#SOMEHOW that propaganda and cognitive dissonance can go so wild

[vaguelyaperson]

celebrating my freedom as a new maga orphan lmfao

[untitledtallgeesepodcast]

[TRANSCRIPT] EPISODE 10: DESTABILIZING THE MECHA-WIFE DICHOTOMY

Cathy 00:00

[midi version of Just Wild Beat Communication plays, fading as Cathy speaks over it]

Cathy 00:03

Hello and welcome to another episode of Untitled Tallgeese Podcast. I am this episode's host Cathy and I am joined by my lovely co-panelists Kat, Mallory, and Caitlin. Today we will be going over Episode 19, "Attack on Barge" and Episode 20, "Infiltration of the Moonbase." We pick up where we ended with Zechs, who has been found by Howard, whom you may remember as Duo's scrap metal salvager. It turns out that Howard used to be one of the engineers who helped design Tallgeese. Howard offers Zechs a way back into outer space, which Zechs eventually accepts, but not without first posturing in classic 19 year old fashion that the man formerly known as Zechs Merquis is now dead.

Cathy 00:44

Meanwhile, Duo stages an attack on OZ, but his Gundam is beaten by the Taurus mobile dolls, and he himself is captured when his self destruct mechanism doesn't work. His arrest is broadcasted everywhere on the Colony News Network, capturing the attention of Heero, who menacingly implies that all weaknesses must be eliminated. After infiltrating the OZ base where Duo is captured, however, and faced with actually needing to pull the trigger, Heero thinks better of it and breaks them both out by tricking the mobile dolls into believing the OZ's own Leos and spacesuits are the enemies. However, Heero and Duo are sadly forced to leave the damage Deathscythe behind.

Cathy 01:20

Elsewhere, Wufei stages the episodes titular attack on the Barge. He just so happens to intersect with Lady Une, who, in her peaceful ambassador persona, has an elaborate telepathic conversation with Wufei and her second command Nichols about how Outer Space should be reserved for peace. Nichols, frustrated and confused about Une's dueling personas, orders the Barge's beam cannon to shoot at Wufei. It manages the damage Shenlong Gundam marginally, but sacrifices a number of OZ's own soldiers in the process. Wufei, disgusted, uses his triton to light a literal fire under his own ass and flies off.

Cathy 01:55

In the next episode, Heero explains that he must kill the Gundam scientists, who under the thumb of OZ have been ordered to make all new and better mobile suits, the Mercurius and Vayeate. Duo wants to go with him, but injured is forced to remain behind. Speaking of injured Gundams and their pilots, on Earth, Sally Po tries to destroy Sandrock but encounters the Maganac forces who are trying to rescue it for Quatre. After realizing they should form a support group, and that the Maganacs actually have names, Sally Po helps them escape.

Cathy 02:22

OZ has been very busy. For one thing Lady Une submits a proposal for the colonies to form their own nation with one catch: they have to help OZ produce mobile suits and military equipment. Understandably, the colony representatives are wary of this proposition. But Lady Une goes full Treize on them, talking about how fighting is part of the spirit and beauty of mankind. At the same time, OZ has been trying to recruit random amateurs to act as test pilots, only one of those amateurs turns out to be none other than Trowa. As his final test. he's ordered to destroy a damaged site while Duo helplessly watches a broadcast. Because Trowa makes it to the final rounds, he wins a meeting with Lady Une. His barbed accusations that OZ is pretending to be friends with the colonies in order to win them over causes Une to have a mental breakdown. After she recovers, Une escorts Trowa and four other lucky pilots to the Gundam scientists where they meet the new mobile suits, the Veyeate is not actually functional. It reacts seemingly to the presence of Trowa, only to reveal that it's Heero clear snuck aboard. Unfortunately for Heero, Trowa manages flip through the air and get to his own gun faster, arresting Heero on behalf of OZ. And scene.

Caitlin 03:33

Can I just say, that, remember being 19 and thinking, [dramatically] "my former self is dead!" [laughter] and then totally, totally reinventing your look and your life for college. I think that's Zechs in these episodes. [laughter]

Mallory 03:53

Zacks is going away to college

Kat 03:54

To space college!

Caitlin 03:55

You've broken the mask of your like, high school nerdiness and now you're [laughter]

Mallory 04:02

now you're free faced and hot.

Caitlin 04:04

To be you sexy self, yes.

Cathy 04:07

I didn't think of it that way but that is totally true. And Zechs, he plays a surprisingly marginal role in these first, in these two episodes, which is kind of surprising because he'd been really important in the episodes leading up until now. And I didn't really process that until now, where you point out that literally the only thing he does in these two episodes is act like an emo fool and then flies off. [laughter]

Caitlin 04:31

Well he's dead. So he's,

Mallory 04:32

Yeah.

