Mobile Suit Gundam Wing/Headscratchers


 * This really isn't something that bugs me about the show itself, but if it was meant to be an official Aesop from the creators...I just want to know why the mobile dolls are so bad and yet today UAV's are commonly used to do some of the dirty jobs that an airman would have to have done. And what makes them so bad compared to 5 invincible mechs capable of leveling entire armies anyway?
 * The problem (at least, Treize's problem) seemed to be that if people aren't willing to put their own lives on the line for the sake of a cause, then it's just senseless destruction for its own sake, rather than a noble sacrifice.
 * Also, a UAV is still directly controlled by a person. The mobile dolls were completely autonomous. And if people should know anything by this point, it's why leaving all fighting in the hands of machines alone is a bad idea.
 * You're missing something very important about Treize something several characters say, from one of the gundam pilots to a nameless extra who did a kamikaze run in the same scene he was introduced
 * That's not really the case. Yes Treize has a somewhat romantic view of war, but he's not an idiot. There are just lines he is unwilling to cross. Don't forget he's the head of an organization that the 5 Gundam pilots were set up to fight AND is highly accomplished. So obviously he was doing something right.
 * Yeah, I was kind of annoyed by this "Drones Are Bad" Aesop too until I paid closer attention. I think the only characters who say they outright disapprove of Mobile Dolls are Treize, Dorothy, and the Mad Scientists. I doubt any of these characters are meant to be agreed with, as Dorothy is a manipulative sadist who loves carnage, the Mad Scientists are extremist rebels who set the pilots up as their personal assassins, and Treize's whole reasoning on why Mobile Dolls are bad comes to, "Seeing people die in battle is beautiful." That last one completely misses the point of having drones to begin with.
 * That's not his reasoning. His reasoning is that it trivializes war. With humans you have to be willing to put your lives on the line. With drones all we get are civilians being slaughtered by robots that can be rebuilt, resulting in no real resolution. Also it's easier to have a war when your forces are items rather then flesh and blood. Agree with it or not, that's his actual reasoning.


 * So, the creators of Endless Waltz gave us massively redesigned versions of all of the main Gundams, with some wicked new powers that they never had before...and expect us to believe that these are the Gundams they used throughout the entirety of the regular series? What the hell?
 * It's possible they just had the Gundams given a tune-up before the Final Battle.
 * Nope, no tune-up; the creators specifically stated that the Gundams in the movie are and have always been the same ones that were in the normal anime, no tune-ups, upgrades, etc. added.
 * More like it's Retcon in action. I have heard that the design changes were due to a change in director, but I don't know for sure. In either case, there are different directors listed for the show and the OVA/movie over at ANN.
 * Still, Awesome Retcon, methinks.
 * Also, if they were sent to the sun in a satellite never to be used again, why is there equipment in the satellite that allowed Quatre to send out Wing Zero in a capsule which is basically the wings covering the body plus some extra parts here and there?
 * It was Wing Zero's reentry vehicle. They didn't have much use for it if they were gonna slag the suit, right?
 * Highly unlikely. For starters it looks very un-aerodynamic and uneven for atmospheric reentry. And those small thrusters at the bottom couldn't possibly provide enough lift to allow a soft landing. Since the suit itself is capable of reentry with its wings, there's no reason for Heero to break out of the capsule when he had no idea that Wufei would intercept him at Earth's orbit.
 * Actually, the whole element of the "disposal block" is explained in the manga Battlefield of Pacifists. It was actually a resource satelite that was being used as a mobile suit factory by more bad guys. The Gundam pilots beat the snot out of them and stop production before getting all ad and pacifistic deciding to send their gundams into the sun on the damn thing. It's very likely that they had equipment for sending out mobile suits already at the place, so it probably wouldn't be too hard to load wing zero onto one and blast it off. as for why the module was thematcally compatible wth the angel wings, ya got me.
 * People call this, a ret-con! To both.
 * The only thing that bugs me about this is the fact that the entire movie in the third act is designed to show off the damned upgraded/redesigned mobile suits. However, they somehow have no problem showing them off in the opening sequence or the flashbacks (and the flashbacks should have used some form of 'original unit,' considering it just doesn't work that way). Of course, seeing a Custom Epyon would have also been nice.
 * Soooo, what the hell is up with the Wing Zero Custom in Endless Waltz. Why does it have feathered wings, and flap like a bird? If the show was Evangalion, or even G Gundam, i could accept that. But this is not one of those shows, so the feathered wings on the humongous mecha seems.... stupid.
 * The straight sub-wings provide the main thrust, while the curved main wings allow for thrust vectoring, giving Wing Zero great speed and mobility - moreso than the TV version had with just its gigantic booster pods.
