ok so i went back to season 2 to clip the scene that made me truly love commander cody (subtitles were out of sync, so transcription is under the cut)
cody is not an ARC. he doesnt really do cool stunts or sweet flips or badass takedowns of a much stronger opponent - and yet he holds the highest rank a clone can achieve in the GAR, and is one of only 4 marshal commanders shown in TCW (the others being fox, bly, and neyo)
he's a coordinator. his job, and what he excels at the most, is directing and redirecting his forces. the surviving LAATs land to form him a square, and once they're down he's not really fighting. he's not using the binoculars, he has a soldier scanning the field and summarizing for him. he gets intel on survivors, directs footsoldiers to them, then arranges coordinating cover fire from their heavy canons. in these scenes he's not even holding a goddamn blaster. he later picks his back up only when they're overrun and need to retreat from the square.
i love clowning on his silly little antennae, but i also love them as part of his design. no frilly ARC gear - no decorative elements at all, aside from his paint. just an antenna on his helmet and a backup on his pauldron. because he's here to do his fucking job.