Caitlin 04:33

He's like, in exile because he's dead right now. [laughs] He's, he's like resting.

Mallory 04:38

Yeah, he's like symbolically killed himself.

Kat 04:40

Yeah, and complaining about getting help from Howard. Like, "Ugh, this is so much trouble to just get me to space."

Caitlin 04:46

This is like Genji in the Tale of Genji when he sent off to like, it, be punished in exile for a couple of months, [laughter] whatever. And all he does is like hang out by the seaside and like make a new girlfriend. [laguhter] This is Zechs right now. How, Howard is the girlfriend? [garbled] Serious, Genji in Exile.

Kat 05:07

I'm glad you're bringing this serious analysis here.

Caitlin 05:10

Yeah, this is, this is literature.

Cathy 05:11

I love it. And I'm glad we somehow managed to shovel in Tale of Genji into this because [laughter]

Caitlin 05:16

Uh, this will not be the last time we talked about Tale of Genji, all right?

Cathy 05:20

So, you know, I have to apologize, I know that I am supposed to be host and I've admitted that I don't really have any deep thoughts about episodes 19 and 20 other than I love them, and they're really entertaining. So I guess I'm gonna throw Kat under the bus, one of the things you wanted to talk about is the OZ use of propaganda and kind of information control in these two episodes.

Kat 05:44

Yeah, so we've spent a lot of time as a podcast talking about Lady Une, and the different roles that she takes on. And it's really interesting to see her utilizing the broadcast television that they have going on in the colonies. I'm not sure if it's clear if that's getting broadcast to Earth or not, but she's definitely using it to control the flow of information to the colonists, including when they captured Duo -- deciding whether or not maybe jokingly, to execute him publicly, whether or not he's, he's pretty enough or ugly enough that the colonists would sympathize with him if he was ugly.

Caitlin 06:20

And unfortunately, he's extremely good looking.

Kat 06:23

He's too beautiful, so he must die. And I think it's kind of the culmination of all the control that she's had over their media streams leading up to this episode.

Mallory 06:34

And you also see, like you hear the spin in the broadcasters and what they're saying, which is really interesting, like, they're always like, "these young troopers are vying for a spot with OZ!" You know, like there's a, there's a celebratory kind of tone to all of the newscasts that we are seeing and hearing

Kat 06:55

And we get a lot of plot exposition in those news broadcasts of these episodes, I think a little more, like we've gotten clips and stuff, or they just want to explain something. But I think it kind of leads the plot in these episodes in a way that it doesn't quite do elsewhere.

Caitlin 07:11

One of the things that I think is really interesting about the use of propaganda here is that it comes along with the realization of the split in Lady Une's personality and I think that there is a way in which you can view her split personality as mirroring, or like metaphorically performing the split between OZ's reality and OZ's performance, right? OZ's propaganda image. To a certain extent, it's like she's become like the physical and mental manifestation of the doublethink required to be both the front-facing OZ image of a peaceful colony helper, trying to bring everybody together. And the cutthroat OZ that we know is the reality.

Mallory 07:54

Exactly. She's a hamfisted metaphor for like the cognitive dissonance at the heart of Oz. You know, like this focus and emphasis on niceties and gentility and grace and saving face versus the cutthroat merciless militaristic takeover that OZ and the Romefeller Foundation are actually carrying out. It's like sort of her mental break at this point -- is it signaling a split between these two factions? Like Treize seems like he's at odds with the Romefeller Foundation in some way.

Cathy 08:28

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, at one point in Episode 20, right, when she goes back into her room after she talks to Trowa, she says, something like, "Am I doing this for OZ? Or am I doing this for Treize?" [crosstalk]

Mallory 08:37

Yeah, "Or is my master Treize?"

Caitlin 08:39

I thought, I thought that was very interesting. It also reflects the parts of her that are... So like, her considering, "Do I work for OZ? Or do I work for Treize?" is also, "Aam I doing this work as the harsh and cutthroat colonel?" versus "Am I doing this work as the kind and gentle Lady?" Where like, one of them is the person who works for OZ, and one of them is the person who loves Treize and is just doing this out of duty and affection for him.

Kat 09:09

The episodes are so blatant, and kind of the colony-facing version of her is weaker, like she's stronger in uniform, and it's sort of like this weaker facade that they are putting on to the colonies? But also it's working, so I guess it's a testament to how intensely she's making herself believe in this persona slash, she has to put her entire belief into it for it to work.

Mallory 09:34

For her.

Kat 09:35

For her.