 * How do you think man's inspiration for flight (read: birds) are just so damned good at what they do? Wings work. Wings work differently depending on their design and purpose of utilization, but they all work good for what they're intended. Given that the fictional alloy is arguably the strongest metal to date, it wouldn't be a stretch for them to be able to create highly flexible, thin but strong, feather/wing-like structures that enable a flapping motion like that of a bird. The process of creation behind gundanium alloy and what it is capable of, makes creating wing structures viable look like crocheting a scarf.
 * There's also another reason, and I do remember reading this. Heero states to Quatre that he just felt like redesigning the Wing Zero. Not essentially because he was expecting another battle.
 * This was in the Ground Zero manga, mostly for a spot of comedy.
 * ...except wings and the flapping that come with them don't work in the vacuum that is space.
 * Rule of Cool comes into play regarding this. It looks plain badass and the flapping motion of the wings just adds to that insane badassery.
 * Given that the Maganac Corps is made up of Arabs, why are they named after a Tagalog word? Wouldn't it make more sense for them to name themselves after the Turkish or Arabic words for family? I suppose you could say they're named after the class of mobile suits they use, but this still presents a mystery - why are mobile suits built for desert combat named after a word in a language spoken in the Philippines, a country not known for deserts?
 * A huge number of workers in the Middle East are overseas contract workers from (guess where?) Philippines.
 * Whats the deal with Heero going to school? It would seem like he is trying to 'blend in' with the area, to keep a low profile so his mission isn't compromised. But wouldn't the more logical way to do this be to just stay in the shadows and don't reveal himself at all like that? i mean, he actually uses his REAL name, Heero Yuy. Thats a horrible idea.
 * I'm guessing plot. If he didn't go to school, he couldn't meet Relena. Beyond that, Heero Yuy isn't his real name and was specifically meant for an alias, because being named after the assainated figure-head your mission of revenge is being fought for is totally discreet.
 * The name "Heero Yuy" is only recognizable to people on the Colonies, to whom he was a hero. The majority of people on Earth have never heard of the guy. In fact, when Heero does go back to the Colonies, he adopts the alias "Duo Maxwell" because his usual alias would attract too much attention.
 * "Heero Yuy" is the code name Dr. J gave him just before Operation Meteor launched. We don't know his real name. And why bother renting apartments or buying food when you can hack a few computers and have a prep school take care of you?
 * This actually gets lampshaded in episode 31 (The Glass Kingdom) where Dorothy tries to make Heero admit he's "Zero-One" by giving a speech about two people named Heero Yuy (the ambassador and the pilot). Heero responds that there are at least two more guys at the school named Heero Yuy, suggesting that it's not uncommon for people to name their children in honor of the man.
 * IIRC Heero enrolled into Relena's school, the first time, to be around her; I guess to either keep an eye on her out of fear she'd expose him or just find the right time to kill her. She met him when he washed up on the shore, remember? Then he conviently has a seat next to her as if he orchestrated it. I vaguely remember him staring her down as he introduced himself to the class. That is a plausible reason to enroll in a school, especially if he's extremely paranoid about being found out. But why again? There were several times where he enrolled into a school. Hell, Heero AND Duo enrolled in one of her schools (it wasn't the original one). What gives? They didn't NEED to in order to get to the base they were suppose to destroy. I question the validity behind her needing to meet Duo (I think their interaction in the entire series ended after the bit where he greets her as "oujosan" and the whole Duo shooting Heero so that Heero wouldn't shoot Relena). "Fitting in" and even mingling (Duo) seems like something they'd absolutely NOT want to do for the sake of their mission. I can see Duo just simply wanting to be around people his own age and do mundane things like play basketball inbetween curbstomping people with his gundam, but it isn't like some kids, who "don't exist", not going to school would raise any suspicion. You'd think it increases their risk of being recognized and discovered.
 * Not that I mind seeing them in uniforms.
 * How come Quatre has pale skin, blonde hair, and green eyes when the other Arabs in the series have more realistic complexions?
 * It's been suggested that he's a Berber.
 * Supported by the fact that his full name is given in source material as Quatre Raberba Winner. (Interestingly, he's the only character with an explicitly mentioned middle name.)
 * Besides, the Berbers are known to grow blond hair on occasion.
 * Or it could be that part of his family lineage is from a Middle Eastern country with predominantly non-Arabic populations. Iran, for example, has a fairly significant number of natives with blonde hair and blue or green eyes.
 * They could be going for a Lawrence of Arabia type thing.
 * He takes after his mother (read Episode Zero). This troper always figured his mother Katherine was of European descent, hence making Quatre half-Arabic, half-whatever Euro-country you want. This troper assumes French, based on her and Quatre's names.
