Jamie Sez: I frankly think this has to be the BEST character dissection ever. Demeter gets down to the point, and shows the really GOOD points about Ms. Peacecraft.
You may criticize this to your heart's content, but I'll tell you now that these are Demeter's opinions, and if you don't like it - bite my shiny metal ass. (I watch too much Futurama....)
WARNING: Cussing and swearing
rampant. Liberal use of reasons why they hate Relena from various anti-Relena
sites, such as Lindsey and Molly's Anti-Relena Page. Pure bitchiness on my part. A
LONG post of venting and the over-used word, Ranting, ahead. Flame me all you
want. I'll be laughing at them. I warned. My job is done. "Relena Essay" copyright(c) Demeter, 2001. Page copyright(c) Jamie Carlson, 2001.
Related Article: An Essay on Hate - By Jamie Carlson
~ Jamie Carlson
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Why do I like Relena so much?
Truthfully, at first, I didn't know
exactly why. When I first entered the fandom, all I knew was that this girl from the
anime Gundam Wing was getting a lot flack for being the "Peace Princess". The
irritation arose first from my natural, and sometimes backwards, inclination
toward the underdog. I immediately took Relena up as one of my favorite
characters.
Then, as I hunted and cajoled for fics on
the Princess, I realized one thing.
I genuinely liked her.
She was someone of the anime kingdom
(which I have to stress, is FICTIONAL) that I actually liked and had NO cynicism
about. I felt no sense of sarcasm waiting to bubble up about Relena. She was the
very first,and I have to say that I have liked a hell lot of anime characters,
to make me so passionate in devoting myself to her.
There are logical and illogical reasons of
course. Everyone has the little, "I just do!" about their favorite
characters and it's no different from me. Relena struck at all the odds and ends and
evens in me. Something that no other character has (yet) hit.
She wishes for peace.
I find it hard for people to dislike her
on this account, but over and over, people have used the word, "Pacifism" as an
insult toward her character. There are people who think that BECAUSE she wishes
for peace, that she is a faulty character because that's a ridiculous ideal (in
their eyes), and therefore deserves their contempt and scorns. I, for one, feel
that BECAUSE she wishes for peace, she wins the coveted spot in my heart of
"favorite".
Pacifism is a naive ideal, yes, but is
working toward an ideal of peace a bad thing? From our eyes, we know how
impossible this dream is. How completely impossible this dream is, considering WWI,
WWII, VietnamWar, all those little fights that break out so easily. But from their
eyes, from the GW universe, she can bring peace. If anyone could, she can. Even
if it was impossible, wouldn't it be nice to have hope?
She's strong.
I have heard millions (slight
exaggeration) of people claiming that she's weak and useless. Hello? When did not being
able to pilot a hulking twenty-ton machine become "weak"? There are people who
seem to forget that being strong doesn't mean that you have to be able to endure
the stress of the physical part of life. Being strong has a sister to physical,
that some seem to forget.
And that's mentality and emotionality.
Relena works hard to preserve the peace that was hard-won through her and the
pilot's efforts. Think about it. In the GW universe, it's stressed that she is the
peace. She is the one striving to keep everything together. She is the
VICE-FOREIGN MINISTER. Heero, Duo, Quatre, Trowa, Wufei.... they're all great and
"strong", but in some truths, they are the weak ones in GW. They crumble easily when
faced with their mental fears. Each had their insecurities and demons that
attacked them when faced with challenges. Throw them a couple of mobile suits and
they'll dispatch them easily. Tell them that they killed two people while they
were at it, and all of them will either go insane or just shut off completely.
Relena may not be able to protect herself
from attacking enemies or falling debris, but she can rally herself and
millions from the GW world into something she believes in. When she realizes in EW
that she had been running away, instead of crumbling and retreating, she moves
forward and tries even harder in working toward her ideals. She doesn't give up,
even when she knows it might be futile.
