#yamazin toka

[kydoesthings1]

alphabet mafia gjallarhorn

[wordsandrobots]

Youtube user Trafalgar Log has put up their fansub of the next Iron-Blooded Oprhans Side Story, which is focused on one particular part of Gjallarhorn between the two seasons. I’m making this a text post because the thumbnail is relatively spoilery and at least one of my Tumblr mutuals is likely to start watching IBO relatively soon, so I thought it a courtesy not to give away the most guessable twist in Season 2 by accident. Also, Tumblr seems to have taken offense to my last post like this and I thought I’d see if this method fares better.

Anyhoo, let’s discuss a test-flight shall we? (Do not look under this cut if you don’t want explicit spoilers for both seasons. I really mean it.)

Right off the bat, I’m delighted Chief Yamazin Toka is getting some spotlight time. She’s one of my favourite background characters for how little of a shit she gives for anything outside her work. She’s just here to tune up mobile suits and stir trouble by giving away important plot points, seemingly just because it took her fancy to do so. Here, she’s been dragged her away from the Reginlaze development work and sent to a ‘remote colony’ to run tests on a ‘disgusting masked machine’, and she isn’t shy about making clear how annoyed she is by that.

Obviously, anyone familiar with Season 2 will know exactly what that ‘masked machine’ is - the revised version of Gundam Kimaris, rebuilt after McGillis wrecked it at the end of Season 1 and camouflaged to disguise its identity. And the pilot is, of course, a scarred Gaelio Bauduin, back from the dead and in a mood.

What is immediately interesting here is that this confirms Toka and Gaelio already knew each other. She notes his change in attitude, having met him when he tested out the Schwalbe Graze (I think the implication is that she’s mocking him when she says she thought him a nice little boy who refused to eat his veggies, since she says that’s how she felt; I don’t think she literally met him as a kid).

Since Gaelio is in his mid to late twenties, being given the chance to test a prototype of a high-performance mobile suit is quite significant. It either speaks to a very speedy development of his piloting skills (which aren’t that impressive on their own, comparatively) or to the privilege that comes with being part of the Seven Stars (it’s this one, obviously). This may just be meant to imply that his use of a Schwalbe at the start of the series is the testing that is being referred to here, but I don’t think that squares with how Toka talks about him.

Also interesting is that Toka starts off holding the position that mobile suit developments that depend on anything other than the skill of pilots and engineers aren’t worth much, which puts her at odds with the installation of the Type E system aboard Kimaris. She calls it over-complicated and ‘just pieced together’, which I assume means it’s a bodge-job, as well as alluding to it thinking on its own.

Anyway, they banter for a while, Toka recalling that despite her friendly attitude, he never hit on her back during the Schwalbe testing. To this, he comments that he doubts anyone would ever try to seduce her -- and frankly, make of that what you will, especially since Toka follows it up by mentioning he used to brag about a technique to make women fall in love with him taken from tales of gods and magic. This serves of set-up for later in the story, but more immediately for calling him on the utter melodrama of running around in a mask and a disguised mobile suit just so that he can jump out and declare who he is later.

This is my favourite part - IBO does a very good job of making the nonsense its characters pull diagetic and this is up there with the twins holding Kudelia’s hair out of the way or Carta getting annoyed that McGillis is always fiddling with his hair.

Gaelio of course protests that he’s just hiding so people don’t see him coming and responds to Toka’s comments about the dangers of piloting the revised Kimaris by saying he’s already died. The ‘suit is animated by his ideals; he’s just moved by it -- and boy is that a resonant line given, you know . . . *gestures* . . . everything.

We cut to a playable section which has Kimaris fighting some Geirails and Hloekk Grazes in a mock battle. This impresses Toka enough to make her start revising her opinion of the possibilities for the Type E, but that’s when the system and Gaelio’s brainwaves start going out of control.

Toka remains calm as Kimaris attacks everything in sight (at least, I think that’s what’s happening? The way it’s animated using game segments and static images isn’t clear). She laughs and says she and Gaelio bring out the best in each other, and that there’s a lot to do on that mess of a control system.

Gaelio gets the Type E to stop by appealing to Ein to save his strength so that they can get revenge on McGillis for their humiliation.

We then cut to a fully animated segment for the point of this episode -- Gaelio taking on the name Vidar, after the young god who slew the demon wolf Fenrir in the old stories he used to read. This is obviously apt in his mind because McGillis is a Fareed, whose crest is said wolf, even if the reality will prove to be somewhat less clear-cut.