 * Why are none of the gundams apparently built for Arctic conditions? Wing was built to have superior aerial ability. Deathscythe was designed for stealth, and the first few episodes show it has adaptations for aquatic combat. Sandrock is designed for desert combat, and Shenlong seems to be intended for forest and jungle encounters. Heavy Arms is most likely designed for urban combat, given that it doesn't seem to have any advantage when Heero and Trowa go to meet Zechs in Antarctica. However, the fact that there is fighting in Antarctica and OZ seems to have a substantial military presence in Siberia suggest that at least one gundam designed to excel in Arctic conditions would be a sensible move. So what gives?
 * And this Arctic Gundam was supposed to do what? Have jet ski legs and ice beams? The five Gundams were built based on the blue print for the Wing Zero and customized based on the pilot's preferences. I don't recall any source mentioning specifically that they were adapted to specific terrains. Me'thinks Okawara just had some theme fever left over from G Gundam when he made these designs.
 * I've got a simple answer for this one: Who the hell would want Antarctica? It's made blatantly obvious that the base is literally the only thing on the entire continent.


 * The at best halfhearted at worst horrible voice acting/continuity in the Dub. Zechs to a pair of OZ pilots: "No, no machine guns for him! Shoot him down!" * Five seconds later they attempt to shoot down the Wing Gundam... with Machine guns...*
 * The subtitles read the same way and apparently are not just dubtitles either. Need to blame the translators/writers on this one.
 * Yeah, it's just a bad translation for the early episodes - and there were still some Blind Idiot Translation lines found in the final episodes as well.
 * I think somebody explained this on another page but I'm not sure which so I'll try to remember it here: "Machinegun" (verb) is military jargon for "fire a warning shot," which Zechs is pointing out, won't do any good. The Hong Kong/fansub translations pick up on this, Bandai doesn't.
 * Except that is completely WRONG. "Machine gun" has and always WILL refer to a specific class of weaponry (no, NOT assault rifles, those are completely different). It has NEVER referred to any form of warning shot. Those are given the very obscure and high-tech sounding term... "Warning Shot".
 * it is just a translation error. a case of transliteration (copying word for word) rather than translation (paraphrasing to make it more accessible to the foreign language.) it's already been stated above that that was the case. yes it was sloppy of them, but japanese and english are NOTHING alike. truth be told translating in general is not as easy as repeating the words, you have to also be aware of context and the fact that some languages apply multiple conditional meanings to words. in fact, the reason japan got bombed so readily was due to a politician using mokusatsu which can mean "no comment" or "we are ingoring it with great disdain" true story.
 * It has been some months since this troper actually saw this episode, but this troper saw something that he found really bizarre and will now try to relate it to the best of his memory. At one point during the final duel between the Wing Zero and the Epyon inside Libra, the Wing Zero fires a salvo from its vulcans at the Epyon, which has just darted offscreen, and... it takes some return vulcan fire. From the Epyon. Which does not in fact have any guns.
 * It's been explained that this was an animation error... either that, or Zechs is a backstabbing bastard who installed vulcans into the Epyon somehow without telling anyone - which is entirely possible, but does beg the question why.
 * Hmm... New Dakka As The Plot Demands... there might be a trope there.
 * Just because Treize didn't give Epyon range weapons doesn't mean you can't appropriate a beam cannon from a downed Taurus or such.


 * So, wait a minute. The rebels send the five Gundam pilots to Earth to start wrecking things left and right. Okay, fine. So why do none of the pilots have any clue who the others are? Duo shoots Heero repeatedly when they first meet and only realizes that Heero's a pilot when he tries to destroy both of the resurfacing Gundams. And Quatre arrives with cavalry to save Trowa when he runs out of bullets, and what does Trowa do? Immediately attack Quatre and doesn't stop until Quatre gets out of his suit and tells him to stop. Honestly, this was one of the most poorly organized rebellions this troper has ever seen.
 * There was no communication permitted between the colonies until OZ took over. If the Mad Scientists hadn't been Crazy Prepared for years in advance, the attacks would almost certainly have failed, and even they had no idea if any of their colleagues had completed their own Gundams.
 * It's also hinted at in Endless Waltz that, because the final result of Operation Meteor was to drop a colony on Earth, that the Gundams were sent merely as a means to cause chaos to distract everyone from the incoming colony. If the Gundam Pilots didn't know about each other, this'd actually cause more chaos, and if even one was captured, they'd have no information on the others or their suits.
