The Official Gundam Iron-Blooded Orphans Anime Thread Mk IV

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AmuroNT1
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Re: The Official Gundam Iron-Blooded Orphans Anime Thread Mk IV

sdwoodchuck wrote: Mon Apr 03, 2017 5:30 pmMurderous dictators do not become benevolent leaders just because "the public eye is on them." They don't become benevolent leaders because the social order is destabilized.
That was the entire point I was making: Rustal is NOT a benevolent leader, and he more than likely will never become one. However, because of the events of the series, Gjallarhorn cannot maintain their power structure any longer, meaning Rustal's victory is utterly hollow and meaningless and he can't do anything to change that.

As for "idealized nonsense"...this is FICTION. I'm not saying that because I believe every work of fiction should end with the bad guys reforming and everyone living and puppies and rainbows and unicorn giggles. I'm saying that we watch fiction because it's DIFFERENT from the real world. If every TV show and movie worked like the real world, there would be no point to entertainment. That's why we suspend our disbelief and accept certain things that wouldn't happen in real life - and sometimes that means an ending that's optimistically happy. Because who wants to watch TV shows where the heroes die and fail in their goals and the world continues being a depressing, worthless mudpit?
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SNT1
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Re: The Official Gundam Iron-Blooded Orphans Anime Thread Mk IV

Rustal isn't an "evil guy" per se but an antagonist in every sense of the word, and from our protagonist's PoV, the "bad guys." Also, I don't look at Rustal "losing" because the world has his eyes on him. I don't remember him gunning for a power grab throughout the series like, say, McGillis is doing, so he really wasn't losing anything. He wasn't even in play until Macky started screwing with things. He just wants order, and for Gjallarhorn, their standing renewed in the public eye especially after the Edmonton incident. He achieved both; he squashed the revolutionaries and he restored Gjallarhorn's standing (using underhanded tactics, but hey, he achieved his goals).

How did he 'lose' this again? And how will his "president" standing in anyway prevent him from Dainsleif-spamming the next a-hole with a Gundam frame that decides to start shit again?
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sdwoodchuck
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Re: The Official Gundam Iron-Blooded Orphans Anime Thread Mk IV

AmuroNT1 wrote: Mon Apr 03, 2017 7:09 pm
sdwoodchuck wrote: Mon Apr 03, 2017 5:30 pmMurderous dictators do not become benevolent leaders just because "the public eye is on them." They don't become benevolent leaders because the social order is destabilized.
That was the entire point I was making: Rustal is NOT a benevolent leader, and he more than likely will never become one. However, because of the events of the series, Gjallarhorn cannot maintain their power structure any longer, meaning Rustal's victory is utterly hollow and meaningless and he can't do anything to change that.

As for "idealized nonsense"...this is FICTION. I'm not saying that because I believe every work of fiction should end with the bad guys reforming and everyone living and puppies and rainbows and unicorn giggles. I'm saying that we watch fiction because it's DIFFERENT from the real world. If every TV show and movie worked like the real world, there would be no point to entertainment. That's why we suspend our disbelief and accept certain things that wouldn't happen in real life - and sometimes that means an ending that's optimistically happy. Because who wants to watch TV shows where the heroes die and fail in their goals and the world continues being a depressing, worthless mudpit?
As for your first point, you clearly are the one who doesn't understand what my post was saying. Rustal was not put into a position of needing to change in any way shape or form, at least not by events shown. His situation doesn't demand that at all, so the change--whether it's a change of character or only a change of behavior--is entirely unearned.

And I agree with you that fiction can be 100% unrealistic. Hence why I've said (over and over again at this point) that realism isn't an important factor, and that this is not the ending's biggest problem by a long shot. But if the discussion is going to keep circling back around to justifying the ending with "well it makes sense if you think about it..." then I'm going to point out that no, actually, it doesn't.
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yazi88
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Re: The Official Gundam Iron-Blooded Orphans Anime Thread Mk IV

I'm thinking that in the immediate aftermath of the final battle, Gjarrhorn as a whole lost in the short run as it lost a lot of forces because of the infighting between Rustal and McGillis. But with the 7 stars out of the way, Rustal is the top honcho, being the practical guy he is, he'll probably bring some order to the corruption of the organization, but it might be limited as he himself agreed to sell weapons to Nobliss, so he's still a shady guy despite wanting order.

