Your Mecha Samurai are no match for the English! (yeah I have waited long for an excuse to use this one)
I finally have settled back in since my last lump of garrison duty and working long hours (11 hours on Saturday, and 12 on Sunday) so while this isn’t the most timely response of sorts to IKnight’s post on the mecha tree. In recent times I think mecha has become less associated with the boner inducing techno babble that makes engineers smile in their bouts of nerdgasms and that the need to explain how a big bad mecha works has been passed over for the most part for the emo pricks that pilot the machines. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but I don’t think that the concept of a mecha pilot being a knight or samurai is exclusive Code Geass or Escaflowne alone. In fact I think it is not too far off the mark to say that mecha pilots are knights of sort, a bunch of elitist pricks who are arbitrarily chosen based on some random emo factor that is unbefitting of soldaten who actually fight the wars while these nobles go around making trouble and philosophize about the intricacies of killing your fellow man and boosting niceties as the objective of war rather than victory. Bushido and chivalry are very much alive in your average mecha pilot barring a few exceptions like Shinji who was a bastard who wanked off on the corpse of his comrades.
A real engineer, i.e. better than Kira “Jesus” Yamato.
For the most part the intricacies of your average mecha is now for the most part taken for granted as the genre has progressed to the point where the science is no longer needed and we have advanced to the Warhammer 40k kind of justification with your litanies of activation and machine spirits to power our engines of destruction, and we also have the added plus of havoc physics to justify our bullet time action sequences to up the cool factor. Science in mecha may have been dragged out sodomized, shot, and stabbed to be buried in some corn field, but chivalry is for he most part alive and well. For all intents and purposes bushido will receive less attention in favor of chivalry, not because of some Euro-centric bias, but because the penultimate book of Bushido as it is known largely today was written by one Yamamoto Tsunetomo who was born well after the last battle prior to the Meiji Restoration. I don’t ask that the bloke should have put himself in a position to get his ass shot out from under him, but I merely wish to point out that he did not ever find himself in the heat of battle. The bloke who wrote the penultimate book on chivalry, however, did fight in a war, the Hundred Years’ War.
The fate of science (Pesci) in mecha.
I think that the most common mistake that people make about chivalry is that it was about being courteous to women, true to your lord, and a bunch of other bull shit about how to treat the lower classes. These make up only a small portion of what Geoffroi de Charney, the guy who wrote the book on chivalry, and reputedly one of the most respected knights of the age touched on. The biggest thing about chivalry according to the man who wrote it was prowess in battle, individual might, and the glory that you could win in war. Prowess would then make your lady swoon and your lord happy to put up with your otherwise parasitic existence and buy your way out of a POW palace in the event of capture (I do mean palace as captured nobles were well cared for since they could be ransomed off while the dirty peasants were simply slaughtered). Like a lot of Lulu le Douche’s bullshit about the obligations of nobles, chivalry is just that a whole lot of bullshit to make war the business of haughty blue blooded bastards, keep the proletariat down trodden, and to keep women pretty and subordinate. In this light Dopey the run of the mill card board cut out mecha pilot is the chivalric ideal, he, and it is for the most part a he, is fighting for recognition success in battle makes him all the more worthy. Kid mecha pilot is an eager young knight going off on an adventure that will not be deadly for him in some sort of sanitized version of war to fight for truth and justice against unspeakable evil and unscrupulous bastards.
Why chivalry is lame…
Heroism on the part of mecha pilot is what most sane people would call blind stupidity, and recklessness (soldiers just do tactical face palms). True to his words Charny did promote the knightly charge as a means to gain the greatest form of honor in chivalry by simply riding down their enemies in honorable hand to hand combat, this what a lot of mecha pilots do, even alleged snipers like Lock-on against Prince Ali. Fortunately for the average mecha pilot such foolishness is not rewarded with a Crecy, Poitiers, or Agincourt. Charny himself was at Poitiers and fought bravely and probably had a hand in approving of the French battle plan of marching up to those peasants with bows and beating the living day lights out of them. True to their lust for glory and a chance to celebrate prowess the French knights did charge the English bravely and without fear only to have those dirty un-chivalrous peasants shoot their horses from underneath their asses thus turning the their charge into an amorphous blob of knights and horses.
The anti-Knight.