Mallory 09:35

Right, because it's been established that like, part of her character is that she can't, she's a bad liar. So it's almost like she has to make herself believe that what she's doing is good?

Kat 09:46

Yeah.

09:46

In order to promote this soft face OZ

Caitlin 09:50

It's what politicians do, we see it all the time.

Cathy 09:53

To me a really interesting part of this, and I don't think it's explicit. I think this is just me projecting on it, but there seems to be to me like a hollowness or an emptiness about what OZ actually stands for other than wanting power. We just have Treize, right? Like Treize is the entire idealistic "heart" of OZ. And when you remove that from the equation, it's kind of like, what are we even all doing? Like how does, how do any of the powers differ from each other? They really don't. [laughs] They just want power. And so I really find this interesting, trying to grapple with like, what power means or what, what anything stands for, what do ideals mean? and seeing Lady Une like, break down, actually, physically and mentally in a way that was really obvious, felt really like relieving to me, just to be like, that is the thing we all struggle with. And I think, surprisingly, Gundam Wing made a really potent and relevant comment about it. Like, it is just hard to understand what any of us are fighting for, when it comes to big power structures. It doesn't mean anything. We're all meaningless in it.

Mallory 10:57

Yeah especially when, like, the lines that you are being fed by those powers are like vague things about the heart of OZ. And what does that even mean? Like you can't base a belief system on like this vague concept.

Kat 11:12

It's hard to base like a whole governmental structure around the nobility of man's fighting spirit?

Caitlin 11:17

But also that is, this is fascism,

Mallory & Kat & Cathy 11:20

[crosstalk of agreement]

Caitlin 11:20

that you have. It's purely a lust for power. There's, there's a creation of a set of ideals, that -- those ideals only exist to keep people in the existing power structure, and replacing any sort of actual belief with a fixation on one central leader, as Treize has done. It's fascism. It's what we're seeing today, basically. [muttered] Sorry, not not to get political at our Gundam Wing,

Cathy 11:46

Not to get political in our, in our podcast about an anime that is about politics.

Kat 11:50

Well, I was gonna say, I think as a kid, when I watched this, I think I was a little more sympathetic, but in a more simplistic way about Lady Une? And to me, it felt very much like, she suddenly saw that peace could be achieved and realized that her true self was fighting against it and couldn't handle that dichotomy. But now that I know that every politician can just live with 1000 pounds of cognitive dissonance in their head at all times, I don't know if that's really a thing that's going on, like if that was a naive reading of it.

Caitlin 12:23

Yeah, if you, if you recall, from our argument last time, about like, is she, has she already sort of lost herself at that point? Or is she in the process of losing herself, we were sort of, we were sort of split on whether this was an active choice that she'd made, if it was like a deliberate choice to sort of split this part of herself off, or if it just sort of ruptured by mental break. And I think now we sort of see the transition. Whereas like, last, the last few episodes that are lead up to this, I was like, okay, she's deliberately creating this persona, because she knows that she's not really good at this stuff.

Kat 13:00

Right.

Caitlin 13:01

So she's created this other other person. Now she's now she's broken,

Mallory 13:06

It was sort of the ease with which she could do that was a foreshadowing of the cognitive dissonance that would then come back to haunt her, and that we're seeing her sort of pay for now.

Kat 13:18

She seems so assured of herself and like the Lady Une militaristic persona, even though she doubts herself when Treize chastises her, but that's the only time she's not like, do these fucking plans, like I'm telling you to do it, now. And for her to be so unsure of herself in the other persona is really interesting.

Caitlin 13:38

I'm actually kind of sick of her. I feel like this is kind of a hackneyed plot move

Mallory 13:42

Mhmm

Caitlin 13:42

on their part. I don't really buy like split personality as a trope.

Cathy 13:47

Let's move on, let's move on then. Caitlin is sick of her crap. Let us move on to our second point: mobile dolls. So I think there's a lot of really interesting themes in these two episodes about what it means to be a pilot and kind of human intelligence versus robot intelligence. You know, we see this both in the way Heero escapes from the base with Duo. And then also in Episode 20, when we reunite with the Gundam scientists, and their whole point is essentially like, it doesn't matter who's who in the mobile suits. It just matters who the pilot is.

Caitlin 14:21

Yeah, there's a really great moment where the mobile dolls very stupidly kill their own people because they're in the same suit that Heero was wearing. Yeah, they've had their targets switched around, which demonstrates that the mobile dolls are not a great solution to the problems [laughs] of war? I like that, though it's sad that they killed their own guys.

Mallory 14:44

Yeah, I mean, it's like a real surprise that an unmanned machine could be manipulated, you know, hacked.