Although in non-military matters, without any potential uprisings, Rustal seems pretty content with whatever Earth/Mars/Colonies do economically, that's up to the civilian run blocs of the Earth Government. In the 1st season, Iznario seemed to be creeping into the civilian government matters that lead to the leaders flocking to Makanai. I don't recall Rustal really caring for anything non-military related. He wants to keep Gjarrhorn as the "peacekeepers" like they have since the Calamity War. Its not like he needs the 7 families for that, as most of them don't really do much, his fleet are the ones making sure no conflict breaks out, albeit at times pre-empting some of them like the Dort Colonies.
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Re: The Official Gundam Iron-Blooded Orphans Anime Thread Mk IV

AmuroNT1 wrote: Mon Apr 03, 2017 7:09 pm As for "idealized nonsense"...this is FICTION. I'm not saying that because I believe every work of fiction should end with the bad guys reforming and everyone living and puppies and rainbows and unicorn giggles. I'm saying that we watch fiction because it's DIFFERENT from the real world. If every TV show and movie worked like the real world, there would be no point to entertainment. That's why we suspend our disbelief and accept certain things that wouldn't happen in real life - and sometimes that means an ending that's optimistically happy. Because who wants to watch TV shows where the heroes die and fail in their goals and the world continues being a depressing, worthless mudpit?
That it's fiction doesn't excuse it from being judged on the quality of its message or ideas though. That's why we have critics. That's where a lot of the criticism is focused on. Not on how realistic it is, but on the quality of its message and ideas.
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Re: The Official Gundam Iron-Blooded Orphans Anime Thread Mk IV

Rustal is mostly a pragmatist for the most part so I can see him doing this if the winds are blowing that way and it wouldn't be hard to speculate, however I think the show could do a much better job of explaining general rational as opposed to us having to guess it. It wouldn't take long, 30 seconds of exposition dialogue by Atra should be more than enough. The Seven Stars deaths thing helps of course.

I think McGillis' actions really helped show how stupid the Gjallahorn system is since their laws also state that anyone who operated one mobile suit would rule the whole organization. There are likely similar laws also probabaly state the power of the Seven Stars just because they were born from certain people. And his insurrection also killed/dishonored three families - his own death ending the line and his father's exposure in Season 1 ruining him. It's ironic but in the end he did play a role in causing that reform.
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Re: The Official Gundam Iron-Blooded Orphans Anime Thread Mk IV

SonicSP wrote: Tue Apr 04, 2017 11:36 am 30 seconds of exposition dialogue by Atra should be more than enough.
No, and it will be truly a bad writing, objective one. Why? Because from character's point of view, there is no way that Atra can know what Rustal thinking.

Change the narrator in final episode to Julieta and she might be able to guess. Has Rustal narrate the epilogue himself would be better...except it's likely come off as a case of unreliable narrator.
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SonicSP
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Re: The Official Gundam Iron-Blooded Orphans Anime Thread Mk IV

I was thinking more on her elaborating the public discussion that led to it as opposed to what Rustal was thinking in his head.

The death of three families for example was a good example of one of the factors that led to the reforms that was public knowledge. So more points that are similar to that.
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Re: The Official Gundam Iron-Blooded Orphans Anime Thread Mk IV

For all his ruthlessness Rustal never struck me as being power hungry. In fact I don't think he mentioned gaining/seizing power even once, did he? So his seeming heel turn reforms at the end don't bug me much.

I did get pretty tired of Dainsleif-ex-machina (can we turn that into a forum title XD) by the end though. I know it was only three times but, it was the only way they ever seemed to get one up on our boys, and by the end it felt very one note.
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AmuroNT1
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Re: The Official Gundam Iron-Blooded Orphans Anime Thread Mk IV

Honestly, the issue with Rustal doesn't bug me so much for a few reasons. One, it's not like it was presented as a presto-chango magical shift in alignment where he woke up the morning after it happened and said "My God, I've done such horrible things!" As I said before, the context of the epilogue makes it seem more like he was forced to make democratic reforms because of the change in the world situation.

Secondly, it's not like there were any better alternatives. I mean what, did people expect Gaelio or Julietta to spontaneously shoot Rustal dead and assume command of Arianrhod? Ignoring how massively out-of-character that would be for both of them, they'd probably get arrested or worse by all the other Gjallarhorn soldiers present.
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sdwoodchuck
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Re: The Official Gundam Iron-Blooded Orphans Anime Thread Mk IV

I don't know, maybe people expected better plotting across an entire season so that we don't wind up with an ending where the only options are "poorly written" and "even worse"?
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Re: The Official Gundam Iron-Blooded Orphans Anime Thread Mk IV

AmuroNT1 wrote: Wed Apr 05, 2017 8:01 pm Honestly, the issue with Rustal doesn't bug me so much for a few reasons. One, it's not like it was presented as a presto-chango magical shift in alignment where he woke up the morning after it happened and said "My God, I've done such horrible things!" As I said before, the context of the epilogue makes it seem more like he was forced to make democratic reforms because of the change in the world situation.