This is a bit illogical, but it occurred
to me that a lot of people have complained (i.e. bashed) about her way of
dressing. I shoot back, maybe she cared more for peace than she cared for clothing.
She's real.
This may sound a bit off-kilter, but every
word that drops from her mouth is what she feels. She has never, in the whole
49 episodes and EW, ever said a word that did not reflect how she felt at the
current moment. She gives out her name to a total stranger on the beach on
episode 1. She trusts Heero from the moment she met him and that deserves credit in
the department of optimism. She jumps in front of Heero and protects him from
Duo's bullet in episode 2. If you were scared shitless, would you jump in front
of some maniacs (^_^) gun? That deserves a point in bravery. I could go on and
on, episode by episode, but you get the point.
(On a private note, for all the 1X2/2X1
lovers out there who ALSO dislike Relena AND bashes her, (so this does not
include those who like the couple and dislike her, but still respects her...
confusing, but I think one gets what I'm talking about) Duo would have shot Heero if
Relena had NOTprotected him. If someone says that Duo would not have because Duo
was tryingto just disable him for a while, then I would mention the little
incident with Lady Une and the rose. Relena was just trying to shoot the rose.)
I may get a lot of shit for this, but here
goes. Compared to the pilots, she has a real life. Confused? If you will
recall, the pilots all have slightly cliche anime lives. The tortured freedom
fighters bit is seen in a lot in mangas and animes. But they are the first we
sympathize. We cherish and love them. We pity them in that they have so boo-hoo lives.
Relena is born into a life of comfort and is the daughter of the "richest man".
Right off the bat, people dislike her because she has no apparent heartbreak to
contend with. She's the "spoiled brat". Well, aren't we all at times?
As much as I drool, love, pity,
want-to-protect the pilots, I can't possibly relate to them. I don't have a clue of
what's going on in their heads. I, personally, have never fought in a war and I can
bet that 99% of the other fans of GW have not either. Oh, I want to cry that
they have to go through so much hatred and bloodshed, but, no, I don't understand
how they feel.
But I can emulate with Relena. Her
feelings of being trapped, her loneliness with her father working all the time, her
troubles with being a teenager.... I can understand all that. Because she is like
us, there are some who dislike her for that. There is no fantastical or
mystical quality within her. She's "normal" and therefore deserves contempt and the
label of "boring!".
But doesn't she deserve tears too? Doesn't
she have the right to be someone who should be cried over too? I have to
repeat, she's only FIFTEEN. Her father dies in front of her days after her birthday.
Her life comes tumbling down as fake. She's targeted by about a billion rebel
groups because they want to KILL her. Not harm, or kidnap, but KILL her. That's
a lot for a girl who's still fifteen to bear. But she does. She's that
don't-lose-yet attitude that we all have, but that's been smothered by either parents,
teachers, friends, peer pressure or another.
Relena, in other words, is working for the
people of the GW universe, not for herself.
She forgives Lady Une for killing her
father.
Relena loses her father at the age of
FIFTEEN. When I was at that age, I may have been constantly angry at my dad, but I
would have been devastated if he had died.Lady Une is directly responsible for
his death. She threw the bomb into the room where Mr. Darlian was in. And
Relena forgave her. Forgave and became friends and allies in the field of politics
and peace. Someone who was less mature and compassionate would have taken Lady
Une up on her offer and shot her brains from her head.
Relena surrenders Sank during the
battle with Romefellor.
A lot of reasons given to me is that she's
an airhead and a total loser for handing over the Sank kingdom to Romefellor.
Oh.
This made me respect and admire her a hell
lot MORE. Why? Think about it. All that bullshit about "Let's fight to the end!
We must never give up!" would have just resulted in more deaths for both sides.
In surrendering, she kept the deaths from BOTH sides to the minimum. As hard as
it was to surrender, she commits to her decision because she knew Sank was
fighting a battle they would not win. They had two Gundams and a few dozen mobile
suits, but Romefeller had a couple thousand. Even with Heero and Quatre, Sank
would have lost no matter what. She surrendered so that the loss of life would be
the least.
