#cazellnu

Love Triangles

“Yang told me not to write the real names even in my diary, so I’ll use pseudonyms, but non-commissioned officer A and non-commissioned officer B had been fighting forever over the civilian Miss C, and that fight was revived on Iserlohn, but Miss C, who hated Officer B, impulsively shot him to death.” —Julian’s Iserlohn Diary, p. 61-62 (From episode 30.)

Honestly, the love triangle between Officer A, Officer B, and Miss C that Julian describes in his diary sounds like one of the more straightforward and classic love triangles in the LoGH world. LoGH love triangles, as we’ve discussed, tend to be rather twisted, tragic, or otherwise subversive. These triangles don’t present an either/or choice between two romantic rivals standing on equal ground, where the choice hinges on the interior romantic feelings of the character at the vertex; rather, most love triangles in LoGH are narrative tools to highlight the ways social structures shape our choices for us, or to add depth to characterizations by showing the ways that people approach these choices differently.

On the Alliance side, the love triangle of season one was between Yang, Lapp, and Jessica, with Jessica at the vertex. And the way it played out set up open questions about Yang’s wistful passivity and reluctance to pursue a romantic relationship with Jessica both back in college and now, despite her professed interest. Many factors were at play in that dynamic: Yang may have believed that Jessica was more interested in Lapp, or been reluctant to compete with his friend; and in the present day, tensions over their past, Lapp’s death, and the war complicated any possible relationship between them. But as Jessica tells it in episode 10, she was disappointed that he didn’t continue to express interest after that first awkward dance; and despite that confession and an almost-kiss, Yang’s reluctance remained a constant, as he made no further move to pursue her.

In season two, Yang is involved in another love triangle of sorts, and this time he is at the vertex. 

The line in Japanese is Teitoku wa itsu ni nattara hakkiri saserun darou? which translates literally as “when will the admiral make it clear?” The official subs translate it as “when will the admiral just tell her?” which is misleading: It implies Julian has a belief that Yang reciprocates Frederica’s feelings, but both before and after this Julian professes not to know Yang’s feelings.

This triangle between Yang, Frederica, and Julian currently exists only inside Julian’s head. But for Julian at this point in his life it is very real and looms very large—dominating his thoughts, as we see in the moment above, even as he rushes into battle against a giant fortress that just warped into the corridor and attacked them. And since it’s foundational to the emotional arc of the whole rest of the show, it’s worth taking time to examine in painstaking detail exactly how it’s set up early in this season. 

The Julian/Yang/Frederica Triangle

(From episode 24.)

The last time I talked about Julian’s feelings for Yang I speculated that, despite seeming to have all the major symptoms of a crush, he probably didn’t frame it to himself that way (although we had no way to know for sure). But that was almost a year ago—in story time, that is—and a year is a long time when you’re fifteen-going-on-sixteen. And uh, I’m gonna go out on a limb and say that he’s figured some stuff out.

Have I fangirled about Nozomu Sasaki’s voice acting yet? Well it’s about time I did—the subtitles can’t do this exchange justice, so please go watch it (12:17) right now to appreciate the soft edge behind his “saa” here. Damn. (From episode 30.)

This is one of those times when I’m not sure what my job here is supposed to be: Schenkopp asks whether Yang is interested in Frederica and Julian’s reaction is to say “how should I know” then lower his eyebrows angrily and shoot the target directly in the heart. Tell us how you really feel, Julian. 

Ding ding ding, yes, how he really feels is jealous. Well done Schenkopp. This is the line right before we jump to Schenkopp interrogating Julian on the shooting range, and already here a triangle of some sort is suggested, with Julian and Frederica paralleled to each other as rivals for Yang’s attention. So how is Yang processing this line? How is Cazellnu? We’ll come back to both of those questions in the future! (From episode 30.)

In episode 33 we get another peek inside Julian’s mind, as checking in on the Cazellnu ladies prompts him to recall a recent conversation with Yang. 

Have I mentioned Cazellnu has issues? Seriously dude, pressuring your 30-year-old friend about his love life is one thing; telling a teenager you intend for him to marry your eight-year-old daughter someday is a whole ’nother level. Leave Charlotte and Julian alone dammit.

Yang is totally oblivious here to how his “eh she might seem like a little kid to you now but things change” take might interact with Julian’s own complicated emotions...