 * I'd debate not. If this is the case, then the colonies are gambling their strongest advantage on this. I doubt they would risk losing one of the Gundams and their pilots, fighting an ally none the less, for the sake of chaos. And even without Radio communication, they could of still communicated through messengers. An operation like this takes a lot of time to plan, I am sure they could of sent messengers to each pilot to tell say "oh, by the way, there are four other Gundams working on this operation." If chaos is an issue, they could of added in the message "While you are at it, could you blow up lots of stuff and create chaos."
 * They intended to sacrifice the gundams and their pilots. They didn't give a damn what happened to them (not even the doctors did, really- they sent them on so many suicide missions it made me feel so god awfully sorry for the guys). Their purpose was to cause chaos and destruction up until the point a colony was able to be dropped. As for the communication- if such extreme measures were taken to cut off all communication between colonies (imagine if a country forced multiple countries to cut off communication -- it would be barbaric to say the least, and in GW it was barbaric), they'd most likely be monitoring any in coming or out going traffic. Actually, I think traffic was prohibited between colonies as well. It wouldn't be something as simple as smuggling some messangers across a border. The colonies are VERY far apart from one another -- despite the technology in this show, there is no "warp system", travel still takes just about if not as long as it does in reality. Remember it was weeks before Quatre could retrieve the gundams from Venus' orbit. The colonies are self-sufficient, far beyond even being their own country, they're practically their own worlds -- just to emphasize how far apart the colonies already are, disregarding the communication terimation. I believe it was also implied that the colonies had no communication with Earth, either. The colonies are NOT next door to Earth or other colonies.
 * Not only that, at one point they WERE working together, which is where they designed the original gundams and probably came up with the idea of Operation Meteor. By the time the show started, however, the doctors rebelled against doing something so horrible (or in some cases the pilots themselves initated the rebellion, like Duo). Not all the pilots were cherry-picked from the start. Trowa basically just walked up and offered to pilot his gundam after the original intended pilot was, uh, dispatched. The entire thing was a puppet-show, however, orchestrated by an entity on Earth to seize control of the colonies at the cost of Earth. EW was basically about the revival of the original intention, which is why you had Mariemaia come in.
 * This is a common tactic with terrorist organizations. The different cells (or in this case, pilots) are not given any information about the others so in the event that they are captured, they can't divulge anything that would compromise the objective.
 * Couldn't they at least once mention that tatic, to explain this?
 * Okay, here's the answer. Operation Meteor was a plan to drop a colony on Earth, causing massive death and destruction world-wide. But the scientists and pilots involved in the plan weren't willing to slaughter innocents, and only wanted to target OZ. So each of the pilots worked with the scientists to steal the suits from the Operation Meteor people, came to Earth, and targetted OZ, not knowing about the others. That all 5 of the Gundam pilots involved came down was fortunate coincidence. However, OZ thought they were working together because they had intel of the original Operation Meteor that the Gundam pilots abandoned.
 * This troper is extremely confused by the Latin-American dub. Quatre talks about "loving" Trowa in both the fight with Dorothy and another scene. Fangirls like to speculate that the dub made Quatre's crush on Trowa canon. How likely is it that "love" was meant in a platonic buddy buddy kind of way? Different cultures have different associations with words like that, I was thinking that maybe in Latin American it's ok to talk about loving another dude (in a brotherly way)...or not. I've watched the dub in a few different languages and the Latin-American one is the only one that uses the word "love."
 * That's actually because the specific Spanish verb for "love" used by Quatre in both occasions, "amar", is an EXTREMELY strong expression in regards to love. It's pretty much an equicalent to the Japanese verb "aishiteru", and more often than not it's only used in very special occasions (like when you want to propose to the person you're speaking to). A more normal Spanish expression/verb/phrase would've been "'el es importante para mÃ­", meaning "he's important to me" and akin to "I care about him". this Latin American troper and Quatre/Trowa fangirl knows Quatre most necessarily didn't mean to say he was in love with Trowa and thinks it was an issue of Blind Idiot Translation, but she definitely can see why the LA Spanish fangirls are squealing.
 * Yes, but the Japanese version doesn't have any lines even remotely similar to that. That makes the translation even more mysterious. >.>


 * Was anyone else bugged by the fact that the "self-destruct" button on the original Wing Gundam seemed to do jack shit? It only put the Gundam in a few pieces that should have been pretty easy to put back together, and didn't kill the pilot. For a device that was supposed to destroy the technology so the enemy couldn't use it, the button was awfully useless. And never mind the completely out-of-the-blue timing to use it. It's not like the Gundams were really losing, considering their ability to take any number of machine gun hits without any noticeable damage.