Kat 14:50

Weird.

Mallory 14:51

Strange.

Cathy 14:52

Totally weird.

Mallory 14:53

Who could have predicted that?

Caitlin 14:55

AI did not solve all of our problems.

Kat 14:57

I like how pissed Nichols -- or possibly not Nichols -- is though when Trowa goes, "it doesn't matter which one is better because the better pilot will win" or whatever. And the OZ soldier flips out because I guess he's bought totally into this too. And they did take down at least one Gundam pilot with the mobile dolls. So like, how dare he even question the idea behind the mobile dolls, even though they brought him in literally to be a good pilot.

Caitlin 15:28

And then you have the whole thing where Heero's in the suit that's supposed to be non functional so it seems like it functions and then Heero -- it's actually Heero, that whole thing. I was sort of thinking of our other big contemporary mobile suit in the room, Evangelion.

Cathy 15:44

Oh god [laughs]

Caitlin 15:45

The, the machine is actually a part of them and it's not really about like pilot skill. It's about sort of a connection that is like, primal and animal. Whereas in Gundam Wing you have a connection with between the pilots and their suits? We sort of see this when Duo flips out about that's like being publicly executed.

Caitlin 15:45

Which came out the same year. The whole, the whole like, thing is that this terrible idea of children piloting a mobile suit only really works if the mobile suit is some sort of like biological and psychological projection of themselves slash their mother.

Cathy 16:04

Yes.

Caitlin 16:07

And with Quatre and the Maganacs, who are like we have to rescue Quatre's Gundam.

Mallory 16:29

Yeah.

Caitlin 16:29

Yeah. But that isn't like, the same thing as a mobile suit can function without the pilot or a mobile suit is something that needs, is an animal that needs control, like an Evangelion.

Cathy 16:39

Although it's interesting because I think in the last four episodes, we have seen examples of this. So for instance, Sandrock, of course, just kind of walks off right without Quatre.

Caitlin 16:51

And he's like, get out of me.

Kat 16:52

Yeah [laughs]

Cathy 16:53

It was kind of like a weird open question as to whether or not Deathscythe, like didn't want to blow up with Duo in it? or if there was actually a failed self destruct mechanism. And they leave that kind of open. Similarily, and I know I called this out in my background when I was summarizing this, I love the way the end of Episode 20 is set up because there is this moment where I was almost wondering if my memories of this episode were incorrect, and that Mercurius and Veyeate really just sort of light up because Trowa is there, right? Like I was just like, oh, are they responding to Trowa? But then it turns out, it's because Heero is there. So there are all these little moments where they're kind of like building in this doubt, like, what are the Gundams? What are mobile suits? How tied, like what is that symbiosis. And I think it is really interesting that it comes out at the same time where Eva kind of like definitively falls one way or another on it, that they kind of just leave that open.

Kat 17:48

Bringing in Tallgeese, this episode too, like Zechs shows up just so we can hear again about Tallgeese and I think his relationship with that mobile suit is very much about his synchronisation with it. Like, it's harder to pilot than all the other ones so they continually talk about how like, you'd have to be a human or like, it gave him a frickin heart attack, because it's so difficult to pilot kind of thing.

Caitlin 18:12

So it does sort of reflect our relationship with machines in real life. I think a lot where you're like, Yes, I am, I am the driver of this car. I don't think this car is able to make its own decisions. I think most of us can agree that AI cars are kind of stupid, the self driving cars.

Kat 18:29

Yeah, thus far.

Mallory 18:31

I mean, I really want one but

Caitlin 18:33

When you think about people's relationship to their cars,

Cathy 18:36

Mmhmm.

Caitlin 18:36

It's an extension of self. And you get people who are who are obsessed with cars, who name their cars who refer to them by female pronouns. You have these really intense relationships with technology that the show plays with a lot even while saying, verbally, It's the pilot that matters, not the machine.

Cathy 18:55

So before we leave Mercurius and Veyeate, I want to say I actually found that really interesting and much more interesting when I saw them this time as I'm older. You know, they're red and blue. So I just want to like put that plug in, you know, there's a very kind of symbiotic relationship between red and blue.

Caitlin 19:12

[gasp]

Cathy 19:13

Just generally

Caitlin 19:13

I ship red/blue. All of my ships are reds and blues. Oh my god!