Relena's brave.
In surrendering Sank, she gave herself up
to the enemies. She has all the doubts that we would expect in someone who's
about to get into the lion's den, almost literally. Yet, she doesn't lose her
place. She refuses to back down, even as a pawn. She continues to outline her own
ideals and doesn't fade away peacefully, even when she knows she's risking her
own neck in addressing her views.
She refuses to become a pawn.
She doesn't take advantage of her
friends.
Never ever, in the entire span of the show
did I ever see Relena tell her friends (groupies) to do something for her. She
treats them politely and everyone equally. There is no singling out and she
never lords over them. They follow her because THEYchoose to. Not because she
forces them to.
This is already getting to a full-blown
essay, so I'll end this here. I'll defend her from the reasons of why people
dislike her next.
She's butt-ugly, she looks like a man,
she's so ugly, she's ugly, doesn't look normal:
Okay, I may be wrong, but I recall that
everyone kept stressing that looks were not important about a person. What really
counts is the inside. That beauty is only skin-deep. I have always, and will
always think this as the most superficial reason for someone to dislike a
character. Why? Because I think that Heero looks like Relena, only with short and
brown hair, but no one has ever called him ugly to my face.
She yells at Duo for trying to save
her:
Hello? He shoots Heero, the first boy
she's ever been intrigued by. Wouldn't you be a bit angry too if someone shot the
boy you liked? Hell, most people wouldn"t just be a bit angry. Most would go on
a homicidal rampage. Think about it.
She likes pink and wears it all the
time:
Same as the first one. Superfical.
Duo wears black all the time.
Heero wears the spandex-tank top ensemble
all the time.
Quatre wears the pink shirt all the time.
Trowa wears the turtleneck and white jeans
all the time.
Wufei wears that white suit with the
tanktop all the time.
That's like their offical outfits in most
of the postersand pictures.
And Relena doesn't even wear pink all the
time like Quatre does. For a lot of the show, she wears a dark skirt with a
white blouse. The only outfit that was really pink was her uniform for her school
and the Sank kingdom. Her Queen-of-the-World dress was only a faint pink at
that. In EW, she has that coat, yes, but other than that, was there that much pink
that she wore? And then there was the thing about the limo. She's fifteen. She
can't afford a limo, let alone a pink one. Therefore, her parents gave it to
her. Logical, right?
She's a psycho-stalker and obesses SO
much:
She follows Heero THREE fucking times in
the entire span of 49 episodes PLUS the movie! When in the hell did THAT
constitute as "stalking"?According to the dictionary, stalking consists of:
Stalk: stalked, stalking n. -v.i. 1.to pursue prey, quarry, etc., stealthily.
2. to walk with measured, stiff, or haughty strides (often fol. by away, off,
etc.). 3. To proceed in a steady, deliberate, or sinister manner. 4. to pursue
(game, a person, etc.) stealthily. 5. to proceed through (an area) in search of
prey or quarry. 6. to proceed or spread though in a steady or sinister manner.
7. An act of course of stalking prey. 8. a slow or stiff stride or
gait.
Well, from what I can see and all the sane
eyes out there, she does NOT stalk Heero. The one time she might have been
following him purposefully was the time she went and found them at the school they
were at. She just lost her father. To someone who was involved in the brewing
war that was between Earth and the colonies. Why would she not follow the one
person who could give her more info on this little tidbit. At that point, she was
also paving the road for pacifism; knowing more about the war would be
beneficial toward her and Sank. There is also the fact that her world is crashing down
on her. Heero looks like a pillar of strength at the time of her shattering.