 * It's possible the self-destruct was only designed to destroy the really "sensitive" parts of the Wing Gundam (computer systems, power plant, weapons systems, etc.). All the stuff the Gundam scientists invented themselves that OZ couldn't duplicate. Alternatively, maybe Doctor J underestimated just how resilient a mobile suit made of gundanium would be and misjudged the size of the self-destruct charge.
 * Also, as far as the timing for using it goes, if I remember right, it wasn't the Gundams in danger, but the colonies. Given the choice between letting the colonies get destroyed, or surrendering the Gundam, he took the third choice of self-destruction. The other pilots would probably have done something similar if the Doctors didn't surrender and/or Treize admonishing Lady Une for threatening the colonies in the first place (I forget exactly what happened after.)
 * Two possibilities: 1)Dr. J found Heero's "extension" on the space suit and had the detonation frequency changed. Some of the blast points might not have "gotten the memo." (I admit this is the less likely of the two.) 2) Wing was smart enough to modify the destruct sequence enough to give Heero a chance to survive.
 * yyyeah. The point of most self-destruction devices is to make sure nothing survives and no evidence can be leftover. If they really want the pilot to survive, they would add some sort of ejection device and/or a parachute.
 * As far as "sensitive parts" that would be targeted for destruction, only one is missing on that list: the pilot. Heero detonated the device while standing outside of his cockpit, rather than sitting within it as he would have been while operating it normally. When the cockpit was consumed, he got knocked out of the Gundam instead of killed as he would have been if he had been inside. Also, the Gundam was repaired using the same parts created by the five scientists (plus Howard) when they built Tallgeese, back when they were working for the Alliance, which caused the engineers some concern since the parts would no longer available for Tallgeese, and they couldn't be replaced by my (possibly faulty) recollection. It's not really clear if this has a significantly detrimental effect on Wing's capabilities, in part because Wing Gundam is only used a handful of times after this in the series, and in part because the Gundam pilots have sufficient piloting ability to God-Mode while piloting Leos.
 * I think one of the conditions of not blowing up a colony was that they had to get out of their suits and surrender, so... Heero got out of his. I doubt it was an oversight by Heero to simply not get back into the cockpit -- but maybe he honestly thought he wouldn't survive. Nobody else would have. Or he wanted to catch them off guard by not scrambling back to get inside, instead just pushing the button right then and there.
 * Well, it DID work... kind of. The self-destruct took out most of the sensitive parts- Y'know, the internal systems (Specifically the beam saber system, to name an example). And considering Gundanium is apparently invincible, that's the best you could really expect from it. The only reason Zechs was able to repair it was because he had the Tallgeese, which the Gundams (and all mobile suits) were based on. In fact, when repairing the Wing, the engineers say that they can't repair the beam rifle system because it'd take as long to do that as build a completely new mobile suit. As fr as Heero's concerned... Well, he wasn't IN the cockpit when he set it off, so instead of being SURROUNDED by explosions, he was merely thrown off his Gundam BY an explosion... which is still no small matter, but you get the idea.
 * Early on Treize declared that "God is an image created by humans" (to himself, after saying to all present how important He is to their cause). Later he says "I'll see you on the other side Milliardo." Chronic Hypocrisy Disorder or did the writers mess that one up? His ideals so often mentioned in Endless Waltz would surely have been altered at least slightly following a conversion yet this isn't even hinted at beyond the quote supplied. I've seen the dub only by the way.
 * This troper has known more than a few committed atheists who use the phrase "oh my God" and expletives like "Goddammit!" instinctively without realizing it.
 * Those two examples aren't remotely similar.
 * How so? "Oh my God" is a common expression. "I'll see you on the other side" is a common expression. People often use common expressions in conversation without meaning them literally, simply because they're so common. Explain how they're not similar.
 * Alternatively, He could simply mean another plain of existence. You don't need to believe in a higher power to believe that there is something after death, be it something like heaven or simply the energy and matter that was you moving on to become something else. God has nothing to do with that if you want to play it that way.
 * Seeing as we don't know whether or not god actually exists, much less any details about him/her/it or that of afterlife, there could very well be an existence outside of what we know that comes after death without the need of having a supreme sentient creator. Or perhaps he was referring to what people typically think of as God, and not his actual beliefs or hopes; they could easily differ. He might shun the common concept of God, but still believe in a god-like entity. He could have just been being metaphorical or philosophical. Who knows. I don't think it was intended to be dissected. And like the person above me said, it's a phrase used regardless of spiritual beliefs. I talk of God as if he exists, but I'm of agnostic atheism (which for those of you who don't know what that means -- it's essentially someone who believes that it is currently impossible to prove or disprove the existence of god but chooses not to have faith that there is a god), because it's habit -- I was raised as Catholic and Baptist, in a culture that strongly encouraged theism, so slang and religious idioms are hard to drop.