Cathy 19:18

Like they're, you know, there's a, there's a general kind of fandom-y trope and work trope, literary trope about red and blue. Heero ends up popping out of, I think it's Veyeate, who is the blue one, and the blue one is the one with the really great beam cannon. And then the red one, Mercurius has the shield. So I mean, the one interesting thought I had, like literally the only one thought [laughs] that I in these two episodes is that there's a great Chinese idiom called zìxīang máodùn" (自相矛盾). And máodùn is the Chinese term for sort of being self-contradictory and kind of like unable to go anywhere because you're kind of tying yourself up in knots. And that word in that phrase [Baldwin] actually comes from two separate words [mall], which is a spear or a lance and [twin] which is a shield. And it comes from a really classic story [Ed.'s note: from the Han Feizi] where this merchant is saying he has, you know, the world's best lance and then the world's best shield. And then somebody asked him, "Well, what happens if your lance attacks your shield" and he's unable to answer? [laughter] And so when we say "máodùn" like "oh my god, I'm so máodùn" like, "Oh my god, I'm so you know, I'm tied up in myself in knots, and I can't figure my way out," you know, I'm really confused, I'm really troubled, what we're really saying is, we have an unbreakable shield that goes up against an unstoppable lance.

Cathy 19:37

So I thought, you know, here, there's this moment where it's like, very much implied, they don't make a big deal out of it, but you have Heero and Trowa who I've always in my head kind of put in the same axis, you know, like they are kind of like the same people but on two different ends. And they are representing, they're both undercover in different ways, Heero has actually snuck into the beast, Trowa has gone undercover [laughs] as an amateur pilot for us. They end up kind of repeating this cycle sort of over and over again, throughout the series, and then it comes out in this really obvious reference to having a spear and having a shield. So I thought that was really fun.

Caitlin 21:20

Cathy you're not gonna believe this. It's the same word in Japanese. Oh, is it really? For conflict contradiction? It's mujun (矛盾). So I had to look at the characters of máodùn. But yeah, it's it's mujun in Japanese, which just means contradiction, but it's the same spear and shield, yeah.

Cathy 21:35

There is kind of a wonderfully elemental and like contradictory sense with Veyeate and Mercurius is that I didn't catch on the first time I watched it and just wanted to share with the group.

Kat 21:48

I think that's fascinating to me, because I love the interplay between Heero and Trowa there when Heero drops his gun and he's in the beam cannon. So in that case, shield wins. [laughter] Because I mean, Trowa's on the defensive

Caitlin 22:05

Shield wins!

Caitlin 22:06

You know what else is a dichotomy? [laughing] That is operative in many of these [laughing]

Cathy 22:15

Uh oh.

Mallory 22:18

Seme and uke.

Kat 22:21

Dammit

Cathy 22:21

Dammit. Alright, where's this going? [laughter]

Caitlin 22:24

It's not going anywhere, it ends right there, that's [laughing]

Cathy 22:30

Well, I am going to selfishly move this conversation then to I think I really love which is the whole Heero/Trowa/Duo like trio dynamic that is happening. There's a lot of stuff that is going on between these three people on every leg of this triangle that is happening in Episode 19/20 and I just would love to talk about it.

Mallory 22:53

There's a lot of emotional entanglement going on.

Kat 22:56

So I liked when Trowa sees that Duo is captured and then -- on his Gundam TV -- and is like, "I bet Heero will handle that, it's cool." Like just, just assumes that he's going to take care of that guy.

Mallory 23:10

Well he knows right you know knows that Duo is like Heero's first boyfriend.

Caitlin 23:16

I liked when Duo said, "I don't want anyone else besides you to kill, kill me Heero." And then when Heero's like, "Yeah, I'm actually going to kill you," Duo's like WHAT?

Mallory 23:24

"Why would you do that?" Sad puppy eyes.

Caitlin 23:27

"WHAT? You're really, you're really gonna do it?"

Cathy 23:31

And I love how that is also then followed up by a scene where Trowa is actually forced to shoot Deathscythe and doesn't hesitate.

Caitlin 23:42

That depressed me.

Cathy 23:43

There's like this beautiful like, to me. you know this like, I don't even know what to explain about it. Where like Heero goes with the express intent to kill Duo and then does-- isn't able to do it for one reason or another which is not really, you know, even lingered upon but it is amazing, see, I love that.

Kat 24:00

It's they're, they're in love.

Mallory 24:01

Could, he just couldn't he doesn't know why

Cathy 24:03

He just couldn't and

Caitlin 24:04

He's not good at killing people, actually,

Kat 24:07

He's not good at killing hotties he likes.

Cathy 24:09

What I love specifically is both of these scenes involve a thing where the assault ,the assailant throws away his gun. But in this case, Heero throws a gun at Duo and says "your right hand is okay, right?" being like, you can use this gun.

Caitlin 24:22

Aww

Cathy 24:23

And then in Trowa's thing, he throws away his puny little gun so that he can ask for beam cannon so they can actually destroy Deathscythe. So I, again, I have no idea who wrote this. But like if you read that in a fic, you'd be like hell yeah, this person knows what they're doing.

