#Lazzll

[logh-icebergs]

Episode 12: Invasion of Imperial Territory

August 796/487. Yang, Sitolet, and Cazellnu get stuck in traffic. They run into Lebello and give him a lift in their handy military zip-helicopter. At the High Council meeting, Royal Sanford and Cornelia Windsor convince all council members except for Lebello, Huang, and Trunicht to vote in favor of the military’s proposed invasion of Imperial territory. With the operation approved by the government, Sitolet convenes a meeting at which he appoints Lobos to command the mission of eight fleets totaling 30,227,400 soldiers, with Greenhill his second in command. Andrew Fork, who crafted the invasion plan, accuses Yang of aiding the enemy. Meanwhile Rubinsky and von Remscheid go on a....date? No, okay, they’re probably just talking politics. Probably.

...Okay, got all that? We’ve been focused on laying the groundwork of the main themes and relationships that we’ll be following throughout the series, which means that many of the little plot details and secondary characters that have flitted by so far haven’t figured heavily in our posts. Since this episode is less like an iceberg and more like an ice floe that’s mostly above the water, I’m gonna take this opportunity to formally introduce us to some of these (many, many, many) characters. 

Alex Cazellnu

Pictured here with his characteristic “I’m not quite sure what’s happening around me” expression, Cazellnu is Yang’s friend and former upperclassman from the military academy. Many mysteries surround this man, as we’ll talk much more about later. For example, how did he land such a smoking hot and kickass wife? (We’ll see her soon, don’t worry.) What made him think Yang was fit to be anyone’s legal guardian? (Yes, that was his brilliant idea.) And what the fuck kind of name is Cazellnu? (Actually my guess is that it’s based on the word caserne meaning military barracks, which is a bit on the nose honestly since his job has to do with supplies and housing…)

More seriously, Cazellnu plays an interesting and important role in the show: He personifies the heteronormative societal structures and assumptions both of the in-universe world and the world of the audience. Like so much in LoGH this has a dual purpose. For the characters around him, the normative crap he says applies concrete pressure on them to meet the expectations of their society. For the audience, he explicitly articulates some of the (incorrect) "surface readings" that help the show pass as way straighter than it is. We will of course be keeping an eye out for these moments as we get to know him better.

Another Cazellnu mystery: Why didn’t he bother to give his younger daughter a name? Did he use up all the female names he could think of on Charlotte Phyllis??

Sidney Sitolet

We’ve seen Fleet Admiral Sitolet (or Sithole, as it’s sometimes spelled, but come on, have some respect…) before, most recently when he was laying a major guilt trip on Yang about trying to resign from the military. In this episode he intensifies that guilt trip even further, telling Yang that he’s the literal only hope for preventing the whole military from falling into the hands of over-ambitious zealots eager to get everyone gloriously killed. Sheesh. I know that Sitolet is clearly demarcated as one of the Good Guys here—an older, more powerful, slightly sterner version of Yang who is also extremely practical about using his resources to try to minimize the damage caused by the continuing war. And Yang is one of those resources. I get it, but...this scene at the end of this episode just makes me want to write AU fanfic where Yang tells him to go to hell and moves to a nice mountain villa where he writes history books all day while Julian goes shopping at the local market for the best deals on high quality tea.

...What, a girl can dream, can’t she? (From episode 3.)

Anyway, platitudes about patriotism and duty to crush the Evil Empire etc. won’t keep Yang in the military, but Sitolet is the one who knows exactly the kind of logic Yang finds inescapable. As much as it obviously frustrates and saddens him, Yang feels the burden of Sitolet’s expectations. 

João Lebello

Or Joanne, sure, why not.

This is the first time we’re seeing Lebello, the current secretary of the treasury serving on the Alliance High Council. He’s a childhood friend of Sitolet’s, and their banter reminds me a bit of Yang and Cazellnu’s friendship. 

In the council’s deliberations, he’s the loudest voice speaking up against the invasion, on the grounds that their economy is already being stretched thin by the ongoing warfare and further military spending could lead to collapse. Unfortunately the counter of “eh we’ll just print more money” is persuasive to most of the council, who vote in favor of the invasion in hopes that a victory will improve their polling numbers. Let’s hear it for democracy! 