 * I mean if you're going to be picky about religious speak and symbolism in the show, Duo dresses similarly to that of a Catholic preacher, but in honor of the people who cared for him. He never explicitly states he is Catholic and even refers to himself as the God of Death; which regardless of the fact he is not being entirely literal -- although he does use it when he's killing people -- is blasphemy in accordance to the bible.
 * This troper has always been annoyed at some of the huge, gaping unanswered questions in relation to After Colony world building that could actually be pretty important with regards to characterization. Namely RE: Heero's apparent superhuman ability- is he genetically engineered, is he some kind of super soldier experiment? We know from Episode Zero that all children born in the colonies around the time the 5 pilots were born were test tube babies, due to the harsh conditions of outer space (hence, why ) so it's entirely possible that genetic tampering could have taken place. Add that to the fact that several of the Gundam engineers appear to have cybernetic implants suggesting advanced medical technology, and you gotta wonder why they would leave out apparently and potentially important information when almost every other universe has gone in-depth with this type of thing (with regards to Newtypes, Coordinators, and Innovators...). Not just Heero, either- Quatre's 'heart of space' is never explained either. This troper also remembers reading somewhere that at least one guidebook has claimed Wufei to be a Newtype, but assumes that to be an error. How Heero met Odin Lowe when he was a tot is untold as well, which just makes things worse.
 * ...actually, Quatre's chapter in Episode Zero explicitly states that most colonists had gone back to natural births some time after AC 100. The reproductive problems in Quatre's family persisted longer than usual (as in, some 80 years longer), because they'd been in space from the very beginning of the colonisation effort. That's what has this troper scratching her head in confusion, because what kind of reproductive abnormalities are we talking about anyway? And how would they result in the death of his mother when his father was the one from the affected family? Did space radiation turn his sperm radioactive or something?!
 * Oh, and Wufei being a Newtype who could "sense evil" was apparently something from an early draft that didn't make the final version of the show.
 * About Heero,
 * What in the world did Quatre mean in the last episode when he said "Heero is the Heart of Outer Space?" This has bugged me for about a decade now, and I never did get much of an answer at any point. Was this some kind of translation error (there are a lot of them in this show)?
 * I didn't take it literally. The fact Heero was such a unifying force, indirectly and directly depending on what you're taking into account, and an inspiration to so many major players Quatre could have been using it as a metaphor.


 * Why do all the pilots consider Heero to be a Great Ace Pilot? He is constanly losing his fights. heck, the show opens with him getting shot down by a Mook Mobile Suit. He is constantly having to resort to self destruction. If anything, he was a better foot soldier, because he was good for infiltration and hand to hand combat.
 * Keep in mind that mook suit was piloted by one of the best pilots in the entire series.
 * Quatre pointed out that the G-boys were trained specifically for guerilla attacks. At the begining of the series, he had the double whammy of getting jumped by combat-ready mecha attacking from high ground (altitude generally being an andvantage in aerial combat) while he's still chucking his atmospheric-entry add-ons. He goes on to successfully complete several missions; go blow-for-blow against OZ's best pilot and mecha twice, including fighting with a bad arm and unfamiliar mecha (Heavyarms); riding a machine (Mercurius) most OZ pilots can't handle...need I go on?
 * Also, the suit was not designed for fighting in the atmosphere. This applied to all of the other suits as well, which all had to be upgraded or rebuilt to fight in space.
 * Yes, Please do. He got shot down in the Wing Gundam, by a Leo, and apparently Wing's armor is suppose to be immune to just about every attack that dainty suit can use. He got shot by Duo, and captured, and needed to be saved. Lost to Zechs again, Wufei twice, stupidly fought an army alone when he could of retreated to fight a better battle, killed a ship full of men he was helping, gives away his idenity constatnly. Now, the other pilots have their own losses chalked down, but their win/lose ratio is not nearly as bad as Heero. If anything, Quattre and Duo, and even Trowa should be getting the recognition for being just plain great.
 * He didn't get shot down, but rather it grabbed onto his suit, which was not yet ready for space combat, and prevented him from moving. Zechs and Wufei are great pilots too, and if you're talking about the battle in Endless Waltz, Heero purposely gave up in that battle because he was sick of fighting and wanted to change Wufei's attitude. Killing the ship full of men was manipulation by Treize, and that could have been any pilot. He beats Zechs when they are on equal grounds piloting Gundams. Have I answered your questions?
 * By the time Duo came into the room, Heero had freed his own hand/wrist from the restraint. He didn't really need Duo to come along.