...and it makes sense to me that Julian immediately fires back by probing Yang’s feelings for the only obvious potential romantic partner currently in his life.

Julian’s emotional life revolves entirely around Yang. That’s been true since we first met him, and when he was fourteen or fifteen it manifested as relatively uncomplicated hero worship/puppy love, a desire both to be as much like Yang as possible and to do as much as possible to look after him and be useful to him. But that dynamic isn’t sustainable as Julian grows up. And what these two scenes tell us is that a thread of tension now runs through Julian’s emotions, specifically about the development of Yang’s love life. Everything about the narrative framing in these scenes sets up a classic love triangle: Schenkopp’s insinuations about Julian being jealous of Frederica segueing directly into Julian acting angsty about not knowing whether Yang reciprocates Frederica’s feelings; Julian’s thoughts jumping from remembering Cazellnu’s matchmaking schemes between him and Charlotte to solemnly wondering when Yang will make his feelings about Frederica more clear.

...But this is LoGH. And zooming out from the narrative framing to the broader context, to say this particular triangle is “not that simple” would be a drastic understatement. Julian and Frederica are not on equal ground here; while Frederica seems perfectly constructed as a potential romantic partner for Yang, every possible situational variable is aligned against Julian. When Julian thinks about Yang “making things clear” or “making up his mind,” the two options on the table are “yes Frederica” or “no Frederica.” Julian simply isn’t an option. Heteronormativity is one factor in that, sure, but not the most important one—the age difference and power dynamic mean not only that Julian is a socially unacceptable love interest for Yang, but that in fact any expression of romantic interest from Yang’s end would be deeply, deeply inappropriate. And Julian must know that. However… 

Is it too disturbing to say that what this line reminds me most of is a dog marking its territory? Anyway, it’s the addition of “favorite” that really gives it that possessive feel; he could have just said he has to go make Yang dinner, but instead he feels the need to emphasize that he is the one who knows how to cook food just the way Yang likes it. (From episode 30.)

Frederica isn’t a threat to Julian’s role as Yang’s intellectual disciple, or to his role as Yang’s physical protector. But she is a threat to his role as Yang’s caretaker and domestic partner, and it’s no coincidence that he ends the conversation with Schenkopp by emphasizing that position. Sure there’s nothing romantic about their relationship right now, but the status quo is still that Julian is the person closest to Yang, the person who lives with him and looks after him and cooks for him and spends cozy evenings beating him at 3D chess. The two sides of the triangle may be “Frederica” and “not Frederica,” but the closest Julian can hope to come to actually being chosen is for Yang to never choose anybody, for the status quo to just quietly continue.

On Surface Readings

A lot of the storytelling in LoGH has the feeling of a magic trick: It tells one story if you look at it through glasses that assume romantic attraction can only occur between men and women, and completely different stories if you remove that lens. The key to this trickery is that it’s simultaneously true that there exist non-queer interpretations of the things we see, and that if you tally the details of how the stories are actually told, those interpretations don’t quite add up. In the case of the Julian/Yang/Frederica dynamic, there are two different possible non-queer readings, and it’s worth taking the time up front to examine each of them and how they interact with what we’ve seen so far.

Reading #1: Frederica is the vertex. This is the magic trick illusion: If we attempt to interpret the situation starting from the assumption that between Yang and Frederica, Frederica is the only possible object of romantic interest for Julian, then the two scenes I analyzed above suddenly constitute evidence that Julian has a crush on Frederica. More specifically, they constitute the only evidence that Julian has a crush on Frederica.

Yes this gif is super cute; no it’s not sufficient evidence of a crush. (From episode 17.)

Julian is friends with Frederica and likes her. But never (until these two scenes) have we seen his emotions around her seem fraught; we’ve never seen him think about her when she’s not around, or stand in the background of scenes smiling at her. We’ve never even seen them have a conversation in which Julian didn’t bring up Yang.

As I pointed out above, several details about how the dynamic is framed in episodes 30 and 33 reinforce the fact that Yang is in the role of vertex: a) It takes serious mental gymnastics to see Schenkopp’s “Julian will be jealous if you take Frederica to Heinessen and not him” line as trying to imply that Julian has a thing for Frederica. b) In both scenes, Yang is the one whose feelings are unknown, the one who has a potential choice to make. And c) Julian’s none-too-subtle emphasis of the fact that it’s his job right now to cook for Yang makes it even clearer that it’s his role in Yang’s life that’s at issue.

