[Sol Falling]

mm, coming in on Honey & Cleaver's side, I thought his original protest was against firechick's comment that Tieria was 'kawaii' in this episode, under the assumption that firechick therefore liked yaoi and was imagining Tieria to be homosexual. So then his comments about 'ruining potential' would be, in the context of fanfiction, discarding characterization to make a character gay for yaoi purposes.

Or, conversely, in the context of the show itself (canon as one would call it), the producers making a character appear homosexual at the expense of characterization in order to appeal to yaoi fanbases.

And I agree with Honey & Cleaver in that I'm not a fan of those kinds of things, but that's obviously because those kinds of things are not designed to appeal to the generally male fanbase. Unfortunately for Honey & Cleaver, Sunrise is free to attempt to appeal to whatever audience it likes: Gundam Wing was, for example, designed to draw in female watchers through the bishounen character designs of the gundam pilots, with hints of a possible Quattre-Trowa relationship being displayed quite explicitly. For Gundam 00, I don't think Sunrise would alienate a large part of its audience by flatout making Tieria gay, but there's been ample evidence from the series in general and particularly this episode to indicate that they're going to explore the issue and leave it 'open' for the yaoi fans to indulge themselves.

Like I mentioned earlier in this thread (haha, well that's a matter of interpretation) I was quite a fan of Tieria before the developments of this episode. I don't particularly believe that Tieria's ruthless and antagonistic personality necessarily needs much justification. From this perspective, I'm a little disappointed with and apprehensive about the indications of 'true' androgyny in this episode; if Tieria's antisocial behaviour or etc. is a result of gender insecurity or something like that, it would make him less relatable to me as a character.

On a similar train of thought, did you guys notice how Tieria seems to be either speaking directly to Veda, or a mental personification (i.e. god or an imaginary friend) in this episode? The show is trying to indicate that Tieria has a more immediate connection with Veda than the other pilots; perhaps Tieria has been messed around with mentally or biologically in such a manner as to make his raison d'etre being a 'tool' for Veda, once again explaining his antisocial behaviour? This development is dissatisfying to me for reasons similar to what I mentioned about the androgyny above.

So I guess I'll clarify. I don't like the developments in Tieria's character in this episode because it seems to me they're turning what I percieve to be his strengths (ruthlessness and antagonism) into weaknesses (the result of mental and biological tinkering at his expense). I'll keep watching to see for sure, of course.

edit: in the context of Vallen Chaos Valient's post above (demonization of the gundams), I would rather Tieria be hated for his qualities than be pitied.