Huang Louis

Like Yang, his family name is first; his given name is ルイ in Japanese, and I’ve seen it rendered as Rui, Lewi, or Louis.

The only other council member to speak against the invasion plan. Huang is quietly awesome; I don’t have a ton to say about him yet other than that, and the fact that I totally ship him and Lebello. 

Huang/Lebello is pretty high up there on the LoGH Ships expanding brain meme.

Cornelia Windsor

The token woman on the council, Windsor does a great job smashing the sexist stereotype that women are less likely than men to warmonger and advocate the deaths of millions of citizens. And she does so while reminding me so strongly of Dolores Umbridge that I’ve been trying to convince myself that J.K. Rowling must have watched at least the first twelve episodes of this show somehow. 

I mean, just look at that giggle.

There are three philosophies put forward in the council discussion: Lebello and Huang making practical arguments about the toll the war is taking on the Alliance economically and socially; Sanford, the head of the council, arguing that inaction is less likely to get them re-elected than a potential victory; and Windsor making the ideological case that war against the Empire is so righteous that no cost is too great to pay.

I’ll go out on a limb and say this show hasn’t been very subtle from the beginning about its distaste for people making arguments in favor of war and destruction on purely ideological or dogma-driven grounds. This stance seems mostly uncomplicated for now—pragmatism: good; blind idealism: bad—but so far the stars have aligned so that the characters spewing the dogmatic rhetoric are using it to push for increased death. It’s easy to roll our eyes at ideals of honor and glory in war; what about ideals like “try not to kill people if you don’t have to”? What if those go against the pragmatic arguments? We’ve already seen this tension a bit between Yang and Jessica, with his willingness to work within the military clashing with her ideals of pacifism, even though their ultimate goals align. In those cases there’s much less of a clear cut answer.  

...But for now at least, we can all agree this Umbridge-wannabe person sucks.

Job Trunicht

(From episode 6.)

We’ve already heard plenty about Trunicht and we’ll hear plenty more, so I won’t dwell on him here. But a quick Fun Fact*: Yang, being generally a luddite, refused to even get a remote control for his TV (er sorry, SolidVision) for a long time, until Trunicht started appearing regularly on the news. Yang hated seeing Trunicht’s face for even a split second so much that he would bound up off the couch to turn it off as soon as Trunicht showed up. Of course Yang is incredibly lazy, and he finally realized that with a remote control he could remain on the couch and have to see Trunicht’s face for even less time, so he caved and bought one; and now he sits eagerly watching the news with the remote clutched in one hand, hoping he’ll have the chance to turn it off in disgust.

...Relatable.

*Source: Julian’s Iserlohn Diary, one of the side stories written by Tanaka. Yes yes our canon here is the anime not the books; but we get to pick and choose adorable details that we like, and I hereby make this one Official Icebergs Canon.

Andrew Fork

Speaking of characters spewing pompous platitudes about war, meet Andrew Fork, who I really really wish I could say was a hyperbolic caricature who could never exist or gain actual power in real life but………..*looks around* here we are I guess. Fork must be a historian who wrote his thesis on early 21st century Earth internet message boards, since he employs tactics like accusing anyone who questions the practical implementation of his ideas of Aiding the Other Side. I again can’t resist sharing a passage from the novel of another character describing Fork:

*thinking emoji* *thinking emoji* *thinking emoji* I dunno it sounds familiar but I can’t place it...

Alexander Bucock

As you can tell by him giving Fork shit, Bucock is one of the more level-headed of the admirals. We’ll get to know him better in the future, so for now I’ll just mention that he’s awesome and him telling Fork that he’s impolite makes me happy. And that you shouldn’t get him mixed up with Lobos just because they both have white/gray hair and a mustache, as I may have done through pretty much the whole first season...

Quick Aside: Names

Cazellnu/Caserne/Caselnes? João/Joanne Rebelo/Lebello? Sitolet/Sithole/Shithole? Rui/Lewi/Louis? Fork/Falk? Bucock/Bewcock? Mittermeyer/Mittermeier, Reuental/Reuenthal, Mintz/Minci, Lap/Lapp/Shithole…??? It might have come to your attention by now that there is complete consensus about the spelling of essentially zero LoGH names.

