Speculation, in response to this and also to zetatype's post above: I think at this point, McGillis' stated desire to "reform Gjallarhorn" is just a line he's been feeding Gaelio in order to tap into his uncorrupted idealism and chivalric streak. I think McGillis believes Gjallarhorn to be beyond reformation or redemption, and at this point he's out to tear down Gjallarhorn and the whole delicately-balanced political system that enables and is enabled by it.Amion wrote:Ok. I'll admit now that McGillis' actions make no sense anymore, for above observations, unless he does indeed have a scapegoat.
His internal monologue in episode 23 states that Carta and Gaelio "are indeed the ones to change Gjallarhorn." What I think we're seeing now is that, rather than regarding them as examples of what's good in Gjallarhorn and as power players in a reformed organisation, he's been engineering their failures in order to demonstrate how hopelessly and irredeemably corrupt the organisation is. Carta's repeated failures have served to demonstrate how woefully inept Gjallarhorn's combat forces are, as a bunch of low-birth Martian nobodies have rampaged first through the orbitals and now across Earth itself, unchecked by Gjallarhorn's best and brightest whom they've stomped at every turn. Now he's manipulated Gaelio into betraying the principles and taboos that Earth holds dear - Gjallarhorn is very visibly interfering in the internal affairs of one of Earth's power blocks, and has sent a mobile suit into that power block's capital city to do it, and the mobile suit in question is equipped with the reviled Alaya-Vijnana system.
McGillis has clearly spent quite a bit of effort building up "Montag" not just as a name and a costume but also as a pool of resources he can use, unconnected to the name McGillis Fareed or to the Fareed family or to Gjallarhorn. I think he's unafraid to confront Gaelio as "McGillis" because he intends to discard that name and identity entirely in the wake of the turmoil that's about to be unleashed - if Gjallarhorn falls, the Fareed family and the other Seven Stars families will fall with it, and McGillis can live entirely as Montag from that point onward.