Mallory 24:39

Oh, yeah.

Cathy 24:40

I just wanted to point that out. I loved it. I ate that up with spoon

Mallory 24:43

The shipping the one true pairing OTP./OT3 energy is real strong in these episodes.

Cathy 24:49

Oh so good

Mallory 24:49

And Kat and I have been watching the dubs and then watching the subs after for each of the two episodes and the delivery of the dub actors versus the sub actors is so different between Duo and Heero that it like really informs the pairing dynamics that you might see in fic.

Kat 25:11

Yeah, watching the dub is like, "Oh, I see." Like, this is exactly fic duo where he's like, you're gonna kill ME? Versus like, "oh, you're really gonna kill me?" Like it's it's so different.

Mallory 25:25

It's it's really different. And like, for me the difference in the delivery of the the exchanges, especially as they're escaping after Heero has rescued Duo is so different. In the dub, Duo and Heero's relationship is more one-sided, like Duo likes Heero and has affection for him, but Heero is still kind of like closed off. But in the sub, I hear more, sort of, we're already in love with each other, but we don't know it yet. Whereas in the dub, this is like, pre we even have feelings for each other. Does that makes sense?

Caitlin 26:00

It's interesting that you do so much deep reading of these inflections when I was just like, the dub acting is not very good. [laughter]

Kat 26:10

Well, I mean, it could definitely be that.

Mallory 26:12

right?

Kat 26:12

But it just, it feels so different. But I guess more in terms of how it might inform fandom reading of the characters.

Mallory 26:21

Yeah,

Kat 26:21

Like watching one or the other. Like I if I watched only one I would have a different view of how those two characters interacted.

Mallory 26:30

Right, the first time I ever watched Gundam Wing and then went and read fanfic, I was I was really confused by the presentation of Duo because in fanfic he's just kind of this like hapless... I don't know sort of like [laughing] not the not smart character [laughs]

Caitlin 26:49

He's a baka!

Kat 26:50

He's a dumb baka.

Caitlin 26:52

That's the term.

Mallory 26:52

Okay, well, I just didn't, didn't want to say it. [laughs]

Caitlin 26:55

Do we, do we need to pull out the vows of not making Duo a baka again?

Cathy 27:02

Nooo we don't

Kat 27:03

Oh my god. Yeah.

Cathy 27:04

We don't we don't need to go to the Society for the Defense of Duo's Intelligence.

Caitlin 27:08

Yes, we need to review our laws of not making Duo a baka.

Kat 27:14

He has read one book. But I mean, he's, he's just not, like he gets overwhelmed by mobile dogs. It's not like he's a moron getting captured and stuff.

Cathy 27:23

I do also want to say that, like he does, he is following this particular like, hurt/comfort trope.

Mallory & Kat 27:31

Yeah/Mmhmm

Cathy 27:32

That I don't know why was so pop-- I don't know if it's still popular now but it was incredibly popular then. And in order for that trope to work, somebody has to constantly like be beat up or like in

Caitlin 27:45

Yes

Cathy 27:45

a state of pain or in a state of peril

Caitlin 27:48

Umm

Cathy 27:48

And unfortunately,

Caitlin 27:50

I think this is definitely still a thing but it's a little bit different now. Whump has evolved I think,

Kat 27:56

Yeah.

Caitlin 27:57

it still exists though.

Kat 27:58

It's not quite the same

Cathy 27:59

And, but it definitely doesn't exist the same way as it used to, which was very explicit and very blunt. And in order to get there you kind of had to put one of the characters kind of in like stupid situations I feel like? and

Kat 28:11

Yeah,

Cathy 28:12

Yeaaaah

Caitlin 28:12

And that was Duo so I,

Cathy 28:14

These days you're not allowed to beat characters up as much. You kind of have to justify it.

Kat 28:19

Yeah, I think also you find fewer authors that are like I'm gonna write 40 fuckin fic and Duo is gonna get his ass kicked in every single one of them.

Cathy 28:28

Yeah (?)

Caitlin 28:29

I don't know though, because if you, when you dive in, in the tags, you can see some really wild things with contemporary fandoms. It's just not the fic that's, that's dominating the like, rec lists or like the circles that

Kat 28:41

Definitely the whump is a lot less dark.

Mallory 28:44

Yeah.

Kat 28:45

Well, good thing Gundam Wing canon provides. Duo gets his ass beat multiple times n canon so... by other pilots, it is great. That's why he's a fave.

