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meanwhileonfezzan · 5 years ago

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Book 9 thoughts (spoilers ahoy, avert thine eyes)

I’m procrastinating, so here’s a couple of things I liked from book nine. All quotes are from the English translation.

Things slow down in the Alliance narrative since our lovely tea-sipping deuteragonist got unjustly taken away in the last book, but there were some nice moments. Them putting back the pieces together and looking to the future and all that jazz. Maybe it’s not thrilling like large-scale space battles or political intrigue, but it’s nice in its own subtle way. Julian takes up Yang’s role of philosophical musing, of course. The boy needs to give himself credit, though. However, compared to the sheer flaming tire-fire of the empire’s melodrama, it just didn’t capture my interest as keenly. I enjoyed Poplin ducking away as soon as Murai returned to visit, a nice constant in a changed enterprise.

And of course Reuentahl’s rebellion was messy, complicated, and tragic, like the man himself. The one solace from the whole thing was Trunicht’s death:

“He was still smiling when the hole opened in his chest. It was only when the agony seized control of his entire nervous system and the blood that gushed forth discolored his tailored suit that his expression changed. Not to a look of fear, or pain. Rather, it was more a look of rebuke, as if to criticize a man who had been irrational enough to harm him in defiance of his judgement and calculations [can u not].”

There’s a page on why Hilda and Reinhard are basically those Pandas at the zoo that never bang. They are creatures made of pure work ethic and no sexual instinct whatsoever. It took a boatload of wine and an assassination attempt in order to make an heir to the Lohengramm dynasty, and that’s great.

It also goes into how Reinhard’s struggle against the Kaiser was really a child’s struggle against his father. And I can’t get the image of Reinhard yelling at old Friedrich “FUCK YOU, YOU’RE NOT MY REAL DAD”. Like his whole rise to power was his version of teenage rebellion. It kind of borders on...Oedipal, but that’s neither here nor there.

And then there’s a nice section about Annerose. I’ve seen a couple of interpretations of varying sorts concerning her actions after the events at the end of book II, so it was kind of surprising to see it actually spelled out. (In the form of historical criticism, as is the style of the book; he emphasizes that female historians were the harshest, uh oh). But then there’s this clap-back to her critics, and I couldn’t help but smile:

“In the end, we cannot avoid the conclusion that they [female historians] view [Annerose’s] actions through the lens of motherhood and its abandonment. Would they be satisfied if the archduchess had continued to cling to her brother’s side into his twenties, indulge and spoil him, meddle in politics, and undermine his psychological independence? Of course the same authors would doubtless claim that to be robbed of one’s virginity by a tyrant at the age of fifteen, and then imprisoned for the next ten years, is not enough to make Annerose herself a sacrificial victim.”

My boi Lang is as he ever was: a petty, oleaginous scumbag possessed by delusions of grandeur. The baby-faces description appears again and warms the cockles of my heart. But he beats both Reinhard and Reuentahl in net contributions to the genepool, and being a good father. And being a dog dad doesn’t count, Oberstein. (SMH, it’s like the top brass in the Lohengramm dynasty are following the millennial playbook). I like to think that his descendants will scatter far and wide in the empire. And one day, a young baby-faced and portly youth, Langhard, will begin his meteoric rise to power, after his equally baby-faced and portly sister, Langerose, is stolen away by the decadent kaiser, Rudolf von Lohengramm the XIIth. It’s only fair.

As for the bookly Oberstein Report:

He’s himself, as usual. Maybe even more relaxed, I found I only called him an “asshole” a couple of times. Maybe it’s because he wasn’t making too many appearances. I imagine once book 10 rolls around, I will have ample opportunity to correct this discrepancy.

At this point, the feeling in the empire is low-key they know Oberstein’s been doing shady shit, but they just ignore it. It’s great, like they’ve resigned themselves to his scheming, both real and imagined. I interpret this reputation as something that Oberstein did little to dissuade, as it ends up working as an effective smokescreen for the actual shady shit. And admirals catch themselves second-guessing all their actions without Oberstein actually having lift a finger to keep them in line.

