Bryony's fandom blog

"Zechs" is a construct, useful for both the Vengeance Agenda and the OZ Agenda, but it is not Milliardo Peacecraft, my Eternal Friend, who lives beneath the mask. Zechs, who serves me as a knight of OZ, who I can trust with anything because of his devotion to duty, is nevertheless a soldier and a symbol who can be sacrificed.

And it HAS to look real. For Romefeller and the world to believe it, it HAS to be real. Besides, he's the best pilot in the world-- (Recoil "Breath Control" voice) God never gives you more than you can handle.

---

...But ZECHS doesn't think Zechs is a fake identity to be disposed of. It's an artificial construction, yes, but it's him. He's cynical about it-- he knows that the "Lightning Count" is a symbol and that symbols come with high expectations and few rewards, and that as a True Soldier he is expected to be ready to die in service of a cause-- Treize's cause, in this case, and the hollow vengeance he's just carried out.

But by that point Zechs has picked a new cause, one that he's latched on to without fully understanding it, and it's pulling him towards the Gundams and away from OZ, and Treize, and everything that they've come to stand for in his mind. From Zechs's perspective, Treize is sacrificing him personally-- because Milliardo Peacecraft is already dead, at least in the incarnation that Treize is thinking of from their youth. He seems to feel persecuted by what he sees as a betrayal by his friend, not an effort to let him shed his skin and escape OZ as a free man.

But then again, Treize doesn't seem totally sure he wants Zechs to leave--moments after deciding it would be best for Zechs Merquise to die rather than undergo the blemish of a Consequence, he seems to realize that with Romefeller's adoption of Mobile Dolls now is not the IDEAL time to be letting go of one of his most loyal and effective collaborators. That, and perhaps just the basic desire not to lose a personal attachment to a close friend who has already started pulling away from him.

"I'm letting you go-- no wait, come back to me" is a VERY strong motif throughout Treize's storyline. And most of what Treize lets go does not come back to him, at least, not unaltered.

Ah, Treize's Greenbeepers-- absolutely not native to wherever in central Europe the OZ headquarters is located, and fully domesticated. Adorable. Idyllic. Disney Princess Behavior. Dead within the hour.

.....Like....like he's literally got a golden cage for the OZ birdies. Like it's literally gilded. The metaphor is breaking down the door. Is OZ the gilded cage? Is he the gilded cage? Is he in the gilded cage that he also represents? Oh! Oh fret not little birds, I will set you free you from this prison of artifice, as I cannot be! Please do come back though. Freely. Freely come back. Don't you like me? I miss you.

--And Then There Were Two:

Noin is able to extricate herself from OZ and start her side gig as a Sanc royal guard on Treize's orders. One gets the feeling that he put her on Peacecraft Duty because he needed his best man on the job (and she has a lot of experience). He certainly keeps tabs on Zechs through her, and perhaps on Relena as well. Noin was the one who took up Treize's position as head instructor at LVB; she was one of his original proteges, and he took a missile to the Leo for her-- so they have some significant history with each other. Noin seems to still respect him even in exile (calling him "the right honorable Treize Khushrenada-- which I am terrified to report is actually the correct formal term of address). But at no point does she go back to him. *(They also have that cute moment about Gender Neutral forms of a address. Treize would respect your pronouns, I'm just saying.) Relatedly Treize has some sense of protective duty, or patronage, responsibility, obligation-- something-- towards Relena herself. As soon as he knows that she's Milliardo's sister, she becomes one of his Interests, sheltering her and quietly pulling strings to maneuver her into the position he feels she is best suited for on the stage-- something Milliardo and Dorothy and Dermail all do as well.

--And Then There Was One:

Une, meanwhile, he has transferred to space as a diplomat for reasons that probably almost certainly pertain to removing her from the consequences of her latest massive, catastrophic overreach, and as an added benefit, puts his most loyal deputy in a place where utmost loyalty is of most use-- at the far, far end his influence's reach. (And, where her occasional use of disproportionate force will be of least concern.) Une ends up escaping OZ on her own terms, breaking with the new OZ leadership in order to set the Gundam pilots free, though she does so saying that it's Treize's wish and the fulfillment of his ideals. And I'd argue that's true!-- even though that's not something he ever told or tells her*. Her loss is absolutely devastating to him, and her return is a surprise to him on both occasions (first in body and then in consciousness). He had no way of predicting her magical-true-love coma recovery, and so by the time she comes back, he's sort of already consigned himself to oblivion. There's little for her to come back to. (*see also : my previous long-winded ramble about Une and Treize's complicated relationship).