Caitlin 28:53

He looks beautiful in these episodes

Kat 28:56

He really does

Caitlin 28:57

When he's like beating up in the cell. When Heero's like, "No, you can't come with me because you're useless." [laughter]

Caitlin 29:03

And he's like, be a little kinder next time.

Cathy 29:06

I love that Heero was just like, well go to school for me. I'm like, are you?

Mallory 29:10

Yeah.

Cathy 29:10

[laughter] What is wrong with you, Duo doesn't look anything like you?

Kat 29:14

Didn't Heero already go to that school? [laughter]

Caitlin 29:16

He made a whole speech

Mallory 29:17

You made a whole speech in front of everybody.

Kat 29:19

"Oh, you're gonna be real popular buddy."

Cathy 29:23

And I kept being like, is that like, I remember this. I really do remember this scene where he's just like, go to school. And like now I'm watching and I'm like, it is just as weird as I remember it. [laughs]

Caitlin 29:33

Wait, wait, wait, you know what the real point of him saying that is so now we know that Duo knows that Heero used his name,

Kat 29:41

Right, yes.

Caitlin 29:41

to enroll in school. So now Duo in our fanfics can think, "oh my god, he used my name, he's obsessed with me."

Kat 29:47

"What a fucking weirdo." [laughter]

Caitlin 29:49

"Maybe he really is in love with me. Blah, blah, blah blah." So that is like, him saying that I think is some sort of like pure fan service where it doesn't really make any sense and it's just to let us know that this character now knows this other character thinks about him.

Cathy 30:04

I completely lost my shit at this episode, I just want to tell you. I was like watching it and losing my shit.

Caitlin 30:10

These are really good episodes. I like fell asleep during them 'cause there's something wrong with me obviously. But they're really good episodes, a lot of stuff happens to the point where I think it's hard for us to think of things to like, really substantive things to say. They're just good action episodes.

Cathy 30:25

So before we move on, one last thing, you know, we had this amazing moment with Sally Po and the Maganacs when they met each other and they're kind of like, "you know, a Gundam pilot? I know Gundam pilot." It was great. I'm glad that we haven't forgotten Sally Po.

Kat 30:43

I'd like that you shouted out the Maganac names because in one of my one of my notes is like, "it's so nice that they have names now."

Caitlin 30:49

They all have names

Cathy 30:51

I love them.

Mallory 30:51

And they have personality. And I like that they're ribbing with each other like, "Oh, Abdul's plans never work the way they're supposed to, ugh."

Caitlin 31:00

Yeah, there's a token fuck up. It's great.

Kat 31:02

Yeah. [laughter]

Cathy 31:05

I really, I mean, I, those are like the little things that I think. I don't know, it just overall, there is a really rich universe in Gundam Wing that I'd forgotten about the first time I watched it. And it was nice to see that there are these moments in the show that there's no reason for anybody to shout out. But the fact that each of the Maganacs had a name. Each of them had a personality.

Kat 31:25

And some style.

Cathy 31:26

Yeah. So we kind of had like a weird hybrid cultural artifact that we wanted to talk about today. Kat you had brought up this video, which is of Super Robot Wars.

Kat 31:39

Yeah.

Cathy 31:40

Which is a part of the Gundam franchise more generally. And then I also just wanted to talk about my experience with Gundam fighting games, but you first.

Kat 31:48

So Super Robot Wars isn't just the Gundam series, but it's most, most of them are produced by Sunrise, but it's like a Bandai Namco Entertainment game. So even Evangelion mecha have shown up in it. But there's a ton of different Gundam characters and robots, like a turn based RPG with different characters mecha and storylines they pull from all different anime series, mostly Gundam.

Caitlin 32:19

Does it give you more information about the Gundam Wing world? Do you get like more details with the characters?

Kat 32:27

Not a ton, sadly. I mean, not for gonna wing. Maybe for other ones. There's like one specific Super Robot Wars, Super Robot Wars W which was for the DS that had Quatre and Duo, and Duo is disguised as Heero Yuy and you have to play a mission to sneak them to Earth. I've watched like YouTubes but Super Robot Wars always felt like one of those canons like side canons that I could never really access as a kid? And now that I could do it, it's sort of like eh. Treize is in it actually, Treize is in Super Robot Wars W also, he's the Federated Earth Nation President.

Cathy 33:08

So I okay, so there there is a running joke I have with my friends and this is kind of rude and I'm really sorry. I do think there is a certain element of like, what I usually associate with kinda Reddit anime fandom, or a certain element of like, and I'm sorry to say this but like "cis male anime fandom on Twitter?" And I call them Dragon Ball versus Naruto fans and those are people [laughter] are always talking about who is stronger, or like who would win in the battle, Naruto vs Goku? And like, to me that is like the least interesting thing about watching either series.

