From: cam@athena.mit.edu (Daniel Cameron Daly)
Subject: Gundam: Amuro here... (repost)
Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Date: Tue, 6 Oct 1992 14:55:08 GMT

Yes, there are people out there who identify with Amuro before Char.
Char advocated the deaths of billions of people through asteroid dropping, 
people who had committed no crime other than being in the wrong place at the
wrong time.  This sort of action cannot be justified by the honorable
intentions supposedly maintained by the Jions.  Throughout the course of human
history, atrocities have been committed against groups of people by 
military groups which believed that they had a good reason.  Look at the
Japanese civilians who were in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  The majority of them
had not raised a weapon against the US, and still they died by the thousands.
Why did that weapons have to be used?  Because US strategists decided that
it would save the lives of many thousands of servicemen who would be
involved in the invasion of Japan. Was the deaths of so many justified?
perhaps.  That is still a question being argued by historians today.
But what if we had had the capability to drop hundreds of nuclear bombs,
enough to completely destroy Japan?  To sink it into the ocean, make it a
burning rock on the bottom of the sea?  Is that justifiable to save lives?
All the untold hopes and dreams of millions ended because we didn't want
to risk ourselves?  Some will, of course, say yes.  I could never agree with
that sort of inhumanity, and so I guess that I am an Amuro.
	To return to Gundam, as this has digressed greatly, I think that
the heros in the ongoing saga are those who are willing to risk their
lives for what they consider to be right, and to protect the lives of those
around them.  They might receive support from organizations which are 
themselves evil in order to battle other wrongdoers, but they usually act to
protect the innocent from those forces.  Amuro, Bernard, Camille, Jude,
Seabook, and many others risked their lives to protect against the
forces of immediate destruction.  perhaps they fought for an organization
so corrupt that it was slowly killing its own citizens, but at least they
defended the right of individuals to live out their own lives.
	As for Char, I am not entirely sure that his motives were as 
honorable as might appear.  In the original series, his entire basis for
action was revenge against the Zabi family.  When he had finished killing
them, he departed for a time, until the Titans forced his return into
the central conflict to protect the people he called his own, the spacenoids.
Only in Zeta Gundam were his motives noble, IMHO.  By CCA, he had become
as petty as those he would destroy, wasting valuable resources and risking
the betrayal of so many just to finish his battle with Amuro.  I cannot
respect his actions.
	Gundam 0083 presents a possiblity for change in this plan, as the
primary pilot, Kou, flirts with the possibility of becoming a killer only -
if he allows himself to become totally obsessed with defeating Gato, then he is
even worse than Gato is.  I hope that he can redeem himself in the final
chapter.
	Which reminds me - please, nobody post spoliers for 0083 without
massive warnings - I would hate to see the conclusion spelled out here
before I get to watch it.
	Anyway, just trying to create some interesting talk.  Flame on...


--
Cam Daly                                Phone: (617) 225-7880
22F1                                    Internet: cam@athena.mit.edu
550 Memorial Dr                         "He who fights and runs away,
Cambridge MA 02139                       lives to nuke the site from orbit"
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