You’d think “Jessica Edwards” would at least be free from controversy, but….. (From episode 2.)

Given that there doesn’t seem to be one clearly “official” source, and that it’s 1600 years in the future, we’re not especially hung up on trying to be super authentic and picky with our spellings. Maybe Cazellnu’s distant ancestors who also managed military barracks were named Caserne, but the spelling got modified as humanity emigrated to the stars; it happens. Generally our policy is to spell things however we happen to feel like it, based on some combination of aesthetics and just what we’re used to, and to be as consistent as we can once we pick a spelling; but we’re not really in the business of trying to arbitrate which spellings are “correct.” There’s too much about LoGH that’s worth caring passionately about to spend that much energy on the names. 

...Except Minci is still wrong, sorry animation notes that came with the laserdiscs.

Okay now, where were we…

Lazzll Lobos

...What, really? Lazzll, that’s what the subbers went with? Is that even a name? *quick Google search* No, no it’s not. Well, apparently it’s more commonly spelled Lassalle, but y’know what, I’m sticking with Lazzll god dammit. I make the rules here.

I don’t have anything to say about him beyond his name and that he is different from Bucock apparently.

And last but not...well okay maybe also least?

Adrian Rubinsky

When we last mentioned Rubinsky he was musing about how to use Reinhard and Kircheis’s relationship to his advantage somehow; here we find him informing the Imperial High Commissioner to Phezzan about the Alliance’s impending invasion, which he learned about...somehow. His air is constantly that of one attempting to play puppet-master and sculpt the situation to his own advantage, although ostensibly he is only doing his duty here as an Imperial subject, Phezzan being officially a territory of the Empire. It’s on his information that the Imperial nobles set Reinhard’s fleet in motion to meet the Alliance invasion force, as Yang was afraid they would do.

We also very very briefly meet Dominique Saint-Pierré, a mistress of Rubinsky's, seen here pouring wine while both men leer at her; she has more power than this glimpse suggests, though, and the power struggles between her and Rubinsky are definitely the most interesting aspect of Rubinsky’s role in the story.

Phew! And with this we conclude the entry that will probably mention the highest number of canonically straight characters by name of any Icebergs post. I hope you got all that; yes this will be on the exam. 

Stray Tidbits

I love the four-hour traffic jam caused by some intern feeding a corrupt string into a computer. I’ve mentioned how realistic the self-driving car system on Heinessen feels, and having it break down only adds to the realism.

So much for Yang’s optimism that capturing Iserlohn would lead to peace negotiations rather than an escalation of the war. Cracks are starting to show in Yang’s admiration of this whole “let the people control the government” thing, and I don’t blame him; especially since the Alliance “democracy” seems to involve decisions made by simple majority vote by an eleven-person High Council?? Umm? 

The subs tried to make sense of this line by drawing a distinction that I don't think is there in the Japanese: Yang uses the same verb, "akusei o shite iru," for both governments, where akusei (悪政) is literally bad+government. My interpretation is that Yang is expressing frustration at the irony of people choosing to elect a government that nevertheless governs against their interest...but I guess I might be projecting.

I love this random shot of a Phezzani street. Most Obscure LoGH Love Triangle Award goes to the three teenagers on the right; I wonder which of them is the vertex?? This is the fanfiction the world demands. 

[logh-icebergs]

Episode 15: The Battle of Amlitzer Starzone

October 10-15, 796/487. To the surprise of absolutely no one with any common sense, Reinhard’s admirals make quick work of several of the Alliance fleets, killing a bunch of redshirt admirals in the process. Unable to swallow the humiliation of withdrawal, Lazzll orders the remaining forces to gather in the Amlitzer starzone, where with their powers combined they can...I dunno, kill slightly more people on their way to defeat I guess. Any lingering dreams of a miraculous turning of the tides are crushed when Kircheis uses the newfangled technology of directional Seffle particles to destroy a minefield and bring his fleet of 30,000 ships to the battle as reinforcements.

Poplan!