Caitlin 33:43

It's the dumbest shit.

Cathy 33:44

Right? Like I don't give a shit. Like

Kat 33:46

Right, who would smooch who?

Mallory 33:48

Yes,

Cathy 33:48

The reason why I bring this up is like, is I wondering if, if that is what Super Robot Wars is supposed to appeal to? Like? Is there an element where you want to see all of the Gundams from, and all of the like, mecha from the different series come together and fight. Like who? Like what is the appeal of this game?

Kat 34:10

I think it is. It's like getting to interact like with all these different things from franchises you like. But it's not like a mecha-to-mecha thing all the time. I don't know it's maybe it is, it's not a fighting game though. You're, it's an RPG.

Cathy 34:26

Okay,

Caitlin 34:27

Interesting

Kat 34:27

The White Fang from Gundam Wing in the future is like a villain. Like they ally with a rebellion from Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam so like, so it's that kind of thing. But I

Mallory 34:41

I mean, I can see why people would why it would appeal to a certain segment of population that games manufacturers would assume are watching the shows. [laughter] You know, it's it's just like the novelty of seeing. I don't know, isn't that why movies like Civil War? And

Cathy 35:01

Yes, absolutely.

Mallory 35:01

all of those are so popular because it's like, I just want to see them bashing against each other like Superman versus Batman versus Iron Man, you know,

Kat 35:10

There's got to be a mecha versus mecha game though like that feels like it has to exist. This one is interesting, because I think it's interesting that Gundam Wing is sort of outside the greater shared Gundam universe. So for them to pull it in for this was always interesting to me, because I was like, I always liked Gundam Wing as a kid because it's like, "oh, I can watch this. But I don't need to watch this other stuff that's going to be like 20 bucks for a VHS tape with two episodes on it."

Caitlin 35:39

Right. But then you could you could get into Gundam Wing, and then you could be like, oh, Gundam Wing is in Super Robot Wars. So I play that and then suddenly you get into these other things,

Kat 35:48

Right. exactly.

Cathy 35:50

So I actually played Gundam Wing: Endless Duel on an emulator and Gundam Wing: Endless Duel is actually a robot versus robot fighting.

Kat 35:59

Hell yeah!

Cathy 36:00

And, um, I really don't remember how I got this. I think somebody handed me like a CD-R? of all these have like an SNES emulator.

Caitlin 36:10

C! D! R!

Cathy 36:11

And there was Gundam Wing Endless Duel and I think like a Sailor Moon flaming game, maybe?

Caitlin 36:16

There is a Sailor Moon fighting game.

Caitlin 36:17

Yeah, that definitely exists, yes.

Cathy 36:19

So I played, so I remember, you know, and my mom was never gonna listen to this, she'll never know that I did this. I used to, like sneak down into our basement, like get on the computer in our basement and like play, like, you know, from the hours of like, 2am to like 4am, play like Gundam Wing Endless Duel, which was all in Japanese at the time, I had no idea was going on. So I was just like, mashing buttons. I was not particularly good. But it is great. And there is a lot of like, you know, obviously everybody forms opinions about like, who is the best Gundam and who is the worst Gundam? Like I think Heavyarms sucks. [laughter] So it's always like, beat up on Heavyarms while you're playing? Because you're like, "Yeah, he suuuucks." And like, there is this really fun moment where you get to try on all these weird ideals that come up in Gundam Wing. And I'm sure that's true of every Gundam game, but I like there is a moment where it's like, "oh, yeah, this is what it feels like to be a cishet anime male being like Naruto vs. Goku." That was my Naruto versus Goku moment.

Kat 37:18

I feel like the suits definitely made it further then the characters and Gundam Wing

Caitlin 37:23

was very much their own characters in a lot of ways. And like a lot of fans are just really into the cha-- and into the suits. It's like, it's like, instead of your waifu who you have your mecha. Maybe or maybe you can have both.

Kat 37:36

Uhhh, my mecha could be my waifu. [laughter]

Cathy 37:40

On that note, thank you guys for joining us to discuss Episodes 19-20 and also marrying a robot.

Caitlin 37:48

Nothing wrong with that.

Cathy 37:49

Nothing wrong with that. We appreciate all robot fuckers on this podcast. [laughter] Thank you guys, see you next time.

Kat 37:59

Keep in touch! Hear about our new episodes on Twitter at TallgeesePod. Find our full transcriptions on Tumblr at UntitledTallgeesePodcast dot Tumblr dot com and follow us on Instagram at UntitledTallgeesePodcast for behind the scenes deets, fandom artifacts, and memes.