The only reason to think that Frederica rather than Yang is the vertex is an assumption that Julian must be straight. And the only evidence that Julian has a crush on Frederica is the assumption that she must be the vertex of this triangle. This reading falls to pieces as soon as you remove those glasses.

Reading #2: It’s not romantic. This is much more interesting, because unlike Reading #1, it’s not just an illusion created by heteronormative assumptions. It’s a complexity inherent to the actual situation, and incredibly difficult to actually parse out the nuances of, both for us and for Julian.

The show doesn’t bother to give us a lot of details about Julian’s background in season one—we don’t even know at what age Julian went to live with Yang until the beginning of season two—and it’s easy as a viewer to classify Julian early on as “basically Yang’s kid” and therefore assume Julian sees it the same way. But that view bulldozes over a ton of complexity. Julian was raised by his father until he was eight, and went to live with Yang when he was twelve; Yang is his hero, teacher, mentor, role model, idol—all sorts of things, in addition to legal guardian, that create a major power differential between them. But never once does Julian refer to Yang as being like a parent to him as such—if we look at the source material, he’s consistent in referring to himself as Yang’s disciple (弟子) or orderly (従卒), and as I’ve pointed out before, this is reflected in the anime by the fact that his language and bearing around Yang, while affectionate, are more like a subordinate than like close family.

“So far I’ve only lived just shy of fifteen years. Exactly half of Yang’s age. In the next fifteen years, can I catch up to Yang’s pace? [...] ‘Don’t hold back and merely catch up, fly past him,’ Cazellnu said, and Schenkopp teased, ‘You’re running while he’s taking afternoon naps. Surely you’re gaining ground.’ Poplan laughed. [...] All three of them are watching me with interest and possibly some sympathy as I chase after my shifu (a good word, I learned it from Yang) from far behind.” —Julian’s Iserlohn Diary, p. 136-137 (From episode 29.)

Yang, for his part, has never wanted to be a parent or felt comfortable in that role; and the only way he knows how to treat Julian is as some combination of student and housekeeper.

Okay I’m not actually trying to over-analyze Yang’s syntax here; honestly I’m just taking the opportunity to use this gif because it cracks me up. (From episode 6.)

All of which is to say that in Julian’s eyes, Yang is an idol rather than a parent; and developing crushes on idols or mentors is so common as to be cliché. There’s nothing inorganic or unrealistic about the idea that Julian’s puppy love could develop into romantic attraction as he grows up. It would be complicated, awkward, painful, confusing, stressful, all sorts of difficult things for him—but none of that makes it unlikely to happen.

Good stories raise more questions than they answer; and the ambiguity and complexity of Julian’s feelings is one of the beautiful things about this story. Is it precisely accurate to call Julian’s feelings romantic? That’s not meant to have an easy answer—especially once you acknowledge that not all romance fits into neat normative boxes, especially once you recognize that romance isn’t synonymous with sex or lust, the lines become fuzzy and difficult to pin down.

But what’s unambiguous is that the question of whether Julian’s feelings are romantic is salient, both to the audience and to Julian himself.

I mean...come on.

The direct segue from Schenkopp commenting on Julian’s jealousy to asking about Yang’s romantic feelings; the paralleling of Yang and Frederica’s potential romance with Julian’s potential future romances; the visual of the target being shot directly in the heart. All of these details suggest that Julian is struggling with the question of how his place in Yang’s life relates to Yang’s love life and to his own. There’s no simple answer, and we’ll be continuing to look for details that give insight into how Julian himself perceives his emotions. 

<3

Cazellnu

Meanwhile…

“If you think about it, Cazellnu has no deeds of arms at the front lines or anything. Just through desk work he became a rear admiral at 34, so he’s a real bureaucratic prodigy. [...] When he took university entrance exams, he also passed the exam for the business management program at Ale Heinessen University, but he got the date for the enrollment papers wrong and was left with no choice but the military academy; he says this was one of the major blunders of his lifetime. The other one, he says, is ‘something my wife can never know.’” —Julian’s Iserlohn Diary, p. 110-111

Okay, so we’re focused on the anime here and technically Tanaka’s writing is not our Official Canon, but this backstory for Cazellnu somehow explains so much. When Yang left for Heinessen he failed to anticipate that Iserlohn would be attacked by an entire fortress (some “Magician” he is...), and left Cazellnu, Bureaucratic Prodigy in temporary command while he was away. Logical enough if the problems that are likely to arise are that somehow not enough toilet paper rations were delivered to block 74 that week; but it’s safe to say that Cazellnu finds himself a bit out of his depth when Geiersberg shows up. 

