Gundam 00 ep. 11
[ Episode 11: Allelujah ]
I find myself enjoying Gundam 00 with each and every passing episode. This one was no different and it focused one of the more interesting Gundam Meisters: Allelujah. If there’s one thing that this episode shows is that everyone has to face their pasts at some point in their lives. It just so happened that Allelujah’s time came and when it all boiled down he had no other choice but to wipe out that super soldier facility. I can only imagine how hard it is to do something like that. That is, erasing the lives of those like yourself who were being tortured for the purpose of modification and eventually having a purpose to solely stand on the battlefield for the rest of their lives. Allelujah/Hallelujah and Soma are two exceptions to that last been though and thankfully so. Still, I wonder just what kind of effect will his actions live upon him. Though I guess I’ll just have to wait and see where he goes from here.
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Waaaaay better...
This episode’s plot was horrible. Basically Allejuah kills hundreds of people for no other reason than to make him feel better about himself. It was very selfish and self-serving, probably the worst bit of character developement I’ve ever seen.
It also convinently set the stage for the next couple episodes by keeping Virtue and Kyiros out of the way, which is at least something to be grateful for.
Traits that are both a very real part of human nature showing up in anime?
Noooooooooo.
So you agree with me then? It sounded like you thought he did the right thing. Especially how you’re “thankful” that Allejuah gets to live on after doing a horrible, selfish, and evil thing.
Just so that we’re clear here…
I can’t say if he did the right thing or not. On one hand he killed a lot of people and on the other he ended the torturing that those like himself had to go through to be modified and prevented them from being used in future warfare. I believe governments call it “the greater good”.
As for whether it was selfish or self-serving, I don’t think it really matters. The result would have been the same whether he was doing it for himself or for others.
And, of course I’m thankful he’s alive. Why wouldn’t I be? I like his character after all. Regardless of what he’s done there are characters who receive all sorts of praise and have done much worse.
Mind if I suggest something? Instead of convinently cleaning up the HRL’s mess for them, how about holding them accountable for their methods? Obviously the Human Enhancement Project was a secret with it’s own skeletons that it kept quiet about. It was demonstrated in the episode that once the Project’s true nature was revealed, Sergei moved to clean house, but unfortunately by that time Allejuah had already murdered all the research subjects (children) and the scienctists who should have been held up on charges and prosecuted. And everyone else that happened to work in that HUGE building, whether they had anything to do with the project or not.
Basically, if anyone was going to do anything about those kids, it was the HRL who would have to commit themselves to rehabitaliating them as best they could. Allejuah was right that he personally couldn’t do anything to help them. Just because he couldn’t doesn’t mean no one could, which just proves how selfish he is.
“I have to do this to make myself feel better! Even if there’s another, better way, it won’t satisfy me!”
And people who do worse things tend to be alot cooler and badass than Allejuah, who is a whiny, self-pitying bitch most of the time, and a failure as a wackjob for the rest.
That’s a rather optimistic approach on the matter and the same can be said about various real-life events. The fact is that humans aren’t going to look at all of the answers before making a decision. That much is obvious from the existence of wars and other disputes both in Gundam/00 and the real world. So while that method of going about the super soldier programme you described may be the best in your mind it isn’t for others. That may have very well been the case for Allelujah. Hallelujah obviously didn’t care either way.
As a writer I find what they did in this episode to be the best approach for development, both story and character-wise. It opens up another angle for a possible conflict between Allelujah and Soma and possibility the construction of more of those facilities elsewhere now that the knowledge of its existence is known to the public.
And a character being “cool” or “badass” doesn’t change what they did. Allelujah may not be like them but at least he’s closer to the portrayal of an actual human being that makes mistakes and doesn’t have a flawless nature. Being selfish is hard-coded into humanity, being the opposite of that is something that is nurtured. Allelujah may have chosen the former because that is the easier route to take than the latter given the super soldier situation and his mental state.
True, it may be that everyone in Celestial Being is a dumbass who thinks and behaves like a child. Actually that’s pretty much how it is isn’t it? They’re all stupid babies with superpowers or college degrees. It’s too bad there’s no strong, masculine presence on Potelmayios.
What do you expect from a society of geniuses?
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