2015-04-29, 05:46 | Link #81 |
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It's really contrary to United States military philosophy to put someone in command that hasn't had leadership training + experience at the minimum. Even in Vietnam, the average age of someone in the enlisted ranks was still twenty. The youngest company CPT that I know of was 21 years old and he was a highly decorated, exceptional soldier.
Therefore, I would chalk it up to plot necessity and not look at the issue very deeply. Otherwise, Sirius would be a twenty-something year old butter-bar LT posing as an exchange high school student or, more likely, an English teacher. |
2015-04-29, 07:20 | Link #82 |
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It's just like Proxy said. Plot-reasons. A common problem in Japanese novels, mangas and animes. In most cases things begin to make sense again when you add about 3 to 5+ years.
In Linas case there are some other parts of her back story that are questionable too. For example would you allow a middle schooler to pilot a fighting jet? |
2015-04-29, 15:06 | Link #83 | |
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2015-04-30, 01:09 | Link #84 |
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She apparently is smart enough that she is one of the known strategic class magicians in the world. Even now, I don't think that there are that many people that knows she is just a teenager.
Maybe the USNA had a need to conscript her at a young age. It is entirely possible that if they let her alone until she is more mature, her relatives in Japan might have found out about her and try to bring her back. |
2015-04-30, 22:19 | Link #85 | |
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What does magic ability have to do with intelligence ? It has to do primarily with genes. Plus shes like 16 right now which isn't really that mature. In almost all history you see 20ish + people as soldiers. Having a child as a soldier sends out the message we are low on resources ( though this is a light novel so maybe we just add a couple of years |
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2015-04-30, 22:29 | Link #86 | |
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How about Masaki, he already served as a combatant when the GAA invaded some time back. We don't know when that was but he was obviously younger then. |
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2015-04-30, 23:06 | Link #87 | |
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How rare is that in the grand scheme of things? Maska wasn't really a soldier. He was part of a militia. A militia is a civilian army pretty much which Masaki fit. He did not permanently join the army or was he trained. |
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2015-05-01, 00:06 | Link #88 |
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I think part of the reason Lina seems to be considered "not smart" has more to do with her not being use to challenging opponents.
As to child soldiers, we haven't seen much of other countries so it may be rather common for children, especially those with a talent for magic, to be raised to be soldiers or recruited early in life. |
2015-05-01, 00:42 | Link #89 | ||
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That's why the Sirius is always the strongest magician, regardless of his qualifications as a commanding officer. Actually, the author himself admitted that he built Lina's character on top of the concept of "someone really strong in a fight, but quite hopeless at everything else", so...
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2015-05-01, 01:34 | Link #90 |
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In the U.S. military, leadership and supervisory responsibilities are expected out of the same individual, whether commission or non-commissioned officer. If you wear the rank, you undergo the training. Of course, a Doctor wearing the rank of LTC isn't given the same training as a LTC that is an infantry officer, but if he couldn't make it through OCS, ROTC, or the Academy, he wouldn't be an officer. Period.
As I said, chalk up to necessities of plot and the ignorance of the writer. As he admitted, he is not familiar with military operations, which is why the maps didn't look like anything you would have actually seen in any SITREP. |
2015-05-01, 01:40 | Link #91 | |
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2015-05-01, 02:08 | Link #92 |
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Yup. Which is why they tend to portray the military in the weird way that they do. They have a better sense of it near bases, particularly the mama-sans that interact with military personnel on a more regular basis, and not just work and leave. Otherwise, most Japanese don't have a clue. JSDF personnel are generally sharp, but extremely few people come from a military family. Like many modern Asian societies, they see the military as an abstract thing that is supposed to come save the day (or cause terror), with no real idea of how they work.
For example, I saw episode 24 and was wondering why Tatsuya kept holding his salute after it was returned by MAJ Kazama (assuming that the high school uniform counts as being in uniform). Of course, somebody should have told the director that there was an issue. The writer isn't necessarily to blame for it as the novel states that Kazama returned the salute, but he doesn't state that Tatsuya returned to the position of attention. |
2015-05-01, 02:14 | Link #93 |
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Most people, even in countries where they have a strong one, have only a rudiment knowledge of the military. That is, until they are in some sort of conflict or even a war.
The military becomes important to them then. Go figure! |
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