Schenkopp just straight-up disobeys Cazellnu’s order here, chain of command be damned—I like this little reminder that Schenkopp (and by extension the Rosen Ritter) has chosen to be loyal to Yang, but that doesn’t mean that he meekly accepts the authority of the Alliance forces in general.

The other admirals aren’t so brazen, but are also deeply frustrated with Cazellnu’s passive, let’s-just-try-to-stall-until-Yang-saves-us approach to the battle.

Mercifully, for Cazellnu and for the whole fortress, Merkatz has finally had enough of this. This is his extremely dignified and polite way of saying “listen kid, how about you step aside and let someone competent handle this.” Have I mentioned Merkatz is the best?

Poor Cazellnu didn’t ask for this and is really doing his best, and I almost feel bad for him…… but then I remember that he believes the ultimate purpose of human life is to pass on your genes to the next generation and that he ships his eight-year-old daughter with Julian, and I feel less bad. 

Yeah that’s right Alex, you brought this on yourself. Shoulda gotten those business school papers in on time, eh?

Stray Tidbits

The liquid hydro-metal coatings of Iserlohn and Geiersberg are one of my two favorite inventions of the anime (the other, of course, being Julian’s cat). This battle is absolutely gorgeous, and I love the Empire’s tactic of using the gravitational pull between the fortresses to submerge the Thor Hammer and expose the back of Iserlohn to attack. Well done anime team, well done.

“In terms of sci-fi concepts, I like the anime-original fluid metal of Iserlohn fortress. Kato Naoyuki (mechanic concept design) didn’t want to just have ships entering and exiting the fortress through an opening, and we started talking about what if they sunk softly into a mercury-like substance, and so it was created. That creation led to the idea of, during the battle with Geiersberg, using the gravitational pull to attack the back side.” —Producer Masatoshi Tahara, interiew in “LoGH: Complete Guide”

Aha, our first mention of Julian’s height, everyone take a shot! Okay, so tracking Julian’s height down to the half-centimeter (really) is more of a thing in the novels than the anime—in fact I think this is the only time we’re given a specific number in the show, although not the last time the topic arises. Anyway, I share Julian’s “where the fuck did that come from?” reaction here. Is this conversation a product of Yang musing about what Schenkopp said about Julian being jealous? A reasonable interpretation of Schenkopp’s line is that Julian is frustrated at being treated like a kid and left out of the fun grownup adventures. Yang may be obliquely trying to reassure him that he’ll get there soon.

Or maybe that book he’s reading just mentioned something about height and the question was totally random? I honestly don’t know.

In any case, after his initial surprise Julian seems quite pleased that his progress toward adulthood is not going unnoticed. And hi Gensui, yes I see you with that adorable yawn in the background; don't worry, Iserlohn’s design is badass but you are for sure the cutest addition to the anime. (Both from episode 30.)

I want to read the rest of this story dammit. Does Rose manage to drive the squirrel away?? This is the LoGH fanfiction the public demands.

Schenkopp, I used to respect you, but weak coffee? Have you no dignity at all?

I don’t blame this random kid for seeming so horrified by the request.

Is it possible that all Alliance coffee is just too weak and that’s why Yang hates it so much? (From episode 17.)

Julian, we can see you. Didn’t anyone teach you it’s rude to stare?

“Haha, my bad.”

Have I mentioned that I love Iserlohn? Damn it’s gorgeous.

The Yang Fleet

“I can’t imagine the Yang fleet without Lt Greenhill. Just like I can’t imagine the Yang fleet without Rear Admiral Cazellnu or Commodore Schenkopp. Lt Cdr Poplan. Admiral Attenborough. Lt Cdr Konev. Rear Admiral Murai. And so on, many many people. If anyone were missing, it wouldn’t work. Admiral Yang must understand that as well as I do. I know this could be called sentimental, but for me the Yang fleet isn’t simply an organization. Iserlohn is home, and I think a home should hold a family.” —Julian’s Iserlohn Diary, p. 284

In the animation of the season one ED (which incidentally is one of my personal absolute favorite things in the show) we see Yang and Julian moving through the stars as though on some cosmic conveyor belt while other members of the fleet pass by and greet them. We’ve watched this scene over a dozen times by now, playing out behind the closing credits of almost every episode, a whimsical vision of the group that would come to live together on Iserlohn.