Romanian Friend I Forced To Watch Gundam With Me: "Never has a statement surprised me less. My disbelief has never needed less suspending."

--And Then There Were None:

...Zechs of course was sacrificed in order to preserve and free Milliardo Peacecraft! But Treize never stops keeping tabs on him either.

Treize: "Zechs Merquise, or rather, my eternal friend, Milliardo Peacecraft." His Eternal Friend Milliardo Peacecraft: how did you get this number

Treize gives Epyon to the first person he thinks would be able to use it to confirm his beliefs, or, failing that, end it all. But if you believe Zechs's word on the matter, and Heero's, and maybe Epyon itself, there's no way that suit was made for anyone but Zechs. The moment Epyon got released into the wild it was stochastically bound for the other guy whose great destiny keeps eluding him and would be insane enough to pilot it. Treize doesn't ask either Zechs or Milliardo to come back to him again, but damn if they aren't still circling each other, right to the bitter end.

--Really, even OZ itself, which he rejects, denounces, excoriates, refuses to return to when it calls for him-- he eventually picks up again when the need arises. That is, he picks it up again with the intention of taking it down with him as part of a final performance which, true to form, is both staged and very real.

Oh he absolutely 100000% felt he was liberating Zechs from OZ, it's just straight up textual. What's 70+ mobile suits to the Lightning Count? Nothing but the highest vote of confidence from me, your bestest best friend who believes in you!

Oh thank god, I'm finally powerless. Maybe this is what freedom is? <-Guy who has never experienced either powerlessness or freedom before.

Treize begins the episode talking reasonably frankly to the soldier holding him in custody and to himself about WHY he's done everything he's done up till that point: He supports Romefeller in their capacity as a force of preservation-- in this case the Earth's natural environment (because they own huge swaths of countryside and are presumably protecting them from development), but also presumably their preservation of "tradition"-- which means something very different to Dermail than it does to Treize. --There's a whole other essay in me about how Mobile Suits themselves, while a uniquely modern invention, are a return to "tradition" and absolutely crucial to Treize's understanding of "battles with civility". Because industrialized warfare was a mistake, you see. But swords and big-damn-hero machines? Now that's--

Treize goes on to say that he built the Specials unit in support of that attitude, from which we can gather that in his mind, the opposite of the Alliance is Romefeller; or rather, what the Alliance represents to him (their barbaric, complacent, repressive, industrialized authoritarianism) vs. what Romefeller represents to him (our noble, honorable, responsible, discreet authoritarianism). The Specials was a sword deliberately sharpened with the purpose of beheading the Alliance military-- thus, by his logic, freeing the world and ushering in a new era built on principles he genuinely believed Romefeller would govern by. Everything OZ has done under his command has been, to his mind, in service of liberating the Earth and the Colonies from the Alliance military. To Treize, it makes perfect sense to be talking strategy to Zechs while privately considering the long-term outcome of that strategy, which is allowing Zechs to fulfill his goal of freeing Sanc and obliterating its oppressor.

And Zechs is clearly of the same opinion at the beginning. "OZ's objective isn't to rule, it's to free countries of the stranglehold of the Alliance Military." Noin, who has the OZ brain cell: "Currently, you mean." "This might be somewhat unnatural coming from me, but I believe due respect should be given to OZ for giving a second chance to those who formed the Alliance in the first place."

Noin, critical of OZ as she is and pretty clear-headed about most matters, is also coming from a perspective of understanding, and at one point believing, in its mission. She knows the role of Mobile Suits is to simulate human combat, to anthropomorphize war machines into something heroic. "OZ's dissolution of former policies was a revolution against the system's misrule that created poverty."

This is the OZ that OZ believed in-- an antidote to the Alliance; a pure catalyst for change.

And what happens afterwards isn't really up to them. Treize is involved with a lot of what's happening behind the curtain (OZ JOKE, HEYO), but he's not like, king*. He's the Commander of OZ but he's not the one setting policy for the new "liberated" Earth Sphere Government. If he were (and some people definitely think he should be), he wouldn't have found himself completely at odds with his facilitators and relatively powerless to stop them from undoing everything he thought he'd been working towards.

