Suisei no Gargantia - Episode 7 Discussion / Poll
 

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Boo... I do not ship that pairing!

Ep.07 ---

First half:

Second half:

Next ep preview:

EYECATCH - click to enlarge:
http://img401.imageshack.us/img401/8...0172615.th.jpg

I see what are you saying, I understand that bit now!

Now that's more like it. I think most people who were having doubts about this show should feel relieved now. Okay, maybe that's not the right word, since tension has definitely taken hold.



I thought this show would go from around 25 MPH to 80 in about three seconds, and I sure wasn't disappointed. Glad to be watching.

I'm seeing some incorrect summaries here. >.>

I guess most of you are piecing things together based on partial Japanese skills so I don't blame you, but here's what's going on (I do understand Japanese) to keep people from getting confused:

I thought it was less "we worship the whalesquid" holy and more "We mess with them, they'll mess up the fleet" fearful reverence. Pinion has a grudge against them for killing his brother and it looks like there are more that feel the same. The fact the whalesquid/sea Hideuze don't attack unless provoked me wonder about the Alliance: who shot first in their war?

You probably should've used spoiler tags, no offense.

Well I just watched the episode. Somewhat good, although not crazy good.

*Hideauze

Not sure why they could not just say "hideous", maybe copyrights or something like that.

Just a few things I want to mention and add to the thread that stood out to me regarding this episode:

- The show takes a pretty drastic turn in the use of color for the first episode of it's second half. While the previous episodes surrounding Gargantia featured a lot of very bright and vibrant colors this week uses a more subdued color pallette. Lots of shots at dusk or in dimly lit rooms or from beneath the seabed as well. One might be lead to believe that this is to indicate a change in overall tone before we even get to the content of the episode

- While Ledo was seeming to slowly adjust to the simpler life on the Gargantia we see this episode when the opportunity arises he is all too ready to get back to the lifestyle he is most familiar with. Fighting the Hideauze, "the enemy of humanity". Nothing else matters to him the second he has a chance to get back into things, not even Amy's wishes, not even Ridget's idle threats. It makes one wonder how the previous episodes will come into play now if at all as they only seem to have had a temporary effect on his outlook of the situation and his programming still seems to have the larger pull on his interpretation of matters.

- The "whalesquids" do not seem to attack unprovoked which makes one wonder if they are the Hideauze we saw in the opening episode, offshoots or something else entirely. It brings into question whether the Alliances portrayal of the war with the Hideauze is 100% accurate or not. We never saw the Hideauze attacking a human enclave unprovoked but we have seen them counter an Alliance attack in the only major battle we've seen so far.

- Pinion raises a death flag by mentioning a dead brother and the quest for vengeance not earlier but into the shows second half. Does not bode well for him in the coming weeks, especially since it looks like he and Ledo will be going to the bottom of the ocean in a quest for answers about their history and that of the whalesquids. I assume answers with start to come as that expedition progresses.

- As I suspected seemingly semi-competent peace time fleet commander looks to be on the way out which leads me to believe that the seemingly much more capable Ridget will be rising to take his place before long, possibly as soon as next week. She seems to handle situations more proactively than he does and is more decisive while he has been shown to be purely reactive and reluctant to make key decisions right away. If things are to progress towards open conflict at this point he is not the person that need in charge, but someone like Ridget who has shown she is willing to handle matters directly like she tried to with Ledo at the end of this weeks episode.

So a whalesquid is a sacred animal.
Wow, that goes against everything Ledo is fighting for.
Hideauze he knows are not the ones Gargantian's know.
They may be the same species, but their actions were not the same.
Everything was fine until Ledo provoked them.
You could feel the tension in the air.

Considering whalesquids don't have giant shells on their back it is safe to say that they were not the same, a subspecies perhaps.

The shells could also be some kind of life support for working in space.

I'm guessing they may be an offshoot group of the Hideauze - if the species is intelligent there might be differing philosophies among them just as there are among humans.

Fantastic episode. After the two breather episodes, this series is right back on track and it'll be interesting to see where Ledo goes from here.

HELL YEAH!! Shit hits the fan now and everybody's scrambling to get away and have a piece of it!

I hope we get to see some underwater action and more squashed squid. Deep fry em calamaries LEDO

Seems like some people's predictions about the Hideazu has come true more or less.