Poitiers was chivalry guru de Charny’s last battle. In true knightly fashion he made his last stand with the banner of his liege in hand to defend King John II (sound kind of familiar?). Charny died and John II was captured and ransomed for what was then two years worth of France’s total tax revenue. Charny died bravely, but it was to be the French peasants who had to pay to get their stupid king back. Much like how the unseen peasants in mecha end up footing the bill for mecha fights (I think Dai Guard was the only mecha show that ever touched on this aspect). Good thing for mecha pilot Schmuckatelli that those dirty low born grunts can do nothing to his shiny mecha barring requirements of the plot or if a guy named Ali al Sarhes crosses his path. Even better he need not foot the bill for repairs.
My Kind of Mecha Knight.
In line with the chivalric ideals mecha knights usually only lose to other mecha knights rather than die after getting mobbed by a bunch of peasants with bad teeth thrusting daggers into their vision slits and hacking apart their joints. Like Lancelot in the Knight of the Cart episode, peasant soldier merely frustrates our noble blue blooded heroes during their adventures, they are not the hardy Swiss peasants with long pikes who run up and skewer their social betters or the malnourished bowmen who rob the good knights of their fine and expensive war horses. Even when it comes to women the tropes are more or less the same with fan service substituting for fine silk dresses and expensive jewels. Mecha pilots are for the most part knights, unfortunately for me I favor those dirty un-chivalrous mud blood low born peasants who mob the nobles, kill their horses, and hand them bitter defeat that make mecha pilots get even more emo and cry about something. For me mecha pilots are the successors of those badly disciplined nobles on horses, the only difference is that the armor and horse have been rolled into one. (Yes, this post was just a cover to post up a bunch of TF2 vids…)
24 Comments
8th MS Team fan I take it…
Oh you have no idea…
Mecha dry-gulching for great justice!
Mecha pilots do frequently resemble knights in their idealised, heroic battles. Personally, I kind of dig that – as entertainment, rather than as a moral code or a realistic description of warfare – but I can see that if your sympathies lie with the peasants it might be problematic.
I’d point to (possibly) Infinite Ryvius as a show which focuses on the peasants, if we read it as a political allegory. Though there’s really no pilot for Ryvius‘s mecha, as it’s remotely controlled by wires. And I suppose there’s always Patlabor.
And what about Armour Hunter Mellowlink? Mellowlink’s probably mecha’s version of the pike-wielding Swiss, given that he travels around on foot, hunting down and killing upper-class men who ride mecha. Except that that show’s also a bit like a Western. Hmm.
Your post gets +2000 for mentioning Dai Guard! My number favorite mecha show of all time.
But what about a certain mecha-pilot who also happens to be princess in his free time?
^The funny thing is that even he stops to acquire a “lady’s favour” before charging forth into battle.
From what I’ve seen, war is usually romanticized in stories as a soap box to discuss ideas other than war itself. So I suppose a key distinction is whether those themes should include a discussion of the realities of war for the sake of completeness, or whether the themes themselves are unrelated to war (ie. love, friendship, and the power of song).
@omo
Yeah…guilty as charged.
@jack
Meh I hope they gulp down some coolant along with what ever it is they drink…most likely mineral water…
@IKnight
Armor Hunter Mellowlink looks positively ancient and I have yet to see it in a store. Was it ever licensed? In any case from the looks of your post it seems that Mellowlink is more of marksman than a pike than a pike wielding Swiss, the latter had to to fight as a infantry block to do any good. He is a lighter version of this guy:
http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=xxMtGXdndzU
I had almost for gotten all about Patlabor, will try to fins dome way of getting it as it seems memory is failing me as of late. Being a mecha knight isn’t all that bad though i hope that the seedy nature of mecha knights will come into play more often, like how Sir Gawain was a womanizing bint who wore a green fancy pants girtdle, and Lancelot could be a whiny little prick.
@Square
Dai Guard was awesome, desk jockey pilots 4TW!
@d3v
Alto-hime is no Knight he had to go through basic training then piloting school. Unlike his compatriots Alto-hime had to work for his job, and he gets paid for it rather that squeeze and oppress peasants for his money. He is no knight, he isn;t even leader of his own vic, and he is after all lower ranking than Luca…
@Swampstorm
War is poisonous to chivalry, so it seems likely that for the most part war will be ignored for the sake of idealism.
I don’t think Mellowlink was ever licensed, no. And it certainly is positively ancient. You’re right that Mellow does a lot of shooting (frequently from ambush) but when he closes in for the kill he tends to use some kind of rocket-propelled spike-bayonet attachment on his gun to physically kill the pilot of the mecha he’s fighting. I suppose he’s really a bit of a one-man-army.
Whiny Lancelot . . . yes indeed. As a modern reader, Arthur’s court sometimes seems like a meeting for professional moaners.