(*Arguably he gets to be queen).

Another wonderfully revised memory: Thinking/feeling/saying off-camera his intentions for sending Lady Une to space-- she's there to subjugate the remainder of the Alliance forces, she's there to liberate the Colonies the same way OZ liberated Earth. Saying "explain our love to the Colonies with your affection" and "subjugate the rebel element in space" isn't a contradiction to Treize-- Lady Une is 100% ruthless and will subjugate the HELL out of the remaining Alliance Forces, that's how much she fucking LOVES you bastards. The fact that she's causing huge amounts of collateral damage is just par for the course-- and not really his problem. I mean it's space. It's not like Earth. Earth is important. No, the Colonies are "fake living spaces" holding onto a "fake pacifism" that will only give rise to more conflict. I don't think he could respect them less, regardless of wishing to free them from the Alliance and regardless of how much respect he has for the Gundam pilots.

---I do think this is a moment where Frozen Teardop comes in clutch with some extra characterization: Treize writes an unsent letter (or journal entry-- unclear) to Milliardo that begins with a sad Rilke poem about grief and wanting to hold onto the past and desperately wishing for hands to catch the leaves falling from heaven--- I love him I love him I love him I fucking love him I'm going to chew him to shreds and shake his stuffing out all over the floor-- and continues with the depressed Austrian poet vibes by lamenting how bleak the era is and Earth is wandering like a lost child in the darkness, having flown the coop too soon-- humanity left the nest before it grew wings, and now drifts in "immature solitude" in the lifeless void of space. Space, once a symbol of progress and hope is sterile and stagnate, just as the gridlock of power and capital on Earth has caused stagnation and misery. "Power is concentrated in few hands and those hands are engaged in a virtually meaningless power struggle. While they pay lip service to upholding moral law, they embroil their people in war, demanding their poverty and hunger and bloodshed." HAHAHA WOW CAN'T RELATE. (*using Inchoate-Ouevre's translation)

I'M OBSESSED WITH THIS SAD, SAD MAN.

ANYWAY--

He goes on to thank the Gundam pilots for relieving him of the task of having to "personally bury OZ", because while he has fallen from heaven, they have command of destiny itself. God, what I wouldn't give to see what "Treize personally burying OZ" would have looked like... But he doesn't. He doesn't rebel. Just like he never outright fights against Romefeller-- he just quietly slits their throat by walking out the door and it takes them a long time to bleed out. And he lets others fight in his name while insisting he no longer has the right to lead or even express an opinion on the action. Dermail says he fears Treize teaming up with the Gundam pilots more than anything, but Treize never does. He talks about reevaluating himself and finding freedom in confinement and five minutes later he's asking Heero to shoot him so the war will end. He envisions himself adrift in a sea of stars watching the paths of destinies cross, reflecting on how fleeting are time and memory. He sees the cast of characters for the third act and is waiting for the curtain to rise, but HE isn't on the stage-- Epyon is. The fucking demon oracle stochastic mayhem machine is what he releases into the final act to see if it provides any answers. And the hallucination of his beloved dead Lady tells him everything is going according to plan.

"Zechs" is a construct, useful for both the Vengeance Agenda and the OZ Agenda, but it is not Milliardo Peacecraft, my Eternal Friend, who lives beneath the mask. Zechs, who serves me as a knight of OZ, who I can trust with anything because of his devotion to duty, is nevertheless a soldier and a symbol who can be sacrificed.

And it HAS to look real. For Romefeller and the world to believe it, it HAS to be real. Besides, he's the best pilot in the world-- (Recoil "Breath Control" voice) God never gives you more than you can handle.

---

...But ZECHS doesn't think Zechs is a fake identity to be disposed of. It's an artificial construction, yes, but it's him. He's cynical about it-- he knows that the "Lightning Count" is a symbol and that symbols come with high expectations and few rewards, and that as a True Soldier he is expected to be ready to die in service of a cause-- Treize's cause, in this case, and the hollow vengeance he's just carried out.