Olivier Poplan showed up way back in “My Conquest” in the role of a rather dopey comic relief character, one of the tools the movie used to show us a variety of perspectives on the ongoing battles. We’ve glimpsed him once or twice since, but in this episode for the first time we get to focus on him a bit more; and the first thing that the OVA wants us to know about Poplan is that he’ll take any opportunity, even the twenty seconds before his Spartanian fighter is about to launch into battle, to flirt with a cute girl:

To be fair, she is indeed really cute…

There is a lot to say about this incredibly brief interaction. What Poplan actually says is “na, ii darou?” which translates most literally to “hey, isn’t it okay/good?” There are a couple factors that make this incredibly vague phrase feel like a flirtation or come-on: the way he leans toward her with a slight smile; the lowered voice. Her response reinforces this read by treating his actions as inappropriate to the current situation. (What she says is “komarimasu, tai-i, konna toki ni”—”that would be troublesome at a time like this, Lt.”) Is she reading him correctly? Could his question have actually just been about the progress of the repairs on his ship?

Well, yes, it could have been, but the accompanying body language and tone are flirty enough that at the very least there’s innuendo built into his words. Of course as she points out, this is a ridiculous time for him to be propositioning anyone; their interaction is immediately interrupted by an officer berating him for being the last plane out, Poplan takes off, and (spoiler!) we never see this woman again. What on earth, then, was the point of that twenty-second scene?

I’ve mentioned that Cazellnu plays an important role in the show by embodying some of the heteronormative structures of Alliance society: Not only does he himself have a picture-perfect wife and kids (we’ll see them soon I promise!), but we’ll also hear him explicitly voice views about the righteousness of marriage and procreation. Poplan plays a similar and complementary role, giving voice to another side of heteronormativity: the pressure for men to constantly pursue women as sexual conquests. His introduction in this scene emphasizes that sex is so constantly on his mind that he can’t resist flirting even as he flies into battle—and of course that very idea, of men as sex-obsessed and unable to control themselves around women in any situation, is another widespread norm. True to this introduction, Poplan discusses sex constantly: bragging about women he’s slept with in the past; teasing other characters about not sleeping with enough women; pontificating about the virtues of sleeping around (with women). This potentially puts characters who don’t relate to this sort of hypersexualized straight masculinity in somewhat uncomfortable situations.

There’s another angle to Poplan’s strange timing here: The fact that his ambiguous proposition is guaranteed not to go anywhere at the moment makes it entirely performative. In fact if you pay close attention to Poplan (and we will!), something around 95% of what we see involves performing or projecting heterosexuality rather than, well, actually enacting it. Obviously that doesn’t mean that the stuff he says is insincere or false, but ambiguity is always worth keeping an eye on in this show.

...and Konev!

No discussion of Poplan is complete without talking about Ivan Konev, the other star Spartanian pilot of Yang’s fleet and Poplan’s constant companion. When Poplan discovers that the firing sights on his Spartanian are misaligned, Konev covers for him to help get him back to the relative safety of the ship, leading to in my opinion the most intense scene of the whole episode.

We’ve seen Poplan and Konev deal with the stress of battle by treating it like a game: betting on the outcome back in “My Conquest,” and generally keeping up a running tally of their respective kills for bragging rights. But these are in fact life and death battles, not some video game; and faced with malfunctioning equipment that put his life and the lives of the rest of his squadron in heightened danger, Poplan’s fear and frustration come out as anger against the officer in charge of maintenance. It’s Konev who intervenes. 

Poplan’s expression and posture soften the moment Konev puts a hand on his shoulder. Just that one instant establishes Konev as a grounding presence and someone Poplan has a deep connection with.

The unguarded fear that flashes in Poplan’s eyes for just a second here gives me chills.

Shit has gotten serious, and Konev’s words don’t soften that reality; but his steady expression and touch quell Poplan’s rage and help him channel his emotions into renewed focus on the battle.

Interestingly, this exchange comes to us entirely courtesy of the anime team. In the novels it’s Schenkopp who pulls Poplan off of the other officer, in a much more abbreviated version of the same scene. (Poplan actually holds a grudge against Schenkopp for stopping him before he could more thoroughly teach the guy a lesson.) The anime writers made a specific choice to change and expand this scene to show us this different side of Poplan and Konev’s dynamic. Of course we’re not here to catalogue all of the slight deviations from the novels; but a change like this suggests to me that Poplan and Konev’s relationship is one they’re particularly interested in developing, so we should be paying attention.