 * I don't think anybody on the show said he was the most amazing pilot. It might have been implied. Certainly he IS good and characters have admitted as such. Most of their admiration seems to stem from his willpower and determination, not his piloting or combat skills. Heero pretty much comes out and says Duo is a better pilot in EW.
 * Also, there was a whole discussion in EW about how the Gundams were well respected not because they won battles but because they continued to fight on in losing battles rather than give up their ideals. And they sure did fight a lot of losing battles; heck, they lost the battle in EW.
 * The new manga re-telling of Gundam Wing is called . Also, didn't Treize say he wanted to be a loser once? Seems losing is the "in" thing to do in this series and seen as a victory.
 * Why do they called it the "Earth Sphere Alliance" when the Earth is really an uneven ellipsoid?
 * Funny. "Sphere" here refers not to the shape of the Earth, but to a sphere of influence, in both the political and astronomic sense of the term. The Earth Sphere Alliance was formed from the unification of all polities in the Earth-Moon system; it is called the Earth Sphere Alliance because it governs the Earth' sphere of influence. Besides, Earth "oblong ellipsoid planet and surrounding orbital space" Alliance doesn't really have that same ring to it.
 * How the heck can Zechs Marquise possibly be only 19-years-old? Not only is he a preposterously high rank for his age at Lieutenant, but he's also been fighting for so long that he's become a legendary warrior with an entire generation of younger soldiers who see him as a model hero. It also doesn't really make all that much sense, as he's said to have gone to a military academy with Noin (who by the way is roughly the same age and somehow is a fully-fledged pilot instructor when she can only have maybe a year of flight experience, tops), but when did these two join? When they were thirteen? It gets worse in that somebody developing this show had to purposefully decide these ages, figuring that somehow 19 fits the show's universe better than a more realistic mid-thirties.
 * I've always ignored the "official" ages (they're never shown or mentioned in the show itself anyway) and gone by Animation Anatomy Aging instead. By that measure Zechs and Noin are 28-ish, Treize is 35-ish, and Relena and the Gundam pilots are roughly their "offical" ages.
 * It's funny though that with Dorothy Catalonia, people think she's older than Relena and the Gundam pilots when in her debut episode Pagan specifically said that she was Relena's age.
 * How is Lieutenant a preposterously high rank? It's the lowest rank officer there is, or second lowest if you go by naval rankings.
 * Don't forget that according to Episode Zero, Noin (and accordingly Zechs) was a Cadet at age 12. Treize was their instructor, at roughly age 17.
 * Also there's Sally Po, who is a major AND a doctor at the age of 19.
 * How does the Deathscythe use its weapon underwater? It's lampshaded by a Mook in the episode, but never actually explained. All other Gundam shows have shown this to be impractical if not impossible.
 * Essentially, Gundanium alloy has a high enough heat resistance that the thermal energy weapons it's capable of weilding (in other words, beam weapons) are able to be powered at hot enough temperature to operate underwater. Basically a beam weapon is plasma with a thin layer of molecules acting as a 'sheath' to encapsulate them and keep them in a certain shape- ie, a scythe, a sword, etc., which is what protects them from the water damaging the machinery. ...Essentially.
 * it's actually an EM field that surrounds the beam weapon. but yeah you're it runs really hot cuz the metal can take it explanation is canon, I believe. you could in theory water proof the emitter, could also be the emitter runs so hot it evaporates any water around it, I mean the deathscythes scythe has been shown in the kit manuals to not even need to make direct contact to damage a leo, the heat alone is enough to break it's armor down. that could also be how the em fiel continues generating, a pocket of superheated steam around the scythe. need to do some "physicing" to figure this out.


 * An Endless Waltz bug here, why is Wufei so wrapped up in what happened? If he wanted a place for himself as a fighter, why didn't he just join the Preventers in the first place? Also, not all weapons are destroyed, and would it really be that hard to start suit production again?
 * I think Wufei figured that joining the preventers wouldn't satisfy his long-term goals. He'd be more like a cop shaking up small-time crooks before they could become a serious problem or graduate to guns. He wanted a world of combat and challenging battles to live in, and he knew he'd never get that from the future on the horizon. So he joined the group to keep war going.
 * More than that, because Treize just gave up during their battle, Wufei never felt like he really defeated Treize (beginning with how he lost their sword duel). So, Wufei was constantly haunted by memories of Treize that stirred up the need to fight. As for suit production, it probably wouldn't be that hard..
 * He says he's upset because after the war, soldiers are just tossed back into civilian life while the civilians who didn't fight at all get to enjoy the peace they didn't lift a finger to achieve. Wufei sees this as an injustice against soldiers everywhere so then rejects total pacifism and joins the Mariemaia effort, perhaps to try and give a wake-up call to said civilians. They convince him in the end.