Oberstein barely gets his hands dirty in this book, not that he wasn’t prepared to do it. The book does have a line about historians accusing him of “burying his counterpart without bloodying his hands” that pretty much lines up on my interpretation of the whole debacle. And then there’s this:

“ ‘...but listen to me,’ he added with a wry smile that astonished Ferner, ‘How talkative I have become.’ “ This is, coincidentally, the exact way to spell out the sound of hell freezing over.

#spoilers #book #novels

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logh-icebergs · 7 years ago

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Episode 16: A New Tide

Fall 796/487. The Battle of Amlitzer Starzone wraps up as a big win for the Empire and a big loss for the Alliance—though not for Yang’s fleet, which is able to escape mostly unscathed. Reinhard decides to punish Bittenfeld for fucking up royally, but Kircheis convinces him not to, much to the sinister Oberstein’s chagrin. Then, twist! The Kaiser dies of a heart attack! There’s no direct male heir, so a bunch of vaguely related randos jockey for position before it’s decided that the throne will be awarded to Frederich IV’s grandson, the five-year-old Erwin Josef II. Over in the Alliance, Yang is appointed Commander of Iserlohn, where he immediately hires all his misfit friends and co-conspirators to help make Iserlohn the best party fortress in the galaxy. Meanwhile, Reinhard and Kircheis touch each other a lot (in the past and in the present), and Reuental and Mittermeyer, unable to go on a date during an actual battle, FaceTime instead. Annerose actually gets to be happy for once.

Reinhard and Kircheis

There is SO MUCH telling body language in this moment: their hands simultaneously reaching for each other, Reinhard’s lingering touch on Kircheis’s shoulder, Kircheis’s tiny head tilt down... It’s unfair that they can’t just kiss onscreen, isn’t it?

It’s been a couple episodes (and at least a few in-universe weeks) since our central couple have been in the same place at the same time, and you’ll recall they parted on complicated terms. But as has been the case in the past, Reinhard and Kircheis are nothing if not good at compartmentalizing. Kircheis may not approve of Reinhard’s Oberstein-inspired methods of late, but that doesn’t stop him from carrying out his orders to the letter and looking forward to a happy reunion. And Reinhard’s concerns about the tension between them at this point seem only to heighten his relief at Kircheis’s safe and successful return home.

Even during this period of uneasiness between the two of them, Kircheis’s mood at the prospect of seeing Reinhard again is unambiguously positive. And very sweet.

Of course, Reinhard’s public display of intimacy with Kircheis upon his return, however restrained, has the sinister Oberstein on edge, which only increases when Kircheis unabashedly follows Reinhard into his private quarters following his harsh reprimand of Bittenfeld.

Mittermeyer clearly also notices Kircheis unsubtly walking after Reinhard, but he minds his own damn business. (That’s kind of Mittermeyer’s thing, as we’ll see much more of later on.)

But luckily for us, Kircheis cares about what Oberstein thinks exactly as much as is warranted (not at all), so he’s about to exercise some special privileges, and we get to watch.

Influential Kircheis

We’ve heard a lot about Kircheis’s ability to influence Reinhard—Annerose has encouraged it; Oberstein has been wary of it—but until now Kircheis has been almost entirely agreeable, even when he doesn’t agree. If he really does have significant sway over Reinhard, it seems like he’s been playing it pretty close to the vest. Actually, it turns out he’s just been saving up his Influence Reinhard Chips to spend on something worthwhile: what he sees as Reinhard’s callous treatment of a subordinate.

Whenever we get glimpses into the inner workings of Reinhard and Kircheis’s relationship, it’s worth an in-depth examination, and the episode 16 Bittenfeld conversation is a doozy, so get comfortable.

After his first request for Reinhard to reconsider his punishment of Bittenfeld is met with indignation, Kircheis abandons that line of inquiry and moves onto something less direct but more uniquely accessible to him: Reinhard’s emotions.