...Or is it so whimsical?

Near the beginning of this episode, set to an instrumental arrangement of the opening theme (the ED itself would have been too on-the-nose, I guess?), the ED animation comes to life on the walkways of Iserlohn: Julian and Yang moving not through the stars but through the fortress, as first Dusty and then Poplan and Konev chat with Julian, under the smile of Frederica and the disapproving glare of Murai. The sequence culminates with the arrival of the Cazellnus, and we have all the clues to know why this is so important: Finally, for the first time, the entire cast of the ED is united on Iserlohn. The family of the Yang fleet is complete.

The Cazellnus

As heralded by this walkway sequence, the focus of this episode is the personalities and relationships that make up the fleet on Iserlohn. So let’s delve a bit into this ragtag cast of characters that Yang’s chosen to assemble, starting with the Cazellnu family. 

Total screentime for Hortence ticks up from one second to two! This is for our own protection: If you stare at Hortence Cazellnu for more than an instant at a time, you fall under her thrall and your mental faculties are forever compromised. That’s canon* and explains a lot about Cazellnu. *See diary quote below...

Aww so cute, Julian playing with Charlotte and her little sister the unfathomable hell-demon whose quest to enslave humanity can only be thwarted by discovering and uttering her true name.....

“Yang kindly calls me a ‘master of cleaning and tidying.’ From his level it might seem that way, but from my point of view Mrs. Cazellnu seems like a ‘white witch.’ [...] When I said this in the morning, Yang nodded emphatically. ‘That must be true. She’s a white witch, and her husband is a dark wizard. After he lost a magical duel, he became her servant forever.’” —Julian’s Iserlohn Diary, p. 107

I’ll talk more about Hortence and the dynamics of the Cazellnu family when we do finally get to see her for more than one second at a time; for now let’s focus on Alex Cazellnu himself, whose only real role in this episode is to insult Yang at every opportunity. Ahh the bonds of friendship.

Yang claims to be excited that Cazellnu’s there mainly because he can push mountains of paperwork off onto him—Cazellnu’s official post is as some sort of manager of supplies and personnel; but I imagine that for Yang, who’s been thrust into this position of authority that he never really sought, there’s something comforting about filling his inner circle with people who don’t treat him with reverence. Cazellnu is an old friend who, in some ways, sees Yang more clearly than most people do.

Isn’t there a proverb, “children and fools tell the truth”...?

Schenkopp

Hey, isn’t that what I said about Yang when I first introduced him? Schenkopp must be reading Icebergs!

Like Cazellnu, Schenkopp has no qualms speaking his mind to Yang; unlike Cazellnu, who sees Yang as more or less an open book, Schenkopp sees him as a puzzle to be solved. He’s appointed himself Yang’s amateur psychoanalyst, and prods him on issues ranging from Frederica’s feelings to his political aspirations (or lack thereof) to his wishes for Julian’s future. 

True to form, Yang responds to this implication that Frederica has feelings for him beyond her role as his adjutant by completely ignoring it and deflecting the conversation to how Schenkopp sees him.

While later on it will be mainly Cazellnu's role to question Yang's decisions about his personal life, it's Schenkopp who questions his political and strategic decisions. Yang's discomfort with the direction of the conversation is very clear on his face.

I've touched briefly before on the fact that Yang is projecting his own feeling of being trapped into the military onto Julian, and that's what Schenkopp is accusing him of here.

Poplan and Konev

“Their personalities seem to be really different, but every time I catch sight of them they’re together, so I guess they’re close.” —Julian’s Iserlohn Diary, p. 20

We only get a brief glimpse of Poplan and Konev in this episode, but there’s a ton of character in this short exchange: from their synchronized body language, to Konev’s affectionate smirk as he watches Poplan talk to Julian, to Konev’s roasting Poplan using syntactical terms that Poplan doesn’t seem to totally understand. (Konev’s wordplay and love of language is a recurring theme of his character and I totally love it.) We’ve observed their closeness already when Konev calms Poplan down during a stressful battle; here we learn that Konev also does not hesitate to teasingly call Poplan out on his bullshit—in this case, attributing to Julian his own desire for action.