And there we are. Toka states the control system is less muddled with dark thoughts than she expected, speaking to the eventual perfect sync between Gaelio and Ein, and the revised Kimaris gets a new designation. This fills in details regarding the problems Gaelio was having that were mentioned at the start of Season 2 and gives him a proper moment of casting aside his identity for his revenge. This is obviously inessential since we basically already knew all that, but it adds something to have Toka prodding at him over it, highlighting the affectation and underlining the misguided elements of his actions.

[stalkerkyoko]

Yamazin Toka  is our expostion girl

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Characters/MobileSuitGundamIronBloodedOrphansGjallarhorn

[kydoesthings1]

McGillis and the Pied Piper

because February 24th’s Wordle was piper and I am procrastinating on school work

At 16:57 of S2E21 (E46) Gaelio says this to McGillis before charging him.

(Gaelio is speaking through the comms offscreen.)

(Apparently this line was also used in a game. I forgot which one. I don't play Gundam games.)

Gaelio literally says something along the lines of "Are you still going to play the pipe of Hamelin even when the battle is going like this?" Not sure why this is the subtitle. But they mostly mean the same thing so maybe I'm just nitpicking.

To refresh your memory a little, this is when the Revolutionary Fleet is very clearly losing to Arianrhod, and McGillis just made his pep talk and this iconic frame. They are preparing to retreat and regroup when Gaelio shows up to fight McGillis.

Gaelio referencing the Pied Piper of Hamelin (Hameln, same thing) is of course connected to McGillis's and thus his love of myth/folk tales. Because of McGillis's influence, Gaelio also has a strong liking for stories. He names himself and Gundam Vidar/Kimaris Vidar after Vidar, the Norse god of revenge and silence, son of Odin and slayer of Fenrir (Fenris, same thing but IBO uses Fenrir) the monster wolf son of Loki during Ragnarok. The same side story 'Eve of Vidar' also tells us he used to hit on girls using Norse mythology fun facts, including Yamazin Toka when he was a test pilot for the Schwalbe Graze.

Although these are relatively common knowledge for us, the viewers, they are probably niche facts however many years in the future the Post Disaster timeline is (in UC0079 Hitler and WW2 is considered "middle ages" despite being historically quite recent for us). This is one thing Gaelio and McGillis have in common and it is because of McGillis.

(Also this is kind of a weak diss? Like if you're gonna insult McGillis why compare him to something so cool. "Snake on the moon" - now that's an insult. But I digress.)

But what is the Pied Piper exactly? The Pied Piper, or the Ratcatcher (der Rattenfänger) is a legend of the town Hamelin in Lower Saxony of Germany. There are dozens of variations of this tale, but I'll only be talking about the most popular versions that relate to the events of IBO.

In 1284, Hamelin had a rat problem. Basically there were a whole bunch of rats, and they made life suck for the townspeople, as large numbers of rats tend to do. According to Robert Browning's poem, the people were mad at the mayor for not being able to solve the problem, and were about to kick him out. Then a man wearing a coat of many bright colors (Browning's version says yellow and red, both in McGillis's palette at some point) and holding a pipe showed up. The Piper promised to get rid of all the rats in exchange for 1000 guilders. He then played his pipe and all the rats came out and followed him into the river Weser and drowned.

The townspeople did not follow through on their end, however, and came up with all sorts of excuses to not give him the promised 1000 guilders. This angered the Piper, and he played his pipe again, and this time all 130 of the town's children came out and followed him away dancing and they never returned, nor were they ever seen again. Versions disagree on what happened to the children. In the Grimm Brothers and Browning's versions they went to Transylvania. Others say they went to a land like paradise in a cave. Others say they drowned in the river like the rats.

So how does this relate to McGillis and IBO? Well actually it's pretty obvious - Gaelio is simply saying McGillis is luring Isurugi, the Revolutionary Fleet and Tekkadan to their doom with false promises.

However, the point of this post is to point out some interesting details of this parallel. The Piper lured the children of Hamelin away as an act of revenge on the adults of the town because they didn't pay him what was rightfully his for his service. McGillis's coup can be framed as revenge on the corrupt system of the world Gjallarhorn maintains, and those who personally victimized him.

Interestingly, some accounts describe the Piper as "a miracle of God" and that he was sent to test the townspeople, and punish them when they didn't keep their word. Others call him the devil in disguise, who intended to trick the people and take their children. This is like how McGillis can be seen as a charismatic leader aiming to change the world for the better, or a ruthless, cold-blooded, lying, backstabbing, power-hungry traitor who will stop at nothing.