Yes, it’s a conversation about feelings! There are a few things about this whole scene that make it something only Kircheis can do—the setting, the straightforwardness, his eventual successful persuasion of Reinhard to his way of thinking—but the most pronounced is definitely its subject matter. It’s safe to say that, with the probable exception of Annerose, Kircheis is the only person in the entire galaxy who could initiate a conversation about feelings with Reinhard von Lohengramm and live to tell the tale.

The trouble with dating in the workplace: Once Kircheis has made clear the level of intimacy necessary to having this conversation, Reinhard gets annoyed that he’s still using such an official form of address (kakka).

Of course Kircheis being Kircheis, the least formal address he can muster is Reinhard-sama, but here at Icebergs we don’t believe in kinkshaming. Let your freak flag fly, Kircheis!

Kircheis proceeds to perform some highly accurate armchair psychology on Reinhard, and posits that the true object of Reinhard’s anger is not Bittenfeld but (gasp!) Reinhard himself. This, of course, pisses Reinhard off but only because of how true it is, proving yet again that he is among the most relatable characters in LoGH.

Reinhard’s adorably self-contained mini-tantrum, above, fazes Kircheis literally not at all, which I find to be super touching—Kircheis says something that he knows will get under Reinhard’s skin, and then makes it clear that it’s safe for Reinhard to process that emotion openly in his presence. He’ll wait. Also worth noting is that, while Reinhard expresses anger and frustration in public quite frequently (as we’ll see far more of in the future), usually whoever is unlucky enough to be standing near him at the time becomes anything between wary and downright terrified, as can be seen in these moments from episode 15:

It’s to be expected that the random low-level officer above on the left would flinch spectacularly at Reinhard’s, um, amazing line there, but even the pathologically stoic Oberstein is not immune to standing slack-jawed in the presence of Reinhard’s fury. Kircheis, who has been Reinhard’s constant companion for a decade, knows what to expect from Reinhard and is not even a little bit afraid of him. I imagine Reinhard must find that very comforting.

When Kircheis gets to the point of why he followed Reinhard in the first place, he does finally lose his composure a bit—and for Kircheis, as I’ve discussed, a bit of lost composure goes a long way.

Kircheis’s general affect is one of carefully controlled size and strength. This is only the second time we’ve seen him lose his cool, and just like when he did in episode 9 (below), his impassioned movement fills the screen far more than his usual calmness does.

Emotionally unrestrained Kircheis can barely be contained by your TV screen.

Whether it’s his unleashed passion or his reasoning that does it, Kircheis is able to convince Reinhard, and after letting the anger flow through him for a bit, Reinhard calms down enough to admit that Kircheis is right, and he shouldn’t punish Bittenfeld. Reinhard starts to walk away, then turns back to ask Kircheis something, and we are blessed with what is definitely one of the top ten softest moments in all of LoGH:

Soft-eyes Reinhard is a gift among gifts, we are not worthy. This exchange is just so sweet and pure, I love these two boys.

Supportive Kircheis

Episode 16 is All About Kircheis... with respect to his relationship with Reinhard, of course. We’ve already seen how Kircheis is able to exercise his much-talked-about Influence Over Reinhard, and now it’s time to delve deeper into another aspect of their dynamic: Kircheis as emotional protector.

Given the toll Kaiser Friedrich IV has taken on Reinhard’s life, you might expect for him to be happy when the Kaiser suddenly drops dead of a heart attack, but this is Reinhard, so you’d be wrong. Instead, Reinhard is profoundly frustrated that he doesn’t get to deliver some kind of appropriately cruel killing blow himself against the man who bought Annerose ten years ago. Kircheis, too, is frustrated, but for a different reason.

Kircheis’s nod here is ambiguous: At first glance he obviously agrees with Reinhard because of Annerose’s mistreatment at the hands of the late Kaiser. But his feelings are more complicated that that because, as always, he filters them through his feelings for Reinhard.