War

This sentiment echoes Yang’s tea speech from episode 6; finding themselves in this battle, his main goal is to find a way for as many people to survive as possible.

Zooming out from Poplan and Konev’s struggles in their little corner of the fight, the overall battle seems to go exactly how Reinhard drew it up and exactly how Yang and some of the other Alliance commanders feared. Yang places himself on damage control duty as much as possible, knowing from the beginning that their whole fleet is at a huge disadvantage especially after Reinhard’s successful strategy to tax their supplies.

During the various scattered battles we get some fun peeks at the different fighting styles of Reinhard’s admirals, for example when Mittermeyer swoops so swiftly into the midst of an Alliance fleet that he actually has to back up a bit before they can effectively fire at the enemy ships...

...While meanwhile Kircheis just stands on the bridge of his extremely red flagship like the badass he is and calmly encourages any Alliance forces that come near to surrender.

After retreating to minimize losses against Kempf’s fleet, Yang finds himself facing Kircheis and outnumbered four to one; avoiding the temptation to surrender, he concocts some sort of plan involving a U-formation and trying to attack Kircheis’s forces from three sides at once, but since he’s ordered away to Amlitzer in the middle of that fight we’ll never know what the outcome of this tactic would have been. 

This gif is interesting for two reasons: one, everyone’s utter shock at Yang admitting out loud that if it weren’t for concern for the other remaining fleets he’d be tempted to surrender; and two, the ridiculous redraws that keep switching back and forth—Yang’s character design, as well as the entire background, change repeatedly in the course of these few seconds. What the hell.

The main point I want to make about this battle is, well, actually how uneventful it is. LoGH is about understanding cause and effect, inevitability, ways of thinking that lead to different outcomes. We’ve known for several episodes that the Alliance went into this invasion underprepared and for the wrong reasons, while Reinhard has carefully taken steps to weaken the Alliance forces and give himself even more of an upper hand. There are no shocking twists here: The invasion is a disaster, as it should have been, and Reinhard’s (and Oberstein’s) strategy is rewarded with a convincing victory.

Right, Bittenfeld, that's...pretty much what I said.

Stray Tidbits

This brief interaction between Reinhard and Oberstein near the end of the episode is a nice microcosm of the dynamic we’ve seen develop in previous episodes: Oberstein being kind of baffled by the concept of Reinhard fretting about one of his admirals more than the others. Hang in there Oberstein, maybe someday you’ll underst—nah, actually, probably not. Reinhard’s “damn you caught me” expression as he tries to claim he was “just checking” is too cute. 

Don’t worry Reinhard! Kircheis just has to gaze at Alliance commanders with those calm blue eyes and they surrender to his every whim, you know that.

If you’re watching on Hidive, I hate to say it but for once I’ve got to score one for the fansubs: As far as I can tell what Yang says here (after Frederica reminds him that Julian has told him to cut down on drinking) is just “so you two have joined forces?” (The verb is 連帯する, rentai suru, “to have solidarity/share responsibility.”) Cute (if a bit weird) as the Hidive version is, it's a definite stretch.

And while we're at it, here's the original laserdisc version, complete with random blue tube in the background.

Hidive subbers, I would read your fanfic but for the official translations let's stick to what they actually say...

Am I a terrible person if this gif just makes me laugh? 

[logh-icebergs]

Episode 14: Liberation of the Frontier Zone

Summer/fall 796/487. As the Alliance invasion progresses through Imperial territory, they find themselves suddenly responsible for feeding 50 million people that Reinhard deprived of supplies. The High Council decides appearances are more important than money and sends the extra supplies, right into the waiting missiles of Kircheis’s fleet. With resources now stretched super thin, the Alliance higher-ups authorize soldiers to take what they can from the people they “liberated” to feed the hungry soldiers, leading to riots on many planets. Meanwhile, Yang sits on his ship looking concerned, Reinhard and Kircheis make moon-eyes stare mournfully at each other, and Lazzll takes a nap.