Like last time, that was so confusing for what was ultimately a simple point. Man do you ramble Crusader…..
It’s actually kind of the other way around though. We started with Super Robot Series where nobody ever bothered to explain the way the robot works and the whole point was just for the pilot to be an hero. Then a little show called Mobile Suit Gundam came along and paved the way for the techno babble and explaining how the robot works and made the show more about the characters in the meantime. Then another show came along called Evangelion and introduced the emo factor that seeks to analyze the characters in depth in the most confusing way possible, but not all series subscribe to the emo factor specifically and will gladly just give us interesting characters along with the smash bang boom of mecha combat.
The post was about chivalry…
@Crusader: Yeah I know….
Then why the confusion?
Would you believe Gundam Wing? The OZ civil war arc.
…if you ignore the protagonists.
UV operators vs. neo “The Game of Kings” types. Much cran elan. Every battle a Crecy.
@Crusader: It’s the way it’s presented. Again like your talk about nationalism it looks like the focus is changing every sentence or so. At times you seperate yourself from the comparison and digress onto other topics that take on a historical perspective and then leap to another historical topic in the same paragraph and then eventually work your way back to the initial topic without ever really showing how you are trying to tie it altogether.
I’m sure you’ve tied it altogether in your head, but I can’t see most of the connections you are trying to make. I don’t know who these people are that you are mentioning and you haven’t really provided any context for how they fit into the whole Mecha and Chivalry comparison. In order to get your point across to the utmost you kind of have to show your work so to speak and I can’t see where you have. That’s what makes it confusing.
Though after reading it over like 5 or so times it’s finally slowly starting to all make sense as I piece together that missing work and draw the connections.
Oh and looking at the post above, what are your opinions on Treize Khrushenada from Gundam Wing. He tried to bring that whole Chivalry bit back but found it unwelcome in a world that was moving towards technology and A.I weapons that would save lives that were being needlessly wasted in combat. It made him one of the few characters in that show that I think had any real depth. His ideals seemed so noble and yet at the same time incredibly flawed in how he tried to force them on the world by leading a revolution and then not really knowing what to do afterward other then hole up in a castle and defend said ideals to the death by committing suicide near the end of the series when realizing that so many people had ultimately died in his name and the name of chivalry, but according to him not in vain. I’m not sure how right he is about that last part.
Dear oh dear, here’s some links and some suggested reading:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geoffroi_de_Charny
http://www.amazon.com/Knights-Book-Chivalry-Middle-Ages/dp/0812219090
If you know chivalry then you will know who Geoffroi de Charny was and if you are familiar with Bushido then you will know that most of it as we know today was based off Tsunetomo’s Hagakure. You could wiki a few of the names you know…its a quick resource and offers some insight into topics that you passed over in school or random readings, not the best academic resource in the world, but it is quick and efficient. You can’t talk about chivalry as it was unless you refer to the man who wrote the book on the damn concept.
War is anathema to chivalry. In order for chivalry to exist war must be ongoing and has to occur every so often lest the noble knights get out of practice. It is a philosophy that seeks to sanitize a barbaric adventure. Suffice to say the allure of making war palatable will remain, thus guys like Treize, an idiot though he may have been is admired for daring to dream. Like Charny, Treize found to his cost and that of many others that being nice in a most rude affair was a losing proposition there is a reason why the warrior culture of the nobility died out. The nobles were not special and the low born troops who were called upon to fight were more interested in surviving the ordeal than dying bravely. Blue blood was no proof against bullets or the lower classes. Clausewitz was right: Kind-hearted people might of course think there was some ingenious way to disarm or defeat the enemy without too much bloodshed, and might imagine this is the true goal of the art of war. Pleasant as it sounds, it is a fallacy that must be exposed: war is such a dangerous business that the mistakes which come from kindness are the very worst.
War is hell, you cannot refine it into anything else.
” Pleasant as it sounds, it is a fallacy that must be exposed: war is such a dangerous business that the mistakes which come from kindness are the very worst.”
That’s why I never understood why the heck characters like Quatre Raberba Winner exist. Well actually I do, it’s to showcase how foolish they can be as you said. Well he eventually grew out of that whole mentality once war visited him close to home. Then suddenly it wasn’t cool anymore to be a nice guy and entire colonies had to go for making war happen.
