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@ DMurphy: You're mixing up McGillis with his father.
Overall, I was mad when I got spoiled on the ending. This has to be the first Gundam series I've seen where the bad guy wins, and the people who didn't deserve to live managed to do so. But then I took a moment to consider it overall.
It's... it's bittersweet. It's bittersweet as hell, possibly the most bitter ending in Gundam because of how the writing got screwed up around the middle of the second season. Yes, the system changed. But to do so most, if not all, the characters we empathized with had to die.
Part of McGillis ideals were realized by Rustal. But only after the bastard got into the highest possible position after doing everything dirty in the book to get it (illegal weaponry and massacres)and McGillis was demonized in history with the incident named after him. He never pretended to be anything other than a man willing to do anything for power (unlike McGillis who hid it until Season 1's end), and once he got it, he started making changes that made him look good PR-wise but also benefited Mars.
Gaelio wanted revenge more than anything else, to where he let all of this go on until he managed to kill McGillis. However, he lost the use of his legs and feels regret now that he'd done it, wondering if things could change if he'd understood McGillis just a little sooner. He probably would have remained loyal to McGillis like how Julieta remained to Rustal despite knowing he was corrupt. And I imagine his little sister doesn't even talk to him anymore.
Julieta, quite frankly, should have died when she blocked Shino's shot and got impaled on the end of the mace. But she survived and basically got that last victory handed to her and is now in a position to run Gjallarhorn. Since she had no noble-standing and is a woman, this could be seen as progressive movement on their part.
Nobliss got assassinated in an undignified manner, stopping him from further profiting off the deaths of innocent people, and Iok's finally died in a gruesome manner for everything he'd done. But it would have been more cathartic if it was done much earlier.
I think that the writer was trying to point out how change comes at a heavy price, but this is where the writing gets clunky. You see, despite Tekkadan's actions at the end of Season 1 being viewed as heroic because they were fighting against a frankly corrupt system, they made things worse for everyone else by showing the value of Child Soldiers and the amount of Human Debris increased. So to contrast this, they tried to show things improving for everyone else by killing Tekkadan off as a scapegoat through corrupt and illegal means.
Except sometimes the ends really don't justify the means. To reach this conclusion, they gave Julieta and Iok far too much plot armor, having them survive things that should have killed them up to the very end. Julieta was meant to be a contrast to Iok, in that she came to sympathize with Tekkadan through their battles but do her duty as a soldier from common birth while Iok used his family name and pride as an excuse to do things that were quite frankly stupid and lethal to Naze and others. He didn't change, so he died as a symbol of the Seven Stars also dying out, whereas Julieta is set to be the new face of the organization.
However, all the sympathizes in the world don't change what they did. They still killed characters we loved. Characters who weren't as privileged as them. It sends a message that only those in a position of power already can change the system for the better, while those who aren't serve as the foundation by dying.
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