Secondly, it's not like there were any better alternatives. I mean what, did people expect Gaelio or Julietta to spontaneously shoot Rustal dead and assume command of Arianrhod? Ignoring how massively out-of-character that would be for both of them, they'd probably get arrested or worse by all the other Gjallarhorn soldiers present.
This comment will deviate from the focus of my original critique, but normally if the heir of a family dies aristocracies default to the next in line. It's a bit hard to believe that those 4 families, other than Fareed's maybe, had no one else, no cousins etc etc., especially since it's not like these vulnerabilities are so rare or hard to think of for aristocratic systems. That's just weak world building. Furthermore, even if 4 families couldn't replace heirs, what stopped the three remaining families from grabbing more power, rather than handing the power they had left over. For an organization that has been shown to enjoy its privileges so much at the expense and ignorance of others, where did this altruism come from? Julietta even says in the narration that Rustal's swift handling of McGillis's rebellion alone was able to restore Gjallahorn's legitimacy, which makes the devolution of power seem unnecessary. That's weak world building and weak writing.
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Re: The Official Gundam Iron-Blooded Orphans Anime Thread Mk IV

Let's not forget that Carta's Issue family also had no heirs nor anyone else left to take the reins apparently...

But there might also be the case that because the other families did nothing that they might've been disbanded from Gjarrhorn when McGillis took over, or the likely case that they were incompetent. What did those other families even do? Aside from attending meetings they did not do anything. Rustal did the lion's share of the military work and it seems his fleet is the only group that even does anything in Gjarrhorn aside from McGillis's Earth fleet and Carta's version was also pretty incompetent. Seems like Rustal was the only talented one aside from McGillis in the 7 Stars heads.
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Re: The Official Gundam Iron-Blooded Orphans Anime Thread Mk IV

yazi88 wrote: Wed Apr 05, 2017 10:31 pm Let's not forget that Carta's Issue family also had no heirs nor anyone else left to take the reins apparently...

But there might also be the case that because the other families did nothing that they might've been disbanded from Gjarrhorn when McGillis took over, or the likely case that they were incompetent. What did those other families even do? Aside from attending meetings they did not do anything. Rustal did the lion's share of the military work and it seems his fleet is the only group that even does anything in Gjarrhorn aside from McGillis's Earth fleet and Carta's version was also pretty incompetent. Seems like Rustal was the only talented one aside from McGillis in the 7 Stars heads.
Whether they did anything is besides the point. The question is why they would give away their power.

Fareed, when he had no heirs, adopted someone. But if that's not viable and the other families not having heirs because they are literally the last of their lines is enough for the Seven Stars to just give it up (that is *very* hard to believe, btw), why didn't McGillis just find ways of killing the other family heirs. He already did away with two of them.
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Re: The Official Gundam Iron-Blooded Orphans Anime Thread Mk IV

I don't know... maybe Rustal forced the remaining families to give up their power? We'll never know...

Iznario adopted McGillis and lied about it too because there were rumors floating around about it while most people thought McGillis was really his son. McGillis not being a legit successor was something Rustal exploited after he rallied his forces to crush McGillis's support.

In the end, they could have explained things more... but this is Gundam, majority of the time, these political things get glossed over pretty quickly or don't even get mentioned at all, I can't even remember the last time things were explained well in the aftermath of a Gundam tv show aside from the ending of 00 S2...
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Re: The Official Gundam Iron-Blooded Orphans Anime Thread Mk IV

"We'll never know" is never a good statement to have to make about major plot elements in the ending of a story.
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Re: The Official Gundam Iron-Blooded Orphans Anime Thread Mk IV

Complain all you want about the writing and the major "plot" element. Its not like you'r offering any PLAUSIBLE alternatives aside from complaining Sdwoodchuck, I've tried to avoid responding to you, but you keep repeating the same thing over and over again that the writing was trash in the end or was poorly done for the past 6 eps now. Get over it or talk about something a bit more constructive without throwing a bunch of big words around and complaining the show did not go the way you wanted. You responded to me and this is my response. Its really getting annoying now.