The word stalking to them also includes
the part where she goes onto the cliff and yells, "Heero, come and kill me!" I
admit, that had me wonderingˇK but I realized at that point, she had no idea on
how to reach him. He was lost to her, and at that moment, when she had lost so
much already; her father, her life, her birth, losing another that she had cared
about, even a little, was daunting, even frightening. She was desperate to find
him again, to assure herself that one part of her life was still there. Heero
had promised to kill her. To her, that was one promise that could be kept. A
promise that might have some hold on her to earth. Something that would keep her
mind from floating away in insanity. As it occurred to me that Heero was perhaps
a hold she could grasp on reality, I found that she was not invincible, that
she was fragile too. That endeared her to me, because she wanted to be strong,
for Heero, for everyone, but could admit that she was weak.
And maybe a bit was to see Heero. ^_^. Sue
me, I'm a romantic. Try to look me in the eye and say that no one has ever
hunted a bit for the guy they like. I will be the first to admit I look around for
the guy Ilike and that at times I purposely bump into him just to say hi.
That's not stalking. That's a crush.
After watching the series for the
umpteenth time, I realized that in the episode, I think 46 or 47, where Hilde comes up
to Libra and encounters Relena something happens that disputes this reason that
the anti-camp has come up with. When Hilde invites to take her back to the ship
where Heero was because she was on her way there to see Duo, Relena REFUSES.
She stays on Libra because she wishes to try to stop her brother.
She gives up the chance to see Heero. Now,
if she was the "stalker" everyone claimed her to be, wouldn't she have taken up
Hilde's offer? Because she feels that at the current moment, the earth comes
before her owndesires. Considering her insecurities and all the dangers at that
certainmoment, she would not have thought Heero would come up to see her.
After she reappears in the show, she NEVER follows Heero again. He FOLLOWS her.
People complain and list that she says "HEEEEERRRRRROOOOOOOOO!!!!!" and
"Heero..." and "Heero?" all the time. But Heero says her name just as many times. One
more note. Who was it that saw Relena's image on the battlefield? If Relena is
a stalker, then Heero is obsessed with her.
She doesnˇ¦t deserve Heero:
Or so people say. I would say that Heero
doesn't deserve her. It's the matter of perception among the eyes of the rabid
fans of Gundam Wing. ^_^
Heero stalks MY guy, Heero is mine,
He's too hot to hang around her, She is talking my Heero,:
First I would inch myself away from that
person's vicinity.Second, I would call the psychiatric unit. Third, I would call
THAT obsession and stalking. Fourth, I would say that Heero's kind of fictional
and doesn't really exist... Isn't that a bit hypocritical?
She's hypocritical:
Always, the incident with Lady Une is
brought up. That's one incident. One time where she MIGHT have been hypocritical...
if not for the fact that the episode that this occurs in happens BEFORE she
claims her ideals of pacifism. So at that historical moment, she is NOT a pacifist
yet. That doesn't matter, however, since I feel that she was aiming for the
rose.
First of all, she was the length of a
table away from Lady Une. That's about 4, 5 feet AT MOST. (I measured the widest
table we had at school.) No matter how bad she is with a gun, and considering
that she managed to stay on her feet after shooting off the gun, it gives me the
idea that she must known something about the gun. Enough so that she could bear
the sudden jerking, and actually come close to hitting anyone. Lady Une was
right in front of her. Literally. As in, only someone completely blind and deaf
would have missed.
And Relena hit the fucking rose. Lady Une
knows Relena as someone who's been raised as the rich and soft daughter of
Darlian. She would not have been expecting a gun, as is found from the completely
surprised look on her face. Even with super-reflexes, there was no way in hell
she would have dodged without a scratch. Yet, the gun hit Lady Une's rose
dead-center. Remember this was an anime about war, revolution and peace. That's a
frame ripe for a symbolic meaning. What? One can ask someone else. I'm in no mood
to dissect that frame-by-frame yet. I'll talk all about it some other day.
She's a bitch:
I suppose that's personal observation...
though I think that's a poor reason as the people don't even give us WHY she's a
bitch.
