Reflections on Gundam SeeD Destiny

[Weltall2]

Okay I have recently revisited the series, and my opinion hasn't changed. For one Shinn is an idiot. I mean he acts like he is the only one who lost loved ones from the first series, and he doesn't follow orders. Okay let us just say he is a piss poor soldier. Now does that mean he's a bad pilot? No he is a great pilot. However he is mentally unstable, and that in itself is a question. How did he get into ZAFT? The creators of this series left a lot of frustrating holes in the plot. Now don't get me wrong I love the series. I just wish they had gone into more explaination on these subtle plot points. Shinn is the weakest link in the plot by far. Like I said he is a horrible soldier, let us go over his weaknesses as a soldier. Shinn is insubordinate, arrogant, self rightous, and just overall disrespectful. Oh let us not forget he believes everything Durandal says for most of the series. This essentially make him a puppet, as a result going against the very essence of being a soldier. Some people come under the mistaken impression a soldier follows orders no matter what. This is not true, a good soldier will follow all orders except those that cross into the realm of illegality. For example Nazi Germany. The Nazi's are a classic case of what happens when soldiers and the people stop thinking for themselves and allow others to do it for them. Actually come to think of it this really applies to Shinn.

Further Shinn's quality as a soldier or lack there of aside. Shinn is woefully disrespectful to heads of state, this is a major problem, and he is never seriously disiplined for being a creep. I mena really any other soldier, who would treat a VIP like that would immediately be put in the brig, or discharged. Now a lot of fans of this series when it first came out liked Shinn. I was one of the people from the outset that saw the problems in his character. Further I saw his lack of judgement. As I have said he lacks discipline in a big way, and as we all know that is very important to even becoming a soldier. Hey maybe I am wrong, and I misread his character.

Well that is kind of why I made this post, so we can discuss the series good and bad points.

So fans of the series please come and respond.

[Matt Bellamy]

Can non fans post as well?

Seriously... after watched the first episode, and most of the second, I had really high hopes for Gundam Seed Destiny.

Shinn had a pretty darn good backstory, and this time around, was already an "Ace" pilot at the start of the series. ( plus, to this day, I still love Sword Impulse). He got to show a bit of a human side, when he felt up Stellar by accident ( although a brief appearence). By the 10th episode or so, I still had high hopes. He was shown to be a bit of a jerk, but he was coming around to Athrun, and seemed like he was growing up slowly.

Then came the one thing that actually worked for the first Seed, but ruined Destiny. Listening to the fans and the market. And not the fans who actually know what would be good... but Fanboy/Fangirls.

Who demanded more and more Kira Yamato.

This, was the start of the end for Destiny. As soon as Kira started appearing in every episode, Shinn started his downfall into a "drone" who always fell back on his personality faults, instead of working to change them. So we started to hate Shinn for what he had become. And being the supposed main character of the series, that did not bode well for everything else.

Shinns defeating of Freedom should have been a good turning point. He fought smart, and was able to beat it. But instead, he remained in his drone like state, while crap-fans wished for more Kira.

So by the time he got his upgraded Gundam, Kira got one even more powerful.

There are a lot of things wrong with how Gundam Seed Destiny was handled... but Shinn was the biggest mistake. He was handled so poorly as a main character, everything around him was dragged down.

[largo]

Seriously my biggest problem with GSD was the ungodly number of flashbacks...flashbacks...flashbacks...flashbacks... you get the picture right other then that and the horrendous final episode. I mean seriously the final ep. is nothing more then a new version of the GS final only the machines where from GSD.

Spolier

I mean come on the fight between Athrun and Shin in the final ep was like what a total of like 20 seconds long. That's sad, not to mention the fact that the fight between Kira an Rou's clone was almost an exact repeat of the fight between Kira and Rou himself. But in regards towards the MS designs and the actual fights other then the ones in the final ep. they were pretty sweet. Not to mention I really like the design of the Strike Freedom it's one sweet machine.

[Weltall2]

Well, Matt I am not as pesimistic about Kira's entrance in to the series as you seem to be. In a lot of ways it makes sense. The whole Kira by just existing is fueling the fire between blue cosmos and ZAFT. Kira to me is necssary to make the series work. He is the ultimate coordinator. I just dislike shinn's obvious problems as a main character. Now as a important secondary character I could probbly tolerate him. The series would have flowed a lot better if you started with Athrun as the sole main character for the beggining and then introduce Kira later. Essentially do the smae thing except lessen Shinns importance a bit. And if the guys doing this series wanted to have Shinn in the picture they should have done some research with Zeta Gundam as their material. Yeah I know they messed some stuff up. However SeeD destiny tries to do essentially what Zeta does. The people who created this series should be shot or fired, because they shoot themselves in the foot at every important turning point. That is like cooking a what is supposed to be a great meal and for geting the crucial ingredients turning the meal to crap. I mean you can see the series potential and it lives up to it except for 10 percent of the time. That causes me to then have to work twice as hard to figure things out at time when the plot should be obvious.

But this is me being anal. If you relax and ignore the mistakes made SeeD Destiny can be very enjoyable. Esspecially if you look towards the philosophy, and the characters developed properly. And I do kind of disargree with you on Shinn Matt in my opinion he was an ass from the beggining, it's just that this flaw is more exposed towards the middle to the end. Also the fact Shinn is never disciplined for very serious offense throughout the series concerns me. I mean everyone else has to tow the line and Shinn can just skate the rules, this seriously underminds Gladys's authourity. Granted she needed to be more assertive, still any one in the millitary has to be highly disciplined. This reminds me of an experience in SeeD. Yzac kills the refugees from the Archangel, and gets away with it, yeah I know he thought it was full of soldiers. However that changes nothing even if soldier instead of civillians were on that shuttle, it would still be just as reprehensible. It was after all unarmed. It seems ZAFT soldiers have a problem following the rules of war. Some would say it is the Earth Alliance fault as they launched a nuke. This is incorrect. We learn later Azreal and blue cosmos is to blame for this incident. Remember Azreal had access to nuke from his company. He dose run a heavy arms manufacturer.