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sodasa-was-taken · 10 months ago

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Romantic foils done right: How G-Witch uses romantic foils

Or why none of the characters who showed interest in Miorine and Suletta ever posed a threat to them getting together.

So, after the unexpected response to my last analysis and some recent discussions, I felt inspired to make another one. This time about romantic foils, a frequently misused but great tool in romances. I hope you enjoy it.

As far as I can tell, G-Witch has five romantic foils: Guel, El4n, Shaddiq, El5n, and Sophie.

In romances, when a character is in contrast to one of the main characters as a romantic option, they're a romantic foil. Having romantic foils in a story can be a great way to show what the principal characters see in each other. This is done by showcasing what the characters like and dislike about characters with contrasting attributes to the one they'll end up with.

Sometimes, it can feel like a romantic foil is just there to create cheap drama, often when they're a romantic rival, i.e., actively trying to get in the way of the main characters becoming a thing. Other times, when one of the focal characters isn’t the best person, an author might have a character who’s a romantic rival be even more of an asshole to make the character look better in comparison. This doesn’t make the character look better; it just creates a pick-your-poison situation. Furthermore, jackass and even more of a jackass ain’t foils since there isn’t any contrast. That isn’t to say that romantic foils can’t be antagonistic. Many of the romantic foils in G-Witch are also antagonists. In cases where a romantic foil is an antagonist, they emphasize the virtues of the characters they’re a foil to by being everything they’re not.

Guel, foil to Suletta – At the beginning of the show, Guel is everything Suletta is not regarding their treatment and intentions towards Miorine. Suletta is apologetic to a fault, while Guel pushes Miorine around like he owns her. Guel is abrasive, while Suletta is considerate. He’s ostentatious, and she’s shy. Crucially, Suletta’s shyness doesn’t prevent her from having pride in herself. She just doesn’t need to show off like Guel.

Miorine grows fond of Suletta for the same reason she dislikes Guel. He’s the embodiment of everything Miorine hates about her predicament, and Suletta is the opposite. Although Miorine sees them as two sides of the same coin at first, both are out to insert themselves into her life, just in different ways. Except as Miorine soon enough learns, Suletta had no intention of doing so but just couldn’t stand by while seeing someone in distress. Side note: It’s ironic how opposed Miorine is to Suletta interfering in her life when Miorine later follows Suletta around like a lost puppy and insists on helping her any chance she gets.

Attributes Miorine likes about Suletta that Guel notably lacks include, but are not limited to, her humbleness, her upbeat nature, her gratefulness, and her commitment to doing what she thinks is right. Also relevant if you think Miorine is a Lesbian; Suletta is a girl.

When it comes to why they become the Holder, Guel is doing it for himself, and Miorine is simply a prize to be won. Suletta, on the other hand, ends up as the Holder unintentionally, dueling to help out Miorine rather than to have her. In fact, when she learns that being a woman does not exempt her from being Miorine’s groom, she goes full blue screen of death.

Guel, foil to Miorine – Straight from one character’s romantic foil to the other. Guel is Suletta's foil until he catches feelings for her and shifts to become Miorine's. After being the first demonstration of Suletta's extreme discomfort with someone coming on too strong Guel denies his affection for Suletta. This happens shortly after Miorine has Suletta donning the uniform which shows the two are engaged.

In episode nine, while Miorine does everything she can to guarantee they win the duel against Grassley House, Guel won’t even fight because Dad told him he wasn’t allowed to duel. He doesn’t want Earth House and, more specifically, Suletta to lose, but not enough to disobey his father.

At the backend of season two, Guel becomes a regular foil to Miorine instead of a romantic foil since he’s no longer interested in getting with Suletta or, as he puts it, there are more important things than whatever feelings he might have for Suletta. This means he isn’t being motivated by those feelings the same way Miorine is by her love for Suletta and can, therefore, look a bit more objectively. It also means that he doesn’t stop Miorine from doing something he sees as fruitless because helping her break Suletta’s heart is a prize he’s willing to pay to save Jeturk Heavy Machinery.

Side note: Guel does his job as a foil quite well, but because he’s a foil, his prominence is completely unwarranted. It might’ve been a little more reasonable if he was the only romantic foil, but this story has five. Giving this much attention to a romantic foil in a romance about a straight couple would be unthinkable. Still, because the story is about a same-sex couple, they can’t be the image of their own story.