The ending, despite some setbacks, made sense to me in the end. I didn't expect it to end this way nor did I really want it, but I'm used to lackluster/subpar Gundam endings... The battle took up a lot of time and the epilogue took a backseat. I still enjoyed the ride that was IBO.

After thinking about the ending, I really don't know how else they could've ended the show. Its not like those other families did anything aside from meetings and being held hostage by McGillis. Rustal won, and the world remained pretty much stable, it still made more sense than any of Seeds and Destiny's moronic endings. Was there things missing? Yes. Was there enough time? Probably not without cutting down the battle. Either we could've gotten a 10 min explanation, or show the lives of the survivors...
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Re: The Official Gundam Iron-Blooded Orphans Anime Thread Mk IV

If they didn't give themselves enough time to properly tell the conclusion of their story, then I'd say that's another sign of poor writing leading up to the finale. I don't remember Seed's ending (it's been more than a decade since I watched it); I do remember I didn't like the show much, and as a result I never watched Destiny. So I can't really compare it to those, but generally speaking, saying something is better than its worst peers isn't high praise.

I'm not saying you should dislike the ending; discussion for me doesn't hinge on convincing you to agree with what I'm saying. But it is a discussion, and I'm going to share my opinions. If you make a statement, I may make a counterpoint. That's what discussion is; I'm not sure why that bothers you so much.

Overall, I liked the ride that was IBO as well. I just don't feel like the last several episodes live up to the quality that came before it, and Rustal winning has nothing to do with my dislike of it.

EDIT: I wrote this response before you edited in this tirade:
Its not like you'r offering any PLAUSIBLE alternatives aside from complaining Sdwoodchuck, I've tried to avoid responding to you, but you keep repeating the same thing over and over again that the writing was trash in the end or was poorly done for the past 6 eps now. Get over it or talk about something a bit more constructive without throwing a bunch of big words around and complaining the show did not go the way you wanted. You responded to me and this is my response. Its really getting annoying now.
As latenlazy says below, it's not the critic's responsibility to offer alternatives to the things they see as problems. If you want plausible alternatives though, I'd have been glad to give them; you haven't asked. You just do this thing where you get snippy because I disagree with you. If you dislike the fact that I dislike the series, how about you--as you so well put it--"get over it." I'm not less entitled to share my opinions about the series just because they're negative, and I'll also point out that I've never told anyone to stop praising the things they like; I find the behavior lashing out at criticism to be frankly asinine. If this is the kind of discussion you're good for, then please, by all means, go back to not responding.
Last edited by sdwoodchuck on Thu Apr 06, 2017 12:47 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: The Official Gundam Iron-Blooded Orphans Anime Thread Mk IV

yazi88 wrote: Thu Apr 06, 2017 12:14 am Complain all you want about the writing and the major "plot" element. Its not like you'r offering any PLAUSIBLE alternatives aside from complaining Sdwoodchuck, I've tried to avoid responding to you, but you keep repeating the same thing over and over again that the writing was trash in the end or was poorly done for the past 6 eps now. Get over it or talk about something a bit more constructive without throwing a bunch of big words around and complaining the show did not go the way you wanted. You responded to me and this is my response. Its really getting annoying now.

The ending, despite some setbacks, made sense to me in the end. I didn't expect it to end this way nor did I really want it, but I'm used to lackluster/subpar Gundam endings... The battle took up a lot of time and the epilogue took a backseat. I still enjoyed the ride that was IBO.

After thinking about the ending, I really don't know how else they could've ended the show. Its not like those other families did anything aside from meetings and being held hostage by McGillis. Rustal won, and the world remained pretty much stable, it still made more sense than any of Seeds and Destiny's moronic endings. Was there things missing? Yes. Was there enough time? Probably not without cutting down the battle. Either we could've gotten a 10 min explanation, or show the lives of the survivors...
I don't think anyone needs to offer a fix to the problems they notice in order to identify valid criticism. You should also feel free to forgive or disagree about these problems. However, that doesn't mean people won't see problems or have reasons to be critical, and if you try to respond to the criticism by trying to answer and refute the contentions (which isn't a bad thing, mind), then we will have a disagreeble conversation.
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Re: The Official Gundam Iron-Blooded Orphans Anime Thread Mk IV

Alright, I apologize to sdwoodchuck for the outburst. We each have our opinions and I have to respect that.
Last edited by yazi88 on Thu Apr 06, 2017 12:46 am, edited 3 times in total.
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