More Heterosexuality?!

In the last episode Elizabeth discussed how portrayal of real straight romance or attraction is an important reference point for understanding all of the romance in LoGH; and in this episode we find our second Actual Legit Straight Romance™ in Franz and Therese, a couple of throwaway anime-only characters who quite possibly exist solely for the purpose of the comparisons I’m about to make.

Although they’re initially pushed together by Therese’s father (more on that in a minute), Franz and Therese bond over a shared dream of...well, living alone on an uninhabited planet, which is a bit of a depressing dream but whatever, we’re not here to judge. When the occupying force is ordered to steal food from the civilians and they (reasonably enough) fight back, Franz impulsively flings himself in front of an Alliance tank that’s tearing through the fields he helped cultivate on its way to quell the rebellion, and we get a sudden feeling of déjà vu.

The parallels between this scene and the flashback in episode 8 are so overwhelming that I’m tempted to accuse the anime team of lazy writing, except that I know there’s a purpose to it. Franz, seeing destructive abuse of power by his own society, can’t help endangering himself to try to prevent it, and is saved only by Therese physically removing him, after which they lie together on a dark grassy hill and discuss how fed up they are with the world. Of course Franz is no Reinhard, and his proposition here is to run away together to where they don’t have to deal with the problems of society, not to conquer the universe together. But the key is that it is an unambiguously romantic proposition: He talked earlier of living on a deserted planet with a wife and kids, and that’s the life he’s inviting Therese to join him in.

When we talked about the scene in episode 8, we said that the creators were trying to show us two conversations at once: one on the surface about overthrowing the Goldenbaum dynasty; and one, conveyed through posture, expression, and word choices, about the romance brewing between teenaged Reinhard and Kircheis. Because of the homophobia of both the Empire and the real world, all of the tangled layers and coding are necessary for Reinhard and Kircheis��talking in hushed voices of topics they’re afraid could be overheard, expressing themselves through gazes and lingering handholds while ostensibly talking about politics. But such coding isn’t necessary when it’s a straight couple. With the scene between Therese and Franz, the creators are able to show us a vision of what Reinhard and Kircheis’s romance would look like stripped of the need to hide itself, an explicit version of the romantic invitation just under the surface of the earlier scene.

Misogyny and Bad Parents

Does the cinematography of hiding Therese's dad's eyes as he spies on his daughter through the window suggest that he feels a bit of shame about trying to pimp her out to the occupying military force? I fucking hope so.

Although Therese’s body language and choices toward the end of the episode suggest that she ended up feeling some attraction to Franz herself, her initial interactions with him are entirely at the urging of her father, which gives me a chance to introduce an important running theme of LoGH: Fathers totally suck.

Franz, to his credit, quickly sees through the way Therese’s father is trying to use her, as does Therese.

It’s impossible to disentangle heteronormativity from misogyny: The assumption that the ultimate goal for all humans is straight sex/romance/marriage/reproduction goes hand in hand with a view of women as either objects of sexual conquest, vessels for producing the next generation, or tools to be used in negotiations between men. In this case, Therese’s father immediately sees a chance to use his daughter(’s body) as currency in his dealings with the occupying Alliance force; and when sure enough the relationship with the soldiers turns hostile, his desperation leads him to admit his schemes perhaps a bit more blatantly than he’d intended to: 

Yeah I don’t have any witty caption here; this guy can just go fuck himself.

Let’s talk for a moment about the verb he actually uses here, あてがっておいた (ategatte-oita). Ategau has two meanings: to affix/attach, and to allocate/bestow upon. The suffix -oita is used to imply an action done in preparation for the future somehow, which is made clear by the rest of his sentence: “I allocated my daughter to you so that you’d be on my side in the future.” This is absolutely one of the most fucked up lines in the show so far, and we’ve already seen some fucked up things.

This is neither the first nor the last example we’ll see of a father treating a daughter (or daughter figure) as an object to be allocated, sold, or used in some way according to his own (heteronormative) plans. Of course the most blatant case is Reinhard’s father literally selling his daughter into sexual slavery; but while Annerose’s story is striking and horrifying, it’s (shockingly) not actually the most problematic parenting we see, since the power dynamics involved meant that he likely had no more actual choice in the matter than Annerose did.