El4n, foil to Miorine – El4n is the only romantic foil in the story, highlighting the flaws of the one he's a foil to. His function in the show is to get Miorine worked up and showcase that Suletta isn't the type to pine. Side note: Suletta appears to be quite binary when it comes to others having feelings for her. Either they like her romantically, or they never will.

From very early on, El4n shows a fondness for Suletta, which Miorine is having none of. Later on, El4n asks Suletta out to get to Aerial. Side note: Gotta love how Miorine compares Suletta and El4n to Romeo and Juliet, considering that if any characters in this series have their budding relationship sabotaged by the feud between their families, it’s Miorine and Suletta.

When El4n learns that Suletta isn’t an Enhanced Person like himself, his demeanor towards Suletta changes on the spot. The progression of Suletta’s relationship with El4n is an inversion of her relationship with Miorine. Where Miorine had to overcome a misconception about Suletta for her fondness for Suletta to grow, a misconception about Suletta is what El4n's fondness for Suletta initially sprung from. Additionally, El4n asks Suletta out because he wants something from her, while Miorine pretends she wants something from Suletta, but in truth, she wants to prevent Suletta from becoming the one who got away. Girl didn't pass up the chance to go to Earth in order to save Suletta because she needed a shield.

Despite Suletta having an interest in El4n, spurred on by him showing an interest in her and El4n eventually reciprocating, a relationship between them would never work as their goals are diametrically opposed. If El4n wants to keep his life and be allowed to live his life as he pleases, he needs to win a duel against Suletta and take Aerial away from her. Something she can’t let happen because, for one, she wouldn’t even give up Aerial for the person she’s excited to marry, and two, losing would be letting down Miorine, someone she cares deeply about, and Suletta’s not about that.

When Suletta wins the fight, she also wins back El4n’s heart, but their relationship is doomed before it starts because El4n fails to secure Aerial for the Peil company and has to die for his failure. El4n accepts this and doesn’t fight to stay in Suletta’s life, instead thanking her and letting death take him.

In the last episode, El4n apologizes to Suletta for standing her up to which Suletta basically tells him not to sweat it as she’s come to learn that the person for her wasn’t him.

Shaddiq, foil to Suletta – Here’s someone who starts out coming off as approachable but who’s revealed to be more and more deranged as the series goes on. Shaddiq is willing to do whatever it takes to get what he wants all the while keeping his friendly appearance and calming smile.

Throughout episode nine, it becomes clear that while Shaddiq and Suletta are both upbeat go-getters, their views on Miorine couldn’t be more different. Shaddiq does, to some degree, care about Miorine, but what he thinks is best for Miorine is at odds with what Miorine wants. He justifies his attempts to control her with her being stubborn and unreasonable. She doesn’t know what would be the best for her, and Shaddiq’s been nothing but kind to her, so he doesn’t get why she keeps turning him down. This guy sure is tipping his metaphorical fedora.

The epitome of Suletta and Shaddiq’s conflicting views is shown when Shaddiq runs into Suletta after being at the greenhouse. He fails to reason with Miorine, so he tries to get Suletta to talk some reason into telling her that as Miorine’s groom, it’s her responsibility to talk some sense into her. Suletta doesn’t agree with the sentiment and instead thinks that her role as Miorine’s groom is to stand by her and support her. A very how the spouge of a woman should aim to protect and provide for their wife vs. they should treat their wife as an equal and encourage them to do what they want schools of thoughts. As Miorine seems perfectly content to be the primary breadwinner in the relationship, that first idea has less than no appeal to her.

Suletta ultimately turns out to be right, with the show taking a shot at the whole strong man who’s the sole protector of what’s deemed to be his mentality. After his defeat, he tells Miorine that he should have offered to fight for her, which most likely would have gotten him nowhere. Before Miorine met Suletta, she wouldn’t let anyone fight for her, and a good part of why Miorine rolled with Suletta becoming Holder was because she had no intention to. There’s no way of having the intention to become Holder and do what Suletta did. The intention is there, and that’s the problem. It cannot be overstated how little Suletta would care about being the Holder if Miorine hadn’t wanted her to be.

When Shaddiq learns that Miorine will be at Plant Quetta, he callously shrugs off the idea that he should try to stop her from getting hurt and leave it up to fate if she makes it out alive. This becomes somewhat vindictive when he probably justifies this kind of thinking by making it Miorine’s own fault for rejecting his protection. She doesn’t want him to keep her safe so he will do no such thing.