That’s why I think it helps to look at characters like Suzaku or Allelujah Haptism to cite recent examples as a little more then what is presented on the surface and moreso on how other characters perceive them to see both sides of what their so-called chivalry entails. Take Allelujah for example. He tried to be the merciful nice guy who didn’t want to see anybody get hurt, and what did it get him? About 1,000 deaths on his hand when his survival instinct kicked in during a mission and total defeat at the hands of Soma. Though the way they seperated his raw combat and survival instinct from his more naive side via a dual-personality makes it more obvious to see. Suzaku is a little more difficult to analyze because up till now he’s gotten away with a lot of his outright war crimes in the name of “chivalry” and “protecting his people”.
Actually I pretty much agree, Chivalry is a noble ideal, but it’s also rife with hypocrisy because of the often higher social standing and protected status of those who practice. Sure it’s all well and fine for the average knight to practice it because they know they aren’t going to get in a lot of hot water if they should fail in combat, but like you say for the average peasant there is no ransom, only death and nobody will remember them whether they defended their lords to the death or just ran away like cowards because their names are not those of noble families. Legend of The Galactic Heroes touches on this sort of thing at times. Thousands of soldiers will die in the name of the Reich Empire and it’s Kaiser and what does it get them, a promotion for the admiral or general they served under. Whoopee……
I’d always figured “chivalry” was a really convoluted way to say “Yo! Mind the infrastructure, assholes!”
@jack
Based on what Crusader is ranting about, Chivalry seems to be more of an excuse not to mind the infrastructure.
chivalry is a noble ideal, but useless in warfare
Great read!
Plus, you make a good point. Chivalry and the tactics/warior ethos associated with it tend to be depictured in a some what warped way, that is; only the pros (courage, honour and what not) are highlighted and not a word (or scene) is spend on the cons (repressing the ‘peasants’, and getting killed for it).
Ofcourse the mecha equivalent of the knightly charge is very impressive to watch. So I understand why animators choose the include the charge in their animated battles. I also don’t mind that this is the only part of a battle actually highlighted by shows like Code Geass (the top mecha show atm). However what I do find a bit unfair is the fact that they never give any airtime to their ‘peasants’ in the wars (be it infantry, logistics or any other kind of unit vital to a modern battle/war that does not ride into battle on steeds of steel or gundamium alloy). Code Geass is especially guilty of this knights-only policy. They even arrange their mecha formations into giant squares for momentum when charging. Forget about finding cover, entrenching or keeping some distance from each other to make it harder for artillery. That is ofcourse if there was any kind of artillery. The nearst thing are big (air)ships with giant cannons, which often also participate in the charge (and as such are also equipped with melee weapons. Ep 10 Code Geass). There are only knights, and writers (again especially those of Code Geass) are convinced their mecha should be knights. In episode 10 of that same show they actually had the Chinese mecha charge those of the Black Knights with a wedge formation. A explaination of why the Chinese did so, followed, but could not convince imo (it had something to do with flooding and securing higher ground).
For once I like to see those shiny mecha knights die under a hail of arrows, or collide with a wall of pikes, just so I’ll know the human race won’t lose her military prowess once when we finally do invent mecha. So bring on the minefields, anti-mecha entrenchments, artillery bombarments or any other relative cheap solution to turn those expensive warmachines into scrap metal. Production teams have to animate them first though. Unfortunately I think they enjoy drawing knights too much.
From memory, Mellowlink was never licensed, no. I was thinking pikes because of the spike that Mellow mounts on his gun when he moves in for the kill, but I guess that’s more like a bayonet. He’s a bit of a one-man-army, in any case.
@ Gideon: Some of us enjoy watching knights too much too. I suspect minefields, anti-mecha entrenchments, artillery bombardments &c are rather boring to watch.
I just got distracted by all the flying Tardis’s in the picture ^-^
One of my favourite moments of any mecha show was about 2 seconds of Votoms when the redhaired girl takes out a mech by spraypainting the camera black so he can’t see.
I like your take on mecha chivalry. Monty Python had it right.
And Mellowlink is indeed brilliant. It even reminded me of Berserk (which I’m pretty sure started a few years later) for some reason. I just really wish there were some less-blurry fansubs of it around, because I always thought it was really well animated..
The final paragraph about the victory of the dirty peasants reminded me of how Shiro from 8th MS Team owned a Zaku with a mortar… up the machine’s crotch.
Also, some random Ali-type dude in GS Stargazer who went and hit a GINN with a tank. He charged and died, but he made an opening for a squad of attack copters to firebomb the crippled GINN from midnight to next morning. Then they went and found three kids in the pilot seat LOL.
Anyway, peasants FTW. I had fun reading this article.
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[...] in mind the content of these last two series, I was interested to see a connection being made between the mecha hero and the knight. After all, when the man becomes the machine, the story [...]