In response to Reinhard’s angry musings, Kircheis has a brief but frankly kind of incredible memory in which he fails the Reinhard-Bechdel Test so dramatically that I again feel kind of awful for intruding on what are clearly very private thoughts. Kircheis’s memory fills in an apparent blank in the episode 4 flashback, and is below basically in its entirety:

Contextually, it would make sense for Kircheis to be remembering the 15-year-old Annerose being taken away to become the Kaiser’s concubine—it’s what Reinhard was just talking about, after all. But Annerose only gets just enough screen time to confirm that yes, she’s the one in the car that Reinhard and Kircheis are chasing after.

Instead, both the camera and Kircheis are focused on how devastated Reinhard is. Kircheis doesn’t flash back to losing Annerose—he remembers supporting Reinhard (physically, even!) through the trauma of him losing Annerose. Of course Kircheis is angry at the Kaiser for what he did to Annerose: Annerose was basically family for the short time that they were neighbors, and besides, it was a really objectively fucked up thing that happened to her. But the emotion that shows on his face when Reinhard bemoans his missed chance to personally murder the Kaiser is not about Annerose; it is, as always, about Reinhard.

And when Kircheis accompanies Reinhard to his long-awaited reunion with Annerose, the camera again tells us what we already know: Kircheis’s emotions, conveyed via a close-up of his tear-filled eyes, are in response to Reinhard finally getting his sister back.

Iserlohn, assemble!

Meanwhile, elsewhere in the galaxy, people are actually having fun instead of being sad, angry, and vengeful. We’ll learn a LOT more about the ins and outs of life on Alliance-occupied Iserlohn, but suffice it to say that I (Elizabeth) want to live there, and specifically if anyone can figure out some way for me to go drinking at a gay bar with Dusty, I would ask that you please let me know.

Anyway, newly-minted Admiral Yang is now officially in charge of Iserlohn, so it falls to him to appoint all the usual suspects to important positions under his command—Dusty, Schenkopp, Frederica, and of course Poplan and Konev all get special mention.

Work it, Poplan!

Earlier in the episode, we see Yang and the, uh, gang seeing Cazellnu off at the airport—despite it not actually being his fault, he’s been banished to a remote frontier planet as punishment for the Alliance falling victim to Reinhard’s aggressive starvation tactic back in episodes 13 and 14—and Yang takes the opportunity to casually ask his friends to work for him in an official capacity when they get to Iserlohn.

We also see some great (as usual) Alliance streetwear, as well as Cazellnu’s wife, Hortence, who has finally blessed us with her presence. Rebecca is sure to talk more about her in the future. Possibly more than is strictly necessary.

There’s a nice little bit of exposition in the background of this scene that’s conveyed, like so much else in LoGH, through facial expressions: Listening to Yang start to fill out the roster of people he’s taking to Iserlohn, Julian’s face betrays his fear that he might not be among them.

This isn’t the last time Julian telegraphs his emotions to the viewer without saying anything, so make sure to keep a close eye on his expressions, especially when the camera makes a big point of it like it does here.

This potential drama is resolved off-screen, but seeing the worry on Julian’s face at the airport makes the reveal that he did get to come along after all a really sweet moment.

Julian and Gensui are ready to be photographed for the Winter 796 Sears Christmas Catalog cover.

Stray Tidbits

What the hell kind of anime bullshit is going on in Phezzan?? I neither know nor care.

These buildings look like they were designed by Dr. Seuss.

Two things: First of all, I love that Reuental and Mittermeyer check in with each other after a battle. We don't see anyone else do this for non-essential reasons, and it's adorable. Second of all, the loop on this gif cracks me up. Mittermeyer is 5+ inches shorter than Reuental; you can't just copy and paste their chairs!

So did Mittermeyer get a tiny chair in order to make him look Reuental's height, or did Reuental get a huge chair to make himself look small? Future historians can only guess.

#Legend of Galactic Heroes #Legend of the Galactic Heroes #author: Elizabeth #Empire #Alliance #Reinhard #Kircheis #holding hands #Iserlohn #Julian

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