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#Sitolet
khunnnia · 5 months
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Nothing’s like drawing LOGH men. The amount of serotonin I got is unfathomable.
I know I realized this for a while now, but the more obscure the character, the more interesting they are.
:)
The name of the characters are tagged in order.
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blueiight · 1 year
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I am unfortunately bringing spaceboys back in 2023 but it used to rly annoy me how ppl thought sidney sithole’s last name is read ‘shithole’ or misspell it as ‘sitolet’ cuz they thought his surname was a typo not realizing that sithole is a real life zulu name
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logh-icebergs · 7 years
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Episode 12: Invasion of Imperial Territory
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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
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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.
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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
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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.
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...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
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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. 
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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
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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. 
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Huang/Lebello is pretty high up there on the LoGH Ships expanding brain meme.
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Cornelia Windsor
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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. 
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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
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(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
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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:
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*thinking emoji* *thinking emoji* *thinking emoji* I dunno it sounds familiar but I can’t place it...
Alexander Bucock
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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.
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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. 
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...Except Minci is still wrong, sorry animation notes that came with the laserdiscs.
Okay now, where were we…
Lazzll Lobos
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...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
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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.
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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
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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? 
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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. 
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yangssunglasses · 6 years
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Sitolet: Politicians ordered us to go invade the Empire, but it's never going to work, so we just need to fail with minimal casualties.
Reinhard: We could just drive the rebels off, no sweat, but I have a better idea: let's kill them all.
Me: I need brandy because in the next episode the bloodbath begins.
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gurguliare · 6 years
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dnt e10
must hide face through all politics forever but I guess I enjoy the slightly heightened focus on Yang’s godforsaken apprenticeship with Sitolet. [yang posing on a mountain of corpses] i still CONSIDER myself... a man of VIRTUE.................. [He waits for garbage to be thrown at him. crickets]
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fenrhi · 4 years
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Oooh so that’s Sithole (Sitolet?). He looks fine as hell! And younger too....maybe because of the slightly curly hair and rounder cheeks?
I like his sass, the way he lies to Trunicht with a serious face and how he can see right through Yang’s bullshit (”Quit pretending to be sick and come to HQ right now”)
And this is Cazerne (or Cazellnu, I don’t know how to write charas’ names for this anime...)
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Huh.....I’m not impressed. Gonna be that bitch and say that I prefer most DNT’s chara designs to the OVAs’
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logh-icebergs · 7 years
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Episode 7: Iserlohn Taken!
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May 14th, 796/487. Infiltrating Iserlohn fortress in the guise of a damaged Imperial ship, the Rosen Ritter swiftly overpower the control room. The quick thinking of one Imperial soldier temporarily locks them out of the fortress computer, forcing Yang to stall for time while Schenkopp and co. rush around Iserlohn kicking ass and taking names—names and computer passwords, I guess, since they unlock the system and allow Yang’s ship to dock. The Thor Hammer makes quick work of a large chunk of the Imperial fleet, although Oberstein flits away like the cockroach he is.
Technical Aside: Character Redraws
As I mentioned, when LoGH was released on DVD the episodes were remastered. By and large this involved evening out the colors, fixing the lighting when it was too washed out, sharpening lines, etc., and it’s beautifully done and deserves a lot of credit for making this show such an aesthetic joy to watch.
However. For reasons lost to the sands of time (at least, unknown to us) some scenes were entirely reanimated, primarily in the first and early second seasons. These redraws go beyond the touchups of other episodes—sometimes in ways that have little consequence (changing backgrounds, slightly different positioning of the characters in the scene), but sometimes in ways that significantly alter the emotions conveyed on the characters’ faces. This poses a problem for us, since the whole thesis of this project is that the animators of LoGH intentionally conveyed a ton of important information about emotions, thoughts, and relationships of the characters specifically via the details of the expressions and body language.
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As an example of an inconsequential but unfortunate change, they made this random dude’s hair way more boring. Poor guy.
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The original here conveys much more character though the body language.
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Our policy will be to base our analysis off of the original animation when we believe there’s a real difference. In these cases we’ll give a heads up and include plenty of screenshots for those who don’t have access to the laserdiscs on which it was first released. Episode 7 is one of the handful of episodes that was actually about 90% redrawn, including a few key character moments, so in some of the discussion below I include both versions to illustrate the differences. In the future we may not even show the comparison, but just analyze the original animation. It’s annoying that the version on hidive is the redrawn version, yes, but these are the hurdles one must contend with in pursuit of true LoGH scholarship…
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Believe it or not, changing poor Julian’s outfit and pose here is not the most egregious example of straightwashing in the redraws—we’ll come to that later in the season.
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Ideals, Pragmatism, and Tea
Okay, with that out of the way, let’s get into the substance of the episode. One main theme that’s woven throughout the entire Iserlohn mission (dipping back into episode 6 as well) is Yang’s distaste for the abstract ideals that are commonly invoked as justification for the continuing war and destruction. We saw this a bit in his reactions to Trunicht’s speech in episode 3, and we see it again when he addresses the newly-formed 13th fleet:
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(From episode 6.)
