhile, Relena barges into Heero’s room at the high school he is still inexplicably attending. He pulls a gun on her. Hee. However, he later shows up for the school dance. But gundams attack! He attacks back! Or maybe he attacked first! I have no clue what was going on here, to be honest, except that Treize ordered Relena to be killed, then randomly rescinded the order. But not too soon to have Heero debate, in his gundam looming over her, over why he couldn’t bring himself to step on her.
Treize has an intimate moment with some birds, which he releases from their cage, only to have them return on their own. I think he thinks they are like the colonies or people or something: they want to be ruled. Maybe the birdies told him not to kill Relena?
Episode 7: Scenario For Bloodshed.
This episode was so confusing. I think Treize organizes a coup d' etat, with the poorly motivated help of Zechs (still pompous; still in bird mask) and Noin (still pretty cool). Une throws a general out of a plane, then shoots him as he falls. (Une: still awesome.) Treize and his devilish forked eyebrows sucker Heero into blowing up a plane with all the pacifists and negotiators on it. Oops.
All five gundam pilots meet! Woo-hoo! After the obligatory fighting amongst themselves, Wu Fei explains that a) they’re on the same side, b) they’ve been had.
Episode 8: The Treize Assassination.
By now I was so confused about who was on which side and who was taking orders and who was acting on their own and why anyone was doing anything, that I began taking notes. They didn’t help with that purpose, but I did acquire a lot of out-of-context comments about the pilots.
For instance, “Quatre is smart.” This is true, though I don’t recall what I was specifically referring to. Also, “Wu Fei is crazy.” I think this had to do with his conversation with his gundam, Nataku. (Dude, his gundam is named Nataku! How cool is that?!)
Finally, “Wu Fei: idjit.” I think this is because he accepted Treize’s offer to duel him with swords rather than killing him with his gundam. Treize kicks his ass, then lets him go for no reason. A lot of Treize’s decisions seem entirely motivated by the fact that if he did the logical thing, the series would end then and there.
Heero attempts suicide briefly, by deliberately getting in the line of fire.
Oh: this whole episode was the pilots’ (Heero-tachi, as the narrator amusingly calls them) attempt to kill Treize for making them patsies.
Other notable bits: Sally Po remembers Heero from when he leaped off the cliff; Zechs is Milliardo Peacecraft, Missing Prince of the Kingdom of Impractical Pacifists, and presumably Relena’s brother; Heero totally saves everyone from blowing up.
Episode 9: Portrait of a Ruined Country.
Duo and Heero go back to school! Duo points out that Heero would be less conspicuous if he tried acting less ostentatiously broody. Heero broods at him. (“Duo is smart.”)
Nooo! It’s Relena, previously blissfully absent, and her pink Cadillac! Duo notes that she is insane for going all googly-eyed over a guy who wants to kill her. I love Duo. He and Quatre are the only non-crazy pilots.
Speaking of Quatre, he is hanging out with his friends in fezzes and his right-hand man, Rashid, who looks exactly like Wolverine. Quatre casually mentions that the soul of outer space is talking to him. Strike my last comment.
Trowa and Wu Fei are lurking at the circus with Knife Girl, who for no apparent reason is in a bikini. They are strange and silent together, which amuses Knife Girl.
Zechs gets the prototype gundam, Tallgeese, which hasn’t corrected for g-force or something like the other gundams are, and so is hard to use without killing the pilot. Zechs pilots it. It nearly kills him. He ends up in a field hospital with an oxygen mask over his bird mask.
I’m sorry, I just find Bird-Mask Zechs impossible to take seriously— not even when he reveals that without the stupid bird mask, he is surprisingly hot. It’s just, if you’re concealing your identity, don’t draw attention to the fact by wearing a bird mask. It’s like Heero’s ostentatious brooding, only ten times so.
Then some dude who I thought was working for Zechs, except by now I have no idea whose side anyone is on, steals Tallgeese and suicide-bombs Zechs’ country with it.
Episode 10: Heero, Distracted By Defeat
A giant cyborg hand fills Heero’s viewscreen. Ah-ha, so at least one of them is receiving actual orders. I had wondered about that. It’s the scientist cyborg mechanical hand guy. The pilots all go on some mission, which involves dueling Zechs in the presumably repaired Tallgeese. Une, who has become quite the megalomaniac, threatens to bomb the colonies if the pilots don’t surrender. Mr. Mechanical Hand pops up on the screen and surrenders. But Treize doesn’t want Une to bomb the colonies, because it would end the series.
Heero self-detonates! OMG! He actually blew up his gundam with himself in it!
Quatre, way away in his own gundam, doubles over in pain, clutching his chest. Interesting. Quatre must be an empath. Maybe that stuff about the soul of the universe was not so nutty after all.
Trowa grabs the injured but not dead (because he’s clearly indestructible) Heero, and all the pilots flee in shame and dismay.
As always, anyone who posts spoilers for upcoming episodes will be detonated. But if anyone wants to explain the politics as we know them at this point, that would be very welcome.
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It's amazing that so much happens in those first 10 episodes! It's been ages since I actually watched the show, and I'd forgotten how fast the pacing is. And yet it still leaves time for the emo and the crazy, thank goodness.
