still haven't seen the remastered edition only the regular one
but didn't Aegis cling onto the strike like there's no tomorrow then Athrun activates its self destruct sequence?
if Aegis blew next to strike then wouldn't to be considered as the two blew up or was it blown by aegis?

Yes, it's basically a kamikaze attack.

At the moment, Athrun is considered the winner because he did fulfill his objective.

It's the same in both. If the Strike's PSA was down sure it would have probably have blown up as well as the Aegis's explosion would tear the MS apart. But when the Aegis blew up, the Strike still had it's PSA on which protected it from the explosion as seen by it being in one piece(relatively) post explosion.

Though as seen with the Impulse, a big enough explosion can still damage a PS equipped MS( though with this being Destiny, who knows if that is accurate lol).

Kira survived, the Archangel escaped, and the Strike was repairable. Which objective did Athrun accomplish? It seems Kira is the one who accomplished most his objectives, the exception being avenging Tolle.

Oh wait

If I remember wasn't Dearka got shot down as well?

I stand corrected then.

Kira did survive
the Strike was repaired
but during that period of time,
his main objective is to kill him or have his revenge
in a sense he fulfill it since he believe he killed Kira...

So we're assigning winner/success based on what they believe now?

Well if Kira didn't have so much plot armor than melting cockpits and explosions in the face would have killed him. So Athrun was right to believe that he killed Kira as it's impossible to fathom how Kira survived all that.

So I consider it a win for Athrun as Kira, by all means, should have died there.

Oh, I'm not saying Athrun was wrong to believe that he did kill Kira.

I'm saying it doesn't matter what Athrun believed. He didn't.

Plot armor is a bad excuse for Athrun because Athrun's victory was also a plot device so that Kira can gain a new mobile suit. So if you're going to go that route, then it doesn't really matter either way. The plot wins.

we mentioned during that period of time
Athrun was for certain he killed Kira...
it was until he confronted Lacus that he learned that Kira's still alive...
that's why we mention in a sense Athrun fulfilled his role during that period of time, Strike vs Aegis, that his goals for that small time period was achieved.
even if in reality that didn't happened until the reveal...
it can still be consider his win

Even if that may be, Athrun still played the winning hand and took Kira out of the fighting with many believing that he had died. So the victory was his as Kira was unable to do the same to him in that battle.

small time period ... in a sense ...

You're trying too hard.

it reminds me of this gif I saw:

Just like the girl in blue, Athrun may have believed for whatever small period of time that he accomplished his objective, but if he didn't, then he didn't. But Athrun took himself out of the fighting as well. In fact, Kira reentered the war before Athrun did.

As far as the fight is concerned, it was a desperate maneuver with no winner.

As far as the battle is concerned, the Archangel gained the advantage by surviving, acquiring the Buster, and later regaining the Strike as well.

Not to mention on the other side of things, the Zala Team was then down to only a single machine. The Aegis and the Blitz were both destroyed, the Buster captured along with its pilot, and one of its team members KIA. And their sole remaining machine, the Duel, was partially damaged IIRC.

By that logic Kira and co "won" this battle here, because AA got away, Kira was able to get in a position to survive, and Durandal got nothing on them videowise. The only loss was Freedom which was honestly minimal, it would have been retired after this battle anyway. It would have prevented them from interfering at Heaven's Base.....but they weren't gonna do that anyway.

Where as Zaft gained nothing but the false satisfaction of believing they'd killed Kira for a few episodes until his return. If anything it made Durandal let his guard down thinking he'd basically won against the Clyne Faction when he hadn't, and it motivated Athrun to leave which ended up hurting Zaft even more when he started fighting against them.

So basically, they won the battle, but lost the war.

Well, yeah.

To Shinn's credit, he can at least say that he won the fight. The Impulse survived and the Freedom was destroyed, quite the opposite of what happened with Athrun.

But yes, Kira and the Archangel won this encounter/battle by virtue of accomplishing their objective.

Archangel Vs Minerva

result: Minerva's tactical victory (freedom was destroyed), but It was Archangel's strategic victory (except a single mobile suit and some troop, most of them succeed in escaping from ZAFT Forces)

Anyone familiar with moral victories?

I've been thinking that the Impulse/Freedom duel, that was it a moral victory for Kira and Archangel, and could it be applied to Durandal when he lost in the final episode?

What troop?

The Murasames that they acquired earlier.