I love the tea speech. While at one level it’s humorous—silly Yang, so awkward and out of his depth giving a speech to thousands of people—it’s also a really pithy expression of Yang’s priorities. In two sentences Yang undermines the fundamental concept of this war: that they’re fighting for an ideal, for honor or love of their country or hatred of the empire. Circumstances have led the people in this fleet to find themselves facing a battle, and given that reality, the motivation he offers them for fighting is that living is preferable to death. And not just living, but living pleasurably. For Yang it’s drinking good tea that pops into his head, but it’s not a leap to substitute a more general idea of tangible, visceral experience of the world: being alive to do the things that make life enjoyable.
Yang believes that life is the sum of choices and experiences, and he hates the war not just because of the unnecessary death, but also because of the way it cuts off people’s choices and individual agency—his own, for example, and as he sees it, Julian’s.
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Never mind that Julian claims to *want* to fight; in Yang’s view Julian’s agency is an illusion since it’s so shaped by societal forces. Hmm, projecting much, Yang? We’ll come back to this, of course. (From episode 6.)
Toward the end of this episode we see again how frustrated Yang gets with rigid adherence to ideals of honor at the expense of actual lives. We saw this in episode 1 when his commanding officer refused to abandon the already-defeated fourth fleet; here Admiral Seeckt of the Imperial Iserlohn fleet refuses Yang’s offer to let them withdraw, instead responding with haughty phrases about the honor and glory of soldiers. Yang’s reaction here is the single biggest difference between the original animation and the redraws, so I’ll show both here:
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The redraw exaggerates Yang’s reaction in a way that feels inconsistent with his character. He is angry here, yes, but the composed, sad anger of the original fits him more than the seething, almost explosive rage of the redraw.
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Also he is just so much more beautiful in the original, damn.
Yang’s hatred of the rhetoric of war is palpable here, and his reaction—to concentrate fire on the flagship—accomplishes the dual goals of allowing the rest of the fleet to go ahead and withdraw, and eliminating the Admiral whose attitude he found so harmful.
But despite hating the war and wanting it to end, Yang accepted this mission; and when Schenkopp grills him about it in episode 6 we get insight into his specific goals.
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Yang’s pacifism is of a highly pragmatic flavor: As a historian he views cycles of war as inevitable and lacks the hubris/ambition to think that anything he does will change that in a lasting way. But the value he places on individual freedom and self-determination means that he sees full surrender to the autocratic government of the Empire as worth avoiding, and his hope in taking Iserlohn is that it might be the bargaining chip they need to conclude a peace treaty that would allow the Alliance government to remain independent.
His desire for peace is intimately tied in with his desire to leave the military and go back to the life he finds more enjoyable: drinking tea and studying history. And indeed when the mission succeeds, he initially attempts to do exactly that, going so far as to hand over a letter of resignation to Admiral Sitolet.
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This is obviously a huge turning point for Yang. Nothing is actually stopping him from resigning here; it was his plan from the beginning of the mission and he has the power to do it. But Sitolet, who was his instructor back at the military academy so has known him for a long time, knows exactly how to play him. 
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While Yang scorns the typical lofty ideals that his government puts forward to justify the continued death toll of the war, he believes deeply enough in the value of individual human lives that Sitolet’s guilt trip works on him. He can’t quite bring himself to put his own aspirations above the futures of the people in his fleet when faced with what amounts to a threat on their lives. Yang has served under other commanders and seen them, for example, advocate suicide attacks in order to play a game of attrition; Sitolet’s words are not abstract to him. While he urged his soldiers to fight so they don’t die, he himself feels the burden of fighting so that other people don’t die, so that other people have the choices he’s turning down himself.
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I introduced Yang as a man of paradoxes, and we see that here: his belief in the ideals of freedom and self-determination pushing him to stay on this path he doesn’t feel suited for.
Oberstein
We already met Paul von Oberstein when he accosted Kircheis in episode 4. (In fact he’s been around lurking in the background since “My Conquest.”) Here I would just like to point out that Oberstein is set up as a clear parallel/foil to Yang. Remember in episode 1 when Yang is the only one to see through Reinhard’s plan but his commanding officers won’t listen until it’s too late? Oberstein plays exactly that role here, seeing right through Yang’s delay tactic of pretending to control the weapons of Iserlohn before they actually did, but Seeckt refuses to listen to his logic.
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(Yang shots from episode 1.)
Like Yang, Oberstein is deeply pragmatic and keenly intelligent. His vibe here comes across like “what if Yang but no soul?” We’ll keep an eye on the parallels and contrasts between them as we get to know them better. (Well, get to know Yang better anyway; can anyone ever really be said to “know” the enigma that is Oberstein…?) 
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The Rosen Ritter
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In case you thought the Rosen Ritter were all sexy swagger and no action, here we get to see them actually doing their thing—hacking people to death with battle-axes. This fight sequence is beautifully choreographed, incredibly badass, and starkly brutal to watch. 
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Yang may be sitting out in his flagship doing his best to craft a strategy that minimizes loss of life, but that doesn’t mean much to these soldiers who are sacrificed to his plan. Again, war at all levels of zoom.
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Stray Tidbits
I can’t resist ranting a bit more about how much they change Yang when they redraw him. Fortunately it’s pretty rare—we won’t see redrawn!Yang much more until episode 39. But just...why...did they change the shape of his face and make his skin so red? Why? Original!Yang is so beautiful and sad and sleepy. 
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This scene makes me crack up every time. Between this and the waitress scene in the last episode we’re amassing quite a “Blumhart waves awkwardly at random women” collection.
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