Anyway, Treize's decisions eventually will kind of make sense, in an anime sort of way, even though it will continue to be totally confusing as to who is on whose side at any given moment. And I love Lady Une.
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Who are the favored pairings? I had first assumed Heero/Duo and Trowa/Quatre, but recently there's been some interesting Heero/Trowa and Quatre/Duo action going on. (Wu Fei doesn't seem to like to interact with anyone but Nataku. Or maybe Treize, at swordspoint.)
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So if this is true, you have to not care about the slash fitting into the plot continuity.
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So yeah, let me know when you're done, and boy do I have some links for you!
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There's an equation for every pairing.
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For het pairings, 1xRelena, 2xHilde (hasn't shown up yet), 5xSally, 13x11, 6xNoin, and occasionally out of a sense of completion 4xDorothy. For Trowa they dig into the back story and find a character from his origination side story, Midi Une (not to be confused with Treize's Une). I blame most of those on a spread in one of the art books, which showed each of the boys with their designated female counterpart. There is also occasional 3xCatherine, but many fans have issues with that one for spoilery reasons.
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I can also offer some fic recs after you've seen the series. I've got a decent section on my recs site, but it contains a lot of porn in addition to the plotty stuff.
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(Can you unpack that or do you need a translation?)
There's also Heero/Relena, but I've seen very few fics with that pairing.
There needs to be far more 11x9/9x11 love in the world, if you ask me.
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I think the only sophisticated politics I ever eked out of it was Gundams: Good! Treize: Bad!
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Overall there's two major factions, with lots and lots and LOTS of overlapping subfactions. The major factions are Earth (aka the United Earth Sphere Alliance) and the Colonies.
Underneath the Earth Sphere Alliance, you have Oz, which is run by Treize. They're sort of an elite group within the Alliance, which doesn't exactly have the same agenda as the main group. There's the Sanc Kingdom, whose monarchy was wiped out before the series started - repercussions continue in the moping and angst to this day. There's others, but they haven't shown up yet by name.
Treize, Une, Noin, and Zechs are all part of Oz. Oz is not pro-peace. Marshall Noventa was part of the group within the Alliance that wanted peace with the colonies, as is Ambassador Darlian. That faction pretty much got wiped out when Heero shot down that plane. There's another faction within the Alliance that I'm totally spacing on the name of that's, urm, argh, I can't think of a non-spoilery way to explain them. Anyways, the guy that ran off and attacked Sanc Kingdom is with them. They show up more later. They're also part of the Alliance, but Treize is opposed to their goals and aims, and is fighting against them as much as the Colony factions.
On the side of the colonies, right now you know about the scientists who built the Gundams, one per colony. Each scientist has a G-boy, conveniently numbered to match their colony designations. All of the G-boys are insane, they just bring the crazy in their own unique and special ways. You are correct, Quatre is an empath (closest thing you'll see to a Newtype in this series, since it's an AU and not mainline Gundam). He's also just as nuts as the rest of the lot. Don't let the occasional bout of sense lull you into a false sense of security. Each of the pilots is fighting for freedom for the colonies. They're sort of loosely allied with each other by episode 10, or at least not actively opposed to each other.
Sort of in the middle you've got Howard and the Sweepers - they're allied with Duo, but they've also got their own agenda (A recurring theme, I know).
The Manganacs (AKA the guys in fezzes) are allied with Quatre. They're also independently fighting to free their nation / keep it nation free of the Alliance (It's been long enough that I can't remember specifically), but mostly they just follow him around and provide ground fighters.
Relena is a bit of a wild card. Not aligned with any of the existing factions, although she has an almost psychic ability to show up anywhere Heero is to stalk him.
There's a bunch more factions that show up later, but that should be everyone on the board at the moment. You practically need a bingo card to keep them straight. It will make more sense when more of the pieces are on the board.
Hopefully that was actually helpful, and not spoilery...
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Sanc = 5
Noventa = 90
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And just wait. Quatre does not escape the crazy.
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Er, is it spoilery to say that the factions get even more confusing? They sort of multiply like rabbits. And crossbreed. There is probably rabbit incest involved as well. And now, I will stop the metaphor before it overtakes my brain.
I love how Quatre gets a heart attack for the universe! And Trowa and Wufei bonding over campfire coffee! And Heero, totally being had! And Treize, who is clearly Drosselmeyer's stand-in in the series!
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*dies laughing* Good luck with that! I attempted the note thing too when I first got into Gundam Wing many years ago. Does not help. Nobody knows what the hell is going on with the politics in this series, and as
This really is an awesome series though, and I adore it. The characters are all brilliant but totally insane in the best possible ways. And I mean all the characters. If you've pegged somebody as being sane, just wait. They're all totally bonkers. *XD
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As far as politics and who's on whose side, my theory is that the Alliance pacifists must have had blackmail on everyone in all the factions. They went kerblooey (Heero: Oops... *ANGSTS MIGHTILY*) and all the blackmail material went with them.
Of course, that could just be my own special version of GW reality.. ;)
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