But by that point Zechs has picked a new cause, one that he's latched on to without fully understanding it, and it's pulling him towards the Gundams and away from OZ, and Treize, and everything that they've come to stand for in his mind. From Zechs's perspective, Treize is sacrificing him personally-- because Milliardo Peacecraft is already dead, at least in the incarnation that Treize is thinking of from their youth. He seems to feel persecuted by what he sees as a betrayal by his friend, not an effort to let him shed his skin and escape OZ as a free man.

But then again, Treize doesn't seem totally sure he wants Zechs to leave--moments after deciding it would be best for Zechs Merquise to die rather than undergo the blemish of a Consequence, he seems to realize that with Romefeller's adoption of Mobile Dolls now is not the IDEAL time to be letting go of one of his most loyal and effective collaborators. That, and perhaps just the basic desire not to lose a personal attachment to a close friend who has already started pulling away from him.

"I'm letting you go-- no wait, come back to me" is a VERY strong motif throughout Treize's storyline. And most of what Treize lets go does not come back to him, at least, not unaltered.

Ah, Treize's Greenbeepers-- absolutely not native to wherever in central Europe the OZ headquarters is located, and fully domesticated. Adorable. Idyllic. Disney Princess Behavior. Dead within the hour.

.....Like....like he's literally got a golden cage for the OZ birdies. Like it's literally gilded. The metaphor is breaking down the door. Is OZ the gilded cage? Is he the gilded cage? Is he in the gilded cage that he also represents? Oh! Oh fret not little birds, I will set you free you from this prison of artifice, as I cannot be! Please do come back though. Freely. Freely come back. Don't you like me? I miss you.

--And Then There Were Two:

Noin is able to extricate herself from OZ and start her side gig as a Sanc royal guard on Treize's orders. One gets the feeling that he put her on Peacecraft Duty because he needed his best man on the job (and she has a lot of experience). He certainly keeps tabs on Zechs through her, and perhaps on Relena as well. Noin was the one who took up Treize's position as head instructor at LVB; she was one of his original proteges, and he took a missile to the Leo for her-- so they have some significant history with each other. Noin seems to still respect him even in exile (calling him "the right honorable Treize Khushrenada-- which I am terrified to report is actually the correct formal term of address). But at no point does she go back to him. *(They also have that cute moment about Gender Neutral forms of a address. Treize would respect your pronouns, I'm just saying.) Relatedly Treize has some sense of protective duty, or patronage, responsibility, obligation-- something-- towards Relena herself. As soon as he knows that she's Milliardo's sister, she becomes one of his Interests, sheltering her and quietly pulling strings to maneuver her into the position he feels she is best suited for on the stage-- something Milliardo and Dorothy and Dermail all do as well.

--And Then There Was One:

Une, meanwhile, he has transferred to space as a diplomat for reasons that probably almost certainly pertain to removing her from the consequences of her latest massive, catastrophic overreach, and as an added benefit, puts his most loyal deputy in a place where utmost loyalty is of most use-- at the far, far end his influence's reach. (And, where her occasional use of disproportionate force will be of least concern.) Une ends up escaping OZ on her own terms, breaking with the new OZ leadership in order to set the Gundam pilots free, though she does so saying that it's Treize's wish and the fulfillment of his ideals. And I'd argue that's true!-- even though that's not something he ever told or tells her*. Her loss is absolutely devastating to him, and her return is a surprise to him on both occasions (first in body and then in consciousness). He had no way of predicting her magical-true-love coma recovery, and so by the time she comes back, he's sort of already consigned himself to oblivion. There's little for her to come back to. (*see also : my previous long-winded ramble about Une and Treize's complicated relationship).

Romanian Friend I Forced To Watch Gundam With Me: "Never has a statement surprised me less. My disbelief has never needed less suspending."

--And Then There Were None:

...Zechs of course was sacrificed in order to preserve and free Milliardo Peacecraft! But Treize never stops keeping tabs on him either.

Treize: "Zechs Merquise, or rather, my eternal friend, Milliardo Peacecraft." His Eternal Friend Milliardo Peacecraft: how did you get this number

Treize gives Epyon to the first person he thinks would be able to use it to confirm his beliefs, or, failing that, end it all. But if you believe Zechs's word on the matter, and Heero's, and maybe Epyon itself, there's no way that suit was made for anyone but Zechs. The moment Epyon got released into the wild it was stochastically bound for the other guy whose great destiny keeps eluding him and would be insane enough to pilot it. Treize doesn't ask either Zechs or Milliardo to come back to him again, but damn if they aren't still circling each other, right to the bitter end.