El5n, foil to Miorine – There’s not much to say here. El5n showcases Suletta’s aversion to someone coming on too strong and her commitment to be with Miorine, as by the time El5n first makes a move on Suletta, she’s already hopelessly in love with Miorine. He and Miorine are also opposite extremes when it comes to their interactions with Suletta. El5n insists that Suletta should get with him while Miorine rejects that she has any veto over who Suletta can be with.

Sophie, foil to Miorine – Mostly qualifies for acting antithetically to Miorine and self-identifying as someone who sees Miorine as an obstacle to getting to Suletta. Although Sophie technically doesn’t express interest in being with Suletta romantically, since she goes full Yandere mode at the mention of Suletta being with someone else, she might as well be. One of a romantic foil’s main functions is to demonstrate why a relationship with them wouldn’t be in the best interest of the person they’re interested in having a relationship with. Declaring that she’ll have to kill Miorine to get the relationship she wants with Suletta makes Sophie succeed with flying colors in that regard.

Being a Yandere, Sophie doesn’t understand what would be offputting about telling Suletta she’s going to kill her loved ones. In her mind, she’s setting Suletta free to become a ruthless killer, which really shows how much she’s misjudged what Suletta is like as a person. As the cherry on top, it turns out Sophie’s obsessed with Ericht and not Suletta.

This is another case of a character being the opposite extreme of Miorine. Concurrently with the event involving Norea and Sophie, Miorine is at the point where she’s blaming Prospera for Suletta’s actions, as she can’t see her little ball of innocence killing people unless she has been manipulated.

From a meta-perspective, El4n, Guel, and Shaddiq are also the antithesis of what a romance protagonist should be due to their inability to fight for love. They’re defeatist and, at points, almost deterministic. After one major setback, they turn back to the person of their affection in the sense that they leave the person’s well-being up to fate. Something Suletta and Miorine never do to each other. Even when their insecurities get the better of them, they still have the other’s happiness and well-being in mind.

Furthermore, having the romantic foils display philosophies associated with determinism is a sort of social commentary in a sense. A part of Japanese culture is the acceptance of bad things happening and a willingness to make the best of an unfavorable situation, sometimes expressed through the word shouganai and similar words. This is a perfectly wealthy mentality until it gets used in situations people can and, more importantly, should be doing something about or, at the very least, be less accepting of. Case in point: whatever is up with Japan being behind on queer rights despite its several partnerships with multiple Western countries. So, having characters that act like their hands are tied and just shrug it off makes them foils to Suletta and Miorine, where needing to do something about a bad situation is a major part of their characters. The fact that the characters in question are products of the elite and two queer people who keep getting screwed over by the system is quite reflective of the contrast between activists in Japan and the country they live in.

As the show is now, pairing these guys with the heroines reeks of heteronormativity. It doesn’t matter whether or not that’s the intention; it still does. Two female characters can go through thick and thin together, always having each other’s back whenever possible, and some people see their relationship as equal or even inferior to their barely existing or one-sided relationship with a man. The level of hypocrisy is astounding. It feeds into the idea that guys are entitled to have their feelings returned just by existing. That’s a big part of the reason there are guys who feel threatened by sapphic couples. It messes with their indoctrination that a woman would rather be with another woman than them.

It’s almost amusing how any of these characters come across as having a chance with either Miorine or Suletta when they’re never presented as such in the narrative. Unless the series was going to do a storytelling faux pas, Suletta and Miorine getting together is an inevitability by episode three. Having all this build-up just for them to end with someone else would be narrative nonsense. Good thing that didn’t happen.

#mobile suit gundam: the witch from mercury #g witch #the witch from mercury #suletta mercury #miorine rembran #guel jeturk #el4n #shaddiq zenelli #el5n #sophie pulone #sulemio #suletta x miorine #welp! here we go again

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animebw · 2 years ago

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So! In order to keep myself from losing my goddamn mind in the aftermath of that G-Witch episode (how are we supposed to wait two weeks for the next episode I swear to fuck), I want to take a second and focus on something this show has done exceptionally well, but that I haven’t really seen talked about at all. Namely, the fact that Suletta is one of the best examples of an overpowered protagonist I’ve ever seen.