Those Hideazu might be the same as the Earth People in comparison. Like how the alliance are all high tech and shit while the Earth people are primitive etc. Same could be also said for the Hideazu...

Unknown, need more information. It could be like Ledo says, and that the whalesquid are just ignoring the human population because they vastly overpower them. Thus a superior ignoring an inferior as long as they stay inferior.

Sacred beast also means, not only leaving them alone, but let them do what they want (of course it's certain death to fight a squid so it all comes out to be the same).

While both are "peaceful" that doesn't mean much, because as Ledo says (but probably didn't mean) as both civilizations advance and expand, it'll just lead to conflict, and a great war for dominance (like the alliance in space)

It's your standard political drama, but it is certainly not "peace" one side is clearly inferior to the other's superior, this episode proves that. Powering down the fleet is equivalent to rolling over on your belly. Clearly one is the master and one is the servant.

For all of Ledo's fanatical adherence to his programming, it was nice to see that he's still got the analytical and tactical mind of a trained soldier. I was half expecting him to do the predictable hot-headed shounen thing of calling Ridget's bluff and diving for the cockpit. You know, because justice and all that. Instead he reviews the situation, and realizes that he's stuck. His cold reassessment of his relationship with the fleet, Amy included, puts a very complicated spin on the current state of things and gives him the perfect motivation to leave: He's now convinced that he will never belong with them, and he can't carry out his life's mission as long as he remains, but he still wants to defend them as his fellow humans.

An oddly heartwarming note: Rather than the Doctor, Ledo now considers Bevel to be the go-to "wise man" on Gargantia... Even when what he's seeking is military intel on mutant cephalopods.

While this is probably a red herring, it is as logically valid an hypothesis as any other, which complicates things. Furthermore, this narrative would make the most sense to Ledo as he is currently unable to accept any alternative theory that might suggest the Hideauze are not aggressors by nature.

It's revenge. A bit earlier in the episode, Pinion mentioned someone telling him about the treasure hidden in the whalesquids lair right before dying. I'm guessing Pinion and his brother went salvaging and got attacked by whalesquids.

This is also the second week in a row where it's explicitly stated that for all his interest in salvaging, Pinion himself "doesn't dive." I wouldn't be surprised if his brother's death has a lot to do with that.

There was also at least one type of Hideauze that we saw in the opening battle of the series that had no shells. It's possible that the Hideauze are technically more than a single species.

I am starting think Ledo got tossed back in time or to a parallel universe.

What if he is starting the entire Hideauze vs Humanity war?

It's a lot easier to write about love and peace(and wholesome) then it is about war and politics.

But at least this show does it decently smartly. The act by the whalesquid is the equivalent of a military exercise (like US routinely does around the world) for a display of force that is basically saying "You got something to say punk?!"

Worse of all it clearly shows the whalesquids military agenda, as they basically entered garganta (air)space with no regard for negotiations. Aka "who's your daddy" snide.

Whalesquids are hardly blameless even if we don't know their situation, they clearly have military side to them (if not shown in a indirect way)

Writers are clearly a little too clever for their own good in this series. If they wanted to write a nice tale, they certainly are giving a lot of mixed undertones. Or perhaps that's the charm of this show.

It's clear no sides are very "peaceful". If anything the gargantia look like the most peaceful of the lot, actually running and hiding from practically anything that growls at them. And that really only works as long as you got enough natural resources to avoid conflict.

I've suspected for a while that the whole war with the Hideauze was the Galactic Alliance's fault. That they attacked the Hideauze on their first encounter and they retaliated in self defence, then it all escalated from there.

Whereas on the Gargantia their way of dealing with the Whalesquid is "if we leave them alone, they'll leave us alone", and maybe the whole belief that they're sacred sprang up as a way of persuading people to leave them alone.

To use a simple metaphor, leave the bee alone, and it won't sting you. Try to steal honey from their nest and they'll sting you even though it means their own death.

I think they were hinting at this since the beginning with how the pirates and Gargantia co-exist.

It's maintaining a delicate balance but it seems Ledo has turned that balance on it's head yet again and now it looks like Gargantia may never be the same with fleet commander indisposed.