--Really, even OZ itself, which he rejects, denounces, excoriates, refuses to return to when it calls for him-- he eventually picks up again when the need arises. That is, he picks it up again with the intention of taking it down with him as part of a final performance which, true to form, is both staged and very real.

-- This sometimes gets it flagged as "stripping a female character of agency"-- but I don't think that quite fits the bill. Une has a lot of agency. She has, one might argue, extremely very much too much agency. She has an irresponsible amount of latitude within OZ. She's a vicious bully towards her subordinates, a menace to humanity, and also has a weird relationship with her boss that is at odds with all the other weird relationships her boss has. Her boss frequently tells her to, perhaps, reconsider doing the terrible things that she already did 35 minutes ago. The things that Treize materially and directly stops Une from doing are, to wit:

killing Relena

dying in battle

dying in battle x2

Everything else he lets her do-- and then chides her for doing, and gently course-corrects her. He doesn't stop her from doing things that he absolutely should have stopped her from doing. And as for him MAKING her do things, I feel like there's no way around the fact that they are both in a military organization where she's a subordinate officer, and that's how that works. The thing he does to Une that's actually a disservice, that's actually corrosive, is never giving her clear parameters for her conduct, letting her fumble around trying to make command decisions based on what she imagines he wants her to do, and never explicitly telling her what that is or isn't. He just tells her to try harder to understand what he won't explain. He doesn't take away her ability to make decisions on his behalf, he just tells her they were the wrong decisions, and to do better next time. (I've written about this at length before over on the main Parsing GW blog). The emotional stress he places on her is disastrous (which he acknowledges, but doesn't address), it's highly manipulative, and it's a little cruel. If her agency is indeed limited (and lest we forget, Une's agency in this regard involves blowing up school children, nuking the seaboard of California, and holding the Colonies hostage at missilepoint), it's because she's so emotionally dependent on his approval that her actions are constantly revolving around it. (*This does not cover the full scope of implications regarding her DID, which is a hefty topic on its own that deserves special examination). Their dynamic changes somewhat by mid-series. By the time Une is in space working as an ambassador she's out of his direct command. She starts working directly with Tuberov at a time when Tuberov has far greater authority over OZ than Treize does. At one point it seems she has some amount of executive authority over him-- to what degree is uncertain, but she's certainly making decisions about OZ policies in space (investing in mobile dolls so that soldiers aren't at risk during the dangerous and tragic process of oppressing people) that he has no control over. She begins dictating to him what she thinks his agenda should be going forward. He tells her that the future she's laid out for him and OZ is solely based on her own ideals, and she says "that's what YOU wanted". This indicates that at some point there was an interaction between them where Treize encouraged her to form her own ideals/make her own choices. And now she's done this! But in the same emotionally dependent capacity as before, where her independent actions are circling his theoretical ideals and approval-- which he is once again withholding. Instead, he wants her back the way she was.

BECAUSE: by all accounts, Treize is emotionally dependent on Une's faith, reliance, and approval of him. He hallucinates about her telling him he's on the right track and has everything under control when he's having his mental breakdown in Luxembourg.

"Come back to me", in the capacity of someone who needs me to direct them, who believes in me implicitly and supports me unconditionally, who operates under my aegis and acts with ruthless impunity thereby. (He loves empowering "exceptional people" to be ruthless and directly affect the world. It's his very favorite thing, because he's not allowed to do it himself anymore.) Come back to me because I need an endless well of adoration to drink from or I'll have to face the isolation and hollowness of my actions alone.

