Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch From Mercury - Anime Episode Discussion

[Kazu-kun]

Originally Posted by ryllharu

You said you didn't really start to believe it until last episode, but the feeling I get is that people claiming in back in episode 1 were guessing at random because none of the hits at a larger time gap were anything more than circumstantial until later episodes.

Since I didn't start to believe it until last episode, I don't think I can speak for the people who had this idea since episode 1. Still, I think it must have been a combination of several small factors. Like the difference between Suletta and Eri's personalities, some people looking older than they should be if Eri was Suletta, the last shot in the OP which makes it seem like Eri is watching everything that's happening in the school through a monitor, etc...

None of these small hints were enough to make me believe this idea, but other people must have thought there was something there.

[Marina2]

How do we know if Suletta's age is actually 17? The age data itself might be fake.

If she's a clone made to replace Eri, surgery can make her look younger or older than she's supposed to be.

[Kazu-kun]

Originally Posted by Marina2

How do we know if Suletta's age is actually 17?

We don't. What we do know is that if the destruction of Fólkvangr was 21 years ago, Eri should be 25 years old in the present, and Suletta clearly isn't 25. She looks like a teen.

Originally Posted by Marina2

If she's a clone made to replace Eri, surgery can make her look younger or older than she's supposed to be.

Well, we don't know if she's a clone or just a random person with Eri's face (like Elan). We really don't know anything about Suletta, to be honest.

[kari-no-sugata II]

Originally Posted by Frontier

I guess the questions are...did Eri die or almost die because of the conditions on Mercury?

Was Elnora so consumed with anger that she forced her daughters' consciousness into a Mobile Suit?

How did she make another daughter?

Is the real reason Suletta doesn't remember the prologue because she wasn't actually there?

Is the Aerial the Lfrith with Eri's consciousness?

It's been very clearly said that mining for Permet on Mercury is dangerous. It could be that both are related to what happened to Eri - eg, maybe she got caught in an accident and that involved Permet and so her soul got sucked into Permet or something? But if her body survived then Elnora could have created a clone from that, with the Permet that had been infused with Eri's soul being used to create Aerial (including the Bits).

[ryllharu]

Originally Posted by Ragashingo

It now all comes down to…. Did something big happen in AS 101 to send Delling on his anti-Gundam path? Could Miorine’s mother have been a Gundam test pilot who died (or was severely injured by a data storm… I’m not writing anyone off at this point!) and her injury/death started this whole thing?

It's hard for me to believe the Elnora has a bigger grudge about losing her arm than losing her husband and her adoptive mother (the professor), which is what that exchange with Bel seemed to imply if the 21 year time gap isn't Vanadis-Ochs' destruction.

[Kazu-kun]

I wonder if they will send a new Elan copy to the school? If they do, how is Suletta gonna react to "Elan" not remembering anything they went through.

[darkdhaos]

Originally Posted by Marina2

How do we know if Suletta's age is actually 17?

Maybe both Eri and Elnora were cryogenically frozen at some point during the 21 years since the attack on Fólkvangr in order to avoid their capture, cause Prospera seems to be young.

[Obelisk ze Tormentor]

Yeah, Prospera aged like a fine wine . It's the opposite of Delling.

[Ragashingo]

This is the timeline as we know it so far: (bold = known, italic = speculated)

84 Shin Sei Corporation Founded (-33)
97 Ericht Born(?) (-25)
101 Revenge-worthy Event/Fólkvangr(?) (-21)
105 Suletta Born(?) (-17)
106 Miorine Born (-16)
122 Current Day

I'd put Elnora's replacement arm somewhere back before AS 97. She looked like a teenager in that picture of her and the Cardo Nabo. Almost certainly hadn't had Ericht yet... And yeah... Prospera does seem a bit young now.

Well... if nothing else, the emphasis on birthdays certainly came into focus this episode!