Additionally, Bael, the demon king, is a fallen angel who was cast out with Lucifer for rebelling against God, and Gundam Bael's gunpla box describes it as "a demon with the appearance of an angel" (this could also apply to McGillis himself).

In many versions of the story, some children are left behind. Which ones exactly vary, but Browning's focuses on a boy with a broken leg who couldn't keep up with the other children, so he was able to tell the villagers where he saw them go. The boy said they went into a portal on the side of the mountain, and on the other side was a paradise where everything was beautiful and peaceful. The boy was very sad he couldn't join his friends there because now he was all alone and couldn't return to that land.

Sounds kind of familiar, doesn't it?

In the epilogue, Gaelio is in a wheelchair and his bandaged neck suggests that his Alaya-Vijnana implants had been removed fairly recently. Supplemental info reveals that McGillis injured his spine during their fight at Edmonton, and Gaelio was only able to be up and about in S2 thanks to his AVS.

If the land the Piper and the children went to is Heaven, then this could be read as Gaelio being the only one not to follow McGillis into death, and being the sole survivor of his friends (for the sake of this argument Julieta doesn't count because Gaelio wasn't fighting for or against her).

An important difference is the boy longed to follow the Piper, while Gaelio rejected McGillis because he schemed to kill him and his friends.

The Piper's other name, the Ratcatcher? Tekkadan are space rats?

Also McGillis's true name Montag, presumably his surname before Iznario's adoption, is German for Monday, hinting at his heritage, and the Piper is a German story (obviously).

The Pied Piper is a legend that originated in the Middle Ages, and Gjallarhorn's leadership, ideology and overall aesthetic is reminiscent of that.

There is a version of the story that the Piper will return in 300 years. Which he did not do, but 300 years? McGillis, the self-proclaimed successor to Agnika Kaieru after 300 years?

I can't be bothered to write a separate piece on Gaelio's legs so I should also mention that Vidar, the Norse god defeats Fenrir by stepping on his lower jaw with his shoe made from all the collected pieces of leather people cut from their own shoes, and grabbing his upper jaw and ripping him apart at the mouth.

Vidar's special shoes are like how Gaelio says he’s carrying all the wishes of Carta and Ein, and the AVS Type-E also serves as his literal feet. (Also he wears very striking white thigh-high boots that are very hot. What they're not is part of the Gjallarhorn uniform, just to make this connection, in addition to exacting revenge in style.)

In many carvings, Vidar is shown stabbing Fenrir through the heart also, and Gaelio/Kimaris Vidar defeats McGillis by pinning him against the Arianrhod flagship and stabbing him/Bael through the torso.

Proposed origins of the Pied Piper

Now obviously there was no piper guy dressed in goofy clothes that stole all the children of a town with magic music. There are several theories about what the legend is based on. This has nothing to do with IBO anymore and I just thought it was fun so feel free to stop reading if you don't agree.

Plague: According to this theory, all the children died because of illness and the place they went to is a mass grave. The Piper's many-colored clothing represents the sores and discoloration of skin of those who contracted the illness, and he is the personification of the plague/death. Rats are carriers of fleas, which spread the plague. 1284 is a bit too early for the Bubonic Plague (Black Death) though, so it may have been something else.

Emigration: The emigration theory suggests that much of the people of Hamelin moved to eastern Europe in search of better opportunities as only the eldest son had inheritance and the others could only be serfs. In this theory, "children of Hamelin" are not actual children, and it's just a figure of speech to say they were of a certain place. This correlates with some versions where the Piper and the children he took were sighted in Transylvania.

Human trafficking/the Children's Crusades: In these two theories the Piper is the recruiter/trafficker and the story was made up by the town to please their officials.

Dancing mania: There have been records of dancing mania in about the same time period in the surrounding region, and children were among the affected. Dancing mania can sometimes result in death due to exhaustion. It was originally attributed to a curse by a saint (St. John or St. Vitus) and you had to pray to them to lift the curse. Modern explanations for dancing mania are neurological disorders or collective mental disorders.

Pagan ritual: supposedly the pipe music and dancing children are part of this ritual that took place in the mountains, and the children died from a landslide or similar accident.

"You're reading way too much into Gaelio's one line" no actually I am reading exactly the right amount into it and everyone else isn't reading into it enough