He says she understands him, but he does not say this to her face. He admits his guilt for making the closest person to him suffer, but he says this to Zechs. Even when he seems to have made an attempt at encouraging her to be her own person, he flips it around and wants her to return to the version of herself he was "most fond of". When he tells her he loves her and missed her, she's in a coma. He says it to himself, and to her ghost, and to her sleeping ears. He removes his glove to brush her face, (by far the most physically intimate thing he does in the entire show; being naked in the tub doesn't even come close) and he does it when she cannot feel it, or comment on it, or return the gesture. He addresses her in his mind more candidly than he ever does out loud; he explains himself to her in his own internal monologue, to a version of her that DOES understand him. Yet he's confused when she arrives in person to save his life. As with most cases when she acts on her own initiative, he doesn't understand her decision, does not give her his blessing. He doesn't say anything to her-- he next addresses his troops. Even when he's planning to die he doesn't let her in on the joke-- she watches him go to his death thinking all the while that the plan was for him to lead Earth's forces to victory, and when he dies, she surrenders, despite this being wildly off-mission and distinctly not in his design. He never lets her get any closer than an admirer, a devotee, who he "loves", but he loves her because he needs that unwavering faith and devotion from somebody. He never once tells her she's done the right thing. She relinquishes her agency to the distant idea of him, and he lets her--even in death he lets her chase an idea of him, because it suits him to do so. He needs that of her, and he gives so little back except the dream of something that isn't and never was. They both love an idea of each other that never meets in the middle, never resolves in intimacy beyond the touch of a hand, or understanding that reaches beyond a projection of what they want each other to be. She doesn't understand him-- if she did, maybe she'd stop believing in him just like everyone else who truly knows him has. So maybe he keeps it that way. But she never does stop believing in him, or wanting him to see a better future. She's holding a candle for him long after he's stopped shining. Even after he's dead she asks him what he'd do, because he never told her. And she didn't need him to! Every genuinely good decision she ever made she made without his help or his jurisdiction, despite saying at every turn that she did it because it's what *he* wanted.

. There's a meta-textual thing going on here where this relationship was intended by the authors to be a heart-throbbing chivalric romance, in a very particular and dated kind of "stoic superior/loyal subordinate" way. It's a trope you find in a lot of anime where there's a powerful man and a devoted lady in his shadow who stays with him through thick and thin without once asking for anything in return and typically goes down with his ship. (Zechs/Noin get hit with a bit of this as well, but the vibes and characterizations are FAR far better.) There are more and less grating/self-aware ways to depict it, but overall,... this is not Utena-honoring behavior. There's an interview with Sumizawa that states that one of the initial concepts for Une was as a "Liza Doolittle" character (you know, from "Pygmalion" aka "My Fair Lady" aka another vintage movie reference that Sumizawa is a sucker for) that was always clumsily messing up and having to be "educated" on correct manners and conduct. And boy, I gotta tell ya, I think that element survived in the absolute worst way possible. *(ALSO LIZA DOESN'T END UP WITH HENRY HIGGENS IN THE ORIGINAL. HOLY SHIT THAT'S A TERRIBLE FUCKING MODEL FOR A RELATIONSHIP. OY FUCKING VEY.)

This sucks. My god is the relationship compelling, but even by my most generous and simpful reading, this part of it sucks. --AND IT SUCKS, I WOULD ARGUE, in a way that is independent of a beautifully and horrifically codependent and manipulative relationship between two war criminals-- I'm pretty okay with that part. Like, that's a whole flavor. They're problematic for sure! Treize doesn't have any unproblematic relationships!! He doesn't even have an unproblematic relationship with his birds!!! And that's okay! I just wish it wasn't the type of problematic that leaves a sour aftertaste because it's plagued with a sort of out-dated, hand-wavey shorthand for Romance.

I'll admit that I do feel kinda weird about stamping one of the things I like *least* about the OZ storylines with "bad anime trope" when I'm willing to defend, or excitedly condemn in a ~precious-little-meow-meow~ kind of way, almost everything else? But I guess this bothers me in particular because it feels so unexamined; it feels like a bad anime trope that's been airlifted into a series that is otherwise great at depicting a bunch of different interpersonal relationships that are all unique to the characters, and I'd like the arc of this relationship to be more self-aware if it's going to be that toxic. Instead, there's swelling violin music and rose petals, and the impression of a grand, devoted, courtly romance that leaves me with a queasy feeling BECAUSE it is presented with such confidence. Do you know what did this better? Char's Counterattack. Char and Nanai, to say nothing of Char and Quess, managed the same kind of codependent dynamic with more self-awareness. Absolutely gut-wrenching and tormenting in its incompleteness, its worrying implications, its proxy displacement, its unresolved emotional deficiencies leading to despicable but recognizable choices by broken adults trying to find comfort in the companionship that's available to them.