Julian

I agree Julian, that is a really great assessment of the strategic situation.

We’ve seen Julian in the role of caretaker, shadow, and aspiring protector; but this is the first time we really see him in the role of protégé. When Julian points out how difficult it will be to quell four rebellions on different planets at once, Yang responds by asking him for his ideas, then taking his suggestion and filling in the holes.

While Yang is obviously acting as the teacher here (and equally obviously enjoying it), he talks to Julian without condescension; even pointing out the flaws of his original suggestion feels like a sign of respect for him as a serious student of tactics.

The transition from wide-eyed adulation to a much more serious “why yes indeed that does appear strategically sound” face is amazing.

Of course, despite including Julian as a real participant in a conversation about the upcoming campaign, Yang simultaneously still treats him like a kid, ruffling his hair at the end of this conversation just like he did when Julian promised to protect him two episodes ago.

Like a kid or possibly like a puppy, one or the other.

Also mental note: Do not suggest to Julian that Yang might not actually win an impending battle…

“It pisses me off. Despite flattering him with names like ‘Miracle Yang’ and ‘Yang the Magician,’ when push comes to shove they don’t show faith in him. I was so angry, I almost forgot my crucial errand of buying teabags.” —Julian’s Iserlohn Diary, p. 289

Frederica

TFW you’ve just learned your dad has forcibly overthrown a democratic government.

It’s a rough episode for Frederica. From what we know she seems pretty close to her dad, and perhaps partly because of that she assumes that his role as leader of the coup will throw suspicion on her loyalty.

Lost in translation is the fact that she changes her first-person pronoun, correcting her initial watashi to the more formal/humble shoukan (小官), which emphasizes her formal role here as a military subordinate.

Of course, Yang is way too practical to punish someone for something her father is doing (especially someone whose job saves him a hell of a lot of work), and as both Julian and Schenkopp predict he has no intention of firing her.

We don’t get to see much inside Frederica’s mind about her reaction to her father’s role in the coup, beyond her initial shock; what we do see is overwhelming relief and happiness when she isn’t fired. Between her father and Yang, it’s clear where her current loyalties lie.

Interestingly, Admiral Greenhill himself gets this wrong: He assumes that Yang will have fired Frederica and confined her on Iserlohn, which is part of his rationalization to himself for sending the 11th fleet to fight Yang—they won’t be attacking Frederica because she won’t be there.

...Whoops.

It seems like a minor detail, but Admiral Greenhill failing to predict Yang’s reaction is actually a really nice touch to emphasize the theme—as expressed by Julian’s diary passage that I opened this post with—that there’s something a bit different and more personal about how Yang runs his fleet. 

Stray Tidbits

I hope you’ve enjoyed the exclusive Icebergs sneak peek at Julian’s Iserlohn Diary! As I mentioned, the diary, like the novels, is not officially relevant to our analysis, but I really love that the anime team used it to flesh out the dialogue and characterizations in both episode 17 and this episode—it’s more evidence of just how well they did their homework. (And hey, if you want to read the whole diary in English, write to Haikasoru and tell them you know someone who’d love to translate it for them.....)

I never found Admiral Greenhill especially interesting through the whole season so far, but I really love the closing scene of this episode—somehow it gives me chills every time. Acting to minimize harm in a situation with no good options is a pervasive theme of the show; and as Greenhill tries to explain to his wife’s grave, he believes that if someone more hotheaded and extremist were leading this coup, even more damage would be done. It’s an interesting parallel with Yang’s own motives for staying in the military despite opposing the war.

I love how totally useless Bucock was. LoGH is often quite subversive in its plotting, as we’ve discussed, and the anticlimax of Yang going to great lengths to warn Bucock about the coup in advance only to have that be irrelevant is both hilarious and realistic.

This guy makes a valid point.

Might that “someone” be...an octopus?? Come on Hidive subbers, why the censoring?

Next time you shake hands in farewell with someone, try just not letting go for exactly seven seconds. And also look at them with exactly Reinhard’s expression here. Do it. Report back.

You have been blessed with Beautiful Smirking Schenkopp. He will bring you luck in all of your endeavors today.

...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.