 * So wait... are the Gundams sentient? Aside from the Epyon or Wing Zero (which regularly interact mentally with their pilots) I was never very clear about that. The pilots talk to them all the time (Wufei practically recites love poems to Nataku), but they never act on their own. The only time I remember a Gundam behaving independently was when Sandrock blew itself up to rescue Quatre, but that was the only time it ever happened to it felt really out of place. Most of the time it seemed like they felt affection for their Gundams the same way most people feel affection for their cars. Not that I'm not pretty protective of my car, but I don't pretend its alive.
 * For Wufei, as shown in episode Zero, it's because his wife was originally going to be the pilot of the Shenlong, and she died defending the suit and him. He's projecting his dead wife onto the suit. Oh, and her nickname was Nataku.
 * I wonder about that. While the cumulative effect of trying to handle the stresses Gundam piloting entails took out a couple of overmounted mook pilots, the Gundams never performed an action that, in itself, would kill the pilot. Wing (with Heero on the entry hatch) seemed to have less of an explosion than Sandrock (which not only opened its cockpit when Quatre activated the destruct, but moved several paces away from him before detonating). Makes you wonder if Deathscythe's destruct was broken, of if it willfully refused the command. (Since Duo didn't have any kind of pressure suit, any cockpit breach would have been fatal.)


 * OK, I didn't think about this the first 20 or so times I watched it, but: Duo comes down in North America, takes out a Leo plant. Then, in a matter of--what, hours?--he's on the other side of the Pacific, in time to prevent OZ from recovering Wing Gundam, when he doesn't even know another Gundam might be there?
 * The show is a little inconsistent with time. Remember, the climactic arc took place at Christmastime. It might have actually been a day or two when for the rest of us it's a couple of hours.
 * The first two episodes actually cover three days: on the first the Gundams arrive on Earth; it's sunset in Japan when Relena finds Heero on the beach. On the second, Heero shows up at Relena's school and tears up her party invitation (which she explicitly says is "tomorrow"). Finally, on the third day, Heero skips the party to try and blow up Wing, which is when Duo shows up. It's not too much of a stretch for him to get from the American Midwest to southern Japan in roughly two days.
 * Something that I just can't get over is Zechs Marquise. He is suppose to be the most chivalrous character in the show. Has this whole Knights Code of Honor, and has been known to take this to extreme levels such as giving his nemesis a gundam in the middle of a war so they can have a fair duel. But he is also a chronic backstabber full of deception, and should never be trusted, because he just going to betray you unless he dies. SOOOOO, the most honorable character in the show, is a chronic backstabber, and his revered by his chivalry. I knew that the universe in this show werent that smart, but not this stupid.
 * Zechs is honorable towards people who deserve it. He respects Heero as a warrior (and for being willing to sacrifice himself rather than be caught by Lady Une's dirty trick). Besides, he was loyal to Treize the whole time, not to the Alliance, OZ, or Romefeller -- why on earth would he respect the people who destroyed his pacifist homeland, killed his parents, and separated him from his baby sister?
 * Zeches being two-faced is kinda the point of his whole character. When he's operating as Zeches he's a warrior, yet as Milliardo Peacecraft his goal is peace. When he feels the need to change identities, he sometimes has to go against the principles of the others. As Zeches, he can respect warriors like Heero, and aid those who profit from war like Treize (Like the guy said, he was never allied with the Alliance to begin with in either identity). In this state he can attack various Oz or Romefeller operations and kill when nessecary. As Milliardo, on the other hand, he can't respect Heero for being a terrorist or Treize for being a war-mongerer. He can only try to perform actions to bring about peace. When he gave up being Zeches, he also gave up his friendship with Treize (rather than accepting his challenge to a duel as he would have as Zeches, he instead has his Tallgeese fired upon). The end of the series sees him find a balance between these two roles as he chooses to fight a war for the purpose of ending war.
 * Exactly; the reason why he took up the name Zechs Marquise is because he could not spoil the Peacecraft name with blood. As Zechs, he sees his destiny as being smeared with blood.
 * In Episode 15 Relena is given a letter by Marshal Noventa's wife, with instructions to deliver it to Heero. Relena's immediate first response is, "All right then, I'm going to visit Mrs. Noventa, because she must know where Heero is! The fact that she's entrusting me with a message, instead of sending it directly, surely does not indicate the opposite!" Uh-huh. Way to fail logic, Relena. Love Makes You Stupid?
 * Correct me if I'm wrong but how did Trieze get a hold of the zero system,it makes no sense to me at all that he would have access to something like that,something not many people even his superiors know exist.