[FlareKnight]

This might be one of the better episodes of the show so far. The action was good which was nice. But also got about as messed up as this setting needs to be in order to keep things interesting. Elan getting...gone like that. All the efforts made, but in the end the results were what they were. He pushed himself right to his limits...and was killed off for it.

Does make Aerial even more interesting as a unit with the potential messed up nature of that situation. I'm getting closer to liking Suletta, but that mostly might be because her mother is looking like total scum.

And yeah, there's a lot of questions here. Which is why I'd call this the best episode of the show so far. It's clearing the mist a bit and giving a lot to chew on.

[chaosprophet]

Originally Posted by Ragashingo

WAs to Ericht va Suletta… yeah. Something is seriously wrong there! I’m also not ready to fully commit to the clone theory. 122 - 21 = AS 101. Add 4, Ericht’s 4th birthday, and we get 105. 122 - 105 = 17… Ericht/Suletta’s age. Meaning they could still very much be the same person.

Even if 21 years ago was not the incident from the prologue (which seems unlikely), your math is still wrong. If Ericht was 4 on AS 105, then she would be 4+17=21 now. For your theory to hold, prologue needs to have been on AS 109, 13 years ago.

Originally Posted by Marina2

How do we know if Suletta's age is actually 17? The age data itself might be fake.

If she's a clone made to replace Eri, surgery can make her look younger or older than she's supposed to be.

Originally Posted by Kazu-kun

We don't. What we do know is that if the destruction of Fólkvangr was 21 years ago, Eri should be 25 years old in the present, and Suletta clearly isn't 25. She looks like a teen.

Well, we don't know if she's a clone or just a random person with Eri's face (like Elan). We really don't know anything about Suletta, to be honest.

We do know some about her from the OP short novel, and so far I don't see any reason to think what is told there is fake or fabricated memories inserted on Suletta's brain (even more considering it is done on Aerial's pov, and not Suletta's). So Suletta should have lived in mercury since at least she was 4 years old (so at earliest cloned as a 4 year old), so at least actually lived 13 years there.

[serenade_beta]

No episode next week?
Come to think of it, not much of that this season. Huh... It's not like the animation was particularly bad or good to warrant one though

[Key Board]

I propose another theory

It is much easier to imprint Ericht's personality in Lfrith than to clone a whole new human being.

Considering how poor Mercury is

//

[kari-no-sugata II]

Images

in the grim dark future...

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[Laevatein]

Given the power of "Happy Birthday" in this series, perhaps Aerial is actually the Ideon?

[Obelisk ze Tormentor]

Originally Posted by kari-no-sugata II

Images

in the grim dark future...

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Speaking of Hobo Guel, camping in a park inside a space colony can be fun. It's a controlled enviroment and there'll be no pesky animals. And you might even be able to see the stars better than when you're on Earth.

[kari-no-sugata II]

Originally Posted by Obelisk ze Tormentor

Speaking of Hobo Guel, camping in a park inside a space colony can be fun. It's a controlled enviroment and there'll be no pesky animals. And you might even be able to see the stars better than when you're on Earth.

And more importantly, a high speed and stable internet connection!

I wonder how he's going to feed back into the main plot. Who is going to pick up this "abandoned kitten"? While Suletta is the obvious choice for some reason I think Miorine finding him could be quite interesting.

Images

more Guel Camp fun

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[Frontier]

Now that I think about it, wouldn't Aerial's identity be more apparent in the short story? I guess there's a lot of questions about how Aerial's consciousness works.

Originally Posted by Obelisk ze Tormentor

Yeah, about that, Lauda has his own Dilanza Lauda Custom. Guel forcefully used his very Suit last week

Color me surprised .

Images

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The best part of Reconguista .

[Cloudedmind]

Who knew Happy Birthday could be so lethal. So far it's 2/0.

[chaosprophet]

Originally Posted by Cloudedmind

Who knew Happy Birthday could be so lethal. So far it's 2/0.

And Miorine's birthday is coming in a not distant future, hopefully Suletta don't sing her happy birthday!