And yes, she is canonically overpowered. As long as she has Aerial by her side, she can curb-stomp pretty much every opponent without breaking a sweat. Time and again, she goes up against impossible odds and wipes the floor with them The best duelist at school? Chump. Facing multiple opponents alone and outnumbered? Child’s play. And honestly, I was starting to get annoyed by it around the end of the first season. How are we supposed to believe Suletta’s ever going to be in danger if she’s so ludicrously stronger than everyone else?

And then The Slap happened, and everything turns upside-down.

See, what makes season 1′s cliffhanger ending so goddamn powerful isn’t just the sight of our cheerful bumbling protagonist liquifying a living person into red paste in front of her horrified fiance. It’s not just the realization of how deep Prospera’s manipulation has twisted Suletta’s sense of identity. No, the real secret behind The Slap’s brilliance is that it retroactively makes every single moment of Overpowered Suletta fucking terrifying. Suddenly, we realize that her overwhelming strength in battle is a direct result of Prospera’s influence, raising her to be the perfect pawn in her little scheme. The reason she’s able to knock the socks off every single opponent she faces isn’t just Latent Protag Syndrome; it’s because her mother crafted her into a relentless warrior with the strength to destroy any obstacle in the path to her revenge. Suletta’s strength in battle isn’t just overwhelming; it’s dangerous, to herself and everyone around her. And the second she has to unleash that strength in a situation more serious than a no-casualties school sporting match, it becomes instantly, horrifyingly clear that she is in no way ready to grapple with the great responsibility that comes with such great power.

In other words, what first seemed like just a case of another anime protagonist winning every fight because reasons turns on its head and makes that overpowered nature a source of fear, both for the audience and for Miorine. So instead of ending up a boring tension-killer where we’re never afraid for Suletta’s safety, the fact that she’s capable of such force becomes the most critical source of tension and conflict driving her and Miorine’s story in the second season. Suletta being so overpowered is an explicit character flaw, at least as long as Prospera’s claws are in her. Because just because she can punch away any physical threat in her path doesn’t mean she’s not vulnerable in countless other areas. She may be the strongest in a fight, but she has nowhere near the strength of character to deal with the political schemes and emotional burdens that come about as a result of that strength. All that skill on the battlefield doesn’t mean shit when you can’t see how that skill is being manipulated for dark ends, or causing you to take on stress and trauma you have no healthy way of coping with. Suletta can smash her way to victory in any fight, and yet she’s the most vulnerable, least protected person in the entire cast, in no small part thanks to the forces that made her so strong in the first place.

There’s a reason characters like Saitama from One Punch Man and Mob from Mob Psycho 100 are so beloved, despite being so overpowered. ONE knows that in order to make an overpowered character interesting, you need to give them struggles beyond the scope of their powers to fix. Saitama can punch a mountain in half, but he can’t punch his way out of existential ennui; that’s just as much of a struggle for him as any normal person. Mob’s psychic powers can’t solve his emotional turmoil or provide him the perfect path toward maturity; he has to figure that out himself. They are overwhelmingly strong in fights, but the primary conflict of their stories has very little to do with those fights and everything to do with their growth as people. They’re stories about how even being the strongest person alive doesn’t protect you from the challenges of life that everyone on this planet faces, and their journeys to self-actualization are enormously compelling as a result. No one remembers the overpowered exploits of Isekai Harem Protagonist du jour; everyone remembers watching Saitama and Mob slowly find their way forward in life, one simple step at a time.

Suletta, in my eyes, is very much in the same vein. Like Saitama and Mob and all the best overpowered protagonists, her writing understands that being incredibly skilled in one area doesn’t mean you can’t be challenged in others- and in Mob’s case especially, how that incredible skill can actually be the biggest obstacle for the challenge you actually need to overcome. Suletta’s skill in battle is made compelling by her lack of that same skill in other areas, and the ultimate conflict of Gundam Witch is a conflict she cannot punch her way out of. If she’s going to survive this chaos and live happily every after with Miorine, she will need to struggle to overcome her years of conditioning and emotional uncertainty. She will need to struggle just as Mob struggled, just as Saitama struggled, not just to learn the skills she hasn’t developed yet, but to push back against the influence that resulted in her being so freakishly strong in the first place. Suletta is an overpowered protagonist who’s overpowered nature is, itself, the greatest challenge she will have to overcome in order to truly save herself and the people she loves. And I think that’s really damn neat.

#anime #the anime binge-watcher #tabw #mobile suit gundam: the witch from mercury #gundam witch #gundam witch from mercury #g-witch #suletta mercury #miorine rembran #suletta x miorine #prospera mercury

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