I have to say that I both like and don't like this episode. I can see both sides of their argument, but I still don't like it. Gargantia seems to hold the whalesquids as sacred, and yet are afraid of them. Red is still a soldier and as he finds out that the whalesquids and the Hideauze are the same he swears to kill them all before they destroy the Earth. Gargantia seems to hold that as long as they don't bother them and keep all power off, they won't be harmed, but Red argues that they haven't been attacked yet because they aren't developed enough. Are the Hideauze attracted to energy and power? And since the Alliance is more developed and can't "power down completely" seeing as they are in Space, I can see this solution not working for the Alliance.

Gargantia is just too different, they live life too simply for Red's life rules to apply, and their rules wouldn't work in space. Red can't stop being a soldier, it's who he is. He's doing it to save lives, but Gargantia is trying to do the same. I don't think it was fair of Bevel and Amy to try to guilt Red as if by "being his own person" he wouldn't be a soldier. He's seen his people killed and ravaged by these things, he can't just let it go. And he doesn't want anything to happen to the people of Earth.

The old captain seems to be in trouble too, and in a way, his philosophy of "live and let live" is what's wrong with Gargantia. You can't just live life without a care in the world without ever trying to advance, just surviving. And then when trouble comes you hide your heads in the sand. That's no way to live.

I'm interested in how the Earth spawned the Hideauze and how they were able to go to Space? What will Pinion and Red find when they go into whalesquid territory? Will it be the secret behind the Hideauze?

The show is still in the just okay section, but it's beginning to pick up. I give this a 7.75/10.

It'll be interesting to see where the show goes from here. It opened up the possibility that some time-warping may have occurred, meaning he may have inadvertently brought the Hideauz to Earth, while he himself was spit out closer to the present time.

Which opens up the possibility the Alliance doesn't even exist in this time period. Though I still think the climax of this show has a good chance of a Dances with the Wolves moment when the Alliance picks up his beacon.

I still think the show is meant to be uplifting, so in the end, I think Ledo will come around to the co-habit/co-prosperity way of thinking. The question is how much hurt is going to occur before he does.

It's probably a given that he's going on that ill-thought expedition, and it'll likely be too much for him to handle, which begs the question of how much damage is going to occur in the presumed reaction/retaliation from the Hideauz.

Of course, there's always the small possibility that they have no intention for this to be uplifting and most of these episodes were a cruel tease, and that the Hideauz will destroy Gargantia right before the Alliance shows up and finishes off the Hideauz and what's left of the Gargantia, and the show ends with Ledo finally getting his time off at Avalon. :heh:

Very doubtful, though I admit I'm not sure how all this is resolved in a nice touchy-feely way if Ledo starts escalating things into a full-out conflict. Perhaps Amy is killed, and it's just enough to shock him out of his rage? Though, unless the Hideauz are far more sentient than they appear, I get the feeling that once they become murderous, they're not going to stop just because Ledo suddenly has an epiphany. :p

The fact that the Alliance lacks words for co-existence and co-prosperity makes me wonder how the war with the Hideauze started in the first place. Perhaps there was simply a misunderstanding at first, but instead of playing it cool like Gargantia did, the Alliance wanted revenge, which eventually blew up into an all out war.

I wish I could have liked this episode more but after 2 episodes of not much happening, I am sorry to say the way this conflict just happened felt a bit contrived to me.

The ones at space eat stars. Imagine the implications. I think that tells a lot about their mindset

Now granted, they might pull a twist and make the ones on Earth hippy pacifist loving versions of the ones in space

Maybe Redo really did bring one to Earth a thousand years ago, and maybe, just like Redo it went on a journey of self discovery before going.. screw war.. I'm going to chill on this planet.

To be fair, it's a fictional tale, which by definition is going to be contrived. :heh:

Those episodes were obviously meant to set a mood, which is now broken, and is likely not to be seen again with only 4? 6? episodes left.

Also, a small part of me is hoping Gen was lying out his teeth when he said this wasn't going to be sad, and that the Hideauz end up winning, with Ledo realizing if he'd only left well enough alone, everyone would still be alive as he lays bleeding out in Chamber's defunct cockpit with a swarm of Hideauz approaching. :p

Quite a few interesting tidbits this episode...

The Hideauze might explain why the Earthlings are stuck at a early 1900s level of technology. Ledo's comment to them about not being developed enough to be targeted, explain how civilization could regress so much as to go from nanomachines to having the most advanced technology be handheld radio transceivers...

Perhaps the only way for the humans who remained on Earth to survive was to discard all advanced technology and flood the planet?