Still not exactly winning any Father of the Year awards. (From episode 4.)

Perhaps a better parallel to Therese’s father is Admiral Greenhill, who not only had a hand in getting Frederica assigned as Yang’s adjutant, but has already been rather pushy and nosy about their relationship several times. 

I’ve already discussed Yang’s discomfort in this scene in the context of his asexuality and anxiety about being pushed into normative romantic situations; Greenhill’s apparent eagerness to pair his daughter off with the rising star of the Alliance here directly puts pressure on Yang to play a role that doesn’t fit him. (From episode 10.)

The word Greenhill uses to refer to Frederica here is あれ (are), typically a word meaning 'that (thing).' I don't know all the nuances of using it to refer to a person, but it doesn't sound like the most respectful language to me. (From episode 12.)

In Frederica’s case it seems likely, given the way she talks about meeting Yang on El Facil, that at least some of the push to set her up with Yang comes from her own interest. We’ll soon see examples where that is not the case, including Cazellnu making nonchalant and uncomfortably only-half-joking comments about marrying off his six-year-old daughter to Julian when they’re older.

What Therese’s father, Admiral Greenhill, and Cazellnu have in common here is that they are not Bad Parents in any of the ways that bad parenting is normally marked in fiction (but don’t worry, we’ll see plenty of those too!). And it’s precisely that fact that makes the pressures they impose on their daughters all the more insidious. Annerose goes along with her father’s selling her to the Kaiser because she literally has no choice; Therese initially plays along with her father pressuring her to affix herself to Franz because she loves her father and doesn’t want to displease or disappoint him. The blatant political power structures at play in Annerose’s case aren’t the only way to limit agency.

Stray Tidbits

I could watch this gif of Andrew Fork passing out because anyone dared criticize him all day. 

Other things I could watch all day: Bucock getting exasperated and roasting people. ❤ Bucock. 

This is made all the more hilarious by Yang’s own obsession with his afternoon naps.

Like much of the middle of this season, the main action of this episode (everything involving Franz and his interactions with the villagers on this random planet) is original to the anime; in the novels it’s mentioned in passing that rioting has broken out on several of the occupied planets but no more detail is given.

Our one glimpse of Reinhard and Kircheis in this episode is a heartrending scene that serves to reinforce the Oberstein-centric tension that’s growing between them. The unguarded sadness in Reinhard’s eyes after Kircheis leaves the room is rare and so painful to watch. 

Another theme that’s set up by this episode is the question of what happens when a soldier finds his orders so objectionable that he can’t bring himself to carry them out. When Franz’s commanding officer, on orders from even higher up, sends his troops out to plunder food stores from the villagers, Franz decides he can no longer be part of the military. In his case this decision is personal and ultimately inconsequential to even the outcome of the rioting on that one planet, let alone the war on a larger scale. But the general question of the interplay between a soldier’s personal sense of morality and duty to carry out orders is one that will recur throughout the show. 

This theme was already introduced in episode 12, when several of the military higher-ups, including Yang, had serious reservations about the whole invasion plan.

The narrator helpfully summarizes the thesis statement of this episode at the end in case it wasn’t clear: As Reinhard schemes to weaken the encroaching Alliance forces by taxing their supplies and Alliance politicians fret about their poll numbers and whether withdrawal would make them look silly, it’s the people living on these border planets who get fucked over. We’ve talked about LoGH showing war at all levels of zoom; I like that the anime took this opportunity to depict how quickly a supposedly friendly military occupation turns violent and oppressive as soon as the soldiers are emboldened by official orders and worried about their own physical comfort.

I could say something here about this being emblematic of the futility of the struggles of the populace against military might, but.....I'm really just including it 'cause it's adorable.

Speaking of the end of the episode, for the second time (the first being episode 6) we get a scene playing through an instrumental version of the ending song. I absolutely love this technique and will rhapsodize about it a ton in the future. The scenes that happen during the opening or closing credits are some of the most powerful and beautiful moments of the show, including this pre-victory toast by the admirals of Reinhard’s fleet. Definitely the artistic highlight of the episode by a mile.