Her face is so flat:
Hello? She's an anime character. Of course
her face is 2D! And incidentally, so is everyone else in GW. Even Duo. *gasps*
(The reason I use Duo so much is that for some reason, since Duo's her "rival",
he usually comes out the winner and the main torturer)
She's flat-chested:
This just had me rolling on the ground in
laughter. For that to be a reason, the person who actually gave the reason has
got to be a guy who has a fetish for big breasts. Girls, if this is a reason,
then that is REALLY trying to scramble around for a reason. That just demeans
our whole gender if that is a reason.
Duo calls her babe:
Um, well... to hate someone because a guy
called her babe must mean you're the person obsessing. Is it Relena's fault
that Duo finds her cute? Duo calling her a babe also undermines all the comments
of how ugly she is, since most of the same people go on and on about how Duo has
such great taste. Therefore, him calling her a babe would mean that she was
pretty in his eyes. Right?
Heero touches her face:
Same as above.
She's REALLY annoying:
Is that how you perceive her? As annoying?
In what way? This also ticks me off since they only give this reason without
any proof at all. I consider this just grasping at straws. People who dislike her
cannot find any reason because there ARE NONE that are concrete. If it was just
a personal feeling, then I wouldn't care if you hated her guts. But I despise
reasons that are called up just to try to have SOME sort of background in hating
a character for absolutely no reason.
She looks like a man, She looks a
female version of Heero but not feminish enough:
First, feminish is not a word. Second, if
she looks like Heero, then why is she ugly? If she's not so-called feminish
enough, then wouldn't she look EXACTLY like Heero? It's anime remember? The
artistry for ALL the characters are similar. Even Duo and Relena.
Heero DOESN'T kill her, She should be
gotten rid of quickly, Why doesn't anyone just shoot her?, Why can't Heero just
kill her?:
Wishing for someone's death. Now THAT is
scary. And freaky. And SICK. I don't care if it was just a joke or even if the
person was kidding. That just should not be publicly said. "Spread the love, not
the hate." A quote, corny, but true forever in my eyes.
She makes women look weak, she's lazy,
she whines all the time, she can't do anything:
I already said what I said about strength.
But I'll say it again. She's strong mentally. The pilots are WEAK mentally.
Women do NOT have to be able to pilot planes and fight to prove their strength.
That's just like the stereotype of men when they have to go through all that
torture of building muscles and fighting just to prove their "manly". She's
actually in more danger where she is then on the battlefield. She has about a million
sharks waiting to chew her up and spit her out. She does not have to be the
fiery rebel leader such as Sally. She does not have to sneak onto a ship and
gather all the secret info like Hilde. She does not have to manipulate the entire
political party like Dorothy. She does not have to be able to graduate top of the
class and then teach mobile piloting like Noins. She does not have to be able
to throw knives with deadly accuracy like Catherine. She simply has to be
herself and believe in peace to be strong. She never gives up on her ideals, no
matter how many people tell her that it would never come true.
She has stupid ideas of total pacifism,
Pacifism is what she always thinks of, I hate people dedicated to peace and
only peace:
I suppose this is a halfway legitimate
reason to hate her since a person may not like peace. Therefore they would not
like someone dedicated to peace. But that would mean they didn't like Martin
Luther King Jr or Mother Theresa.... I certainly don't like Hitler or war or Saddam
Hussein... that is a reason I can live with and accept. But I certainly would
not like it...
She's such a snot, she's so selfish,
she's so whiny, she's so rich, she's such a loser:
When, pray tell, did she ever tell anyone
that she was rich? Having seen the show about a thousand times, never did the
word, "money,rich, bucks," anything like that fall from her mouth. Everyone
talked abouther, not the other way around. She never ever talked about herself.
She's fifteen. She's allowed to whine. I bet every single person reading this has
whined before. How can she be selfish when she gives up her whole adolescence
to bring peace to the two worlds? Interesting?
Her voice sounds like a old,
half-drowned cat, her voice is so boring:
Is that her fault? That would be the voice
actress... and the voices is a matter of perspective. Personally, I feel that
her voice is excellent in portraying the correct amount of growth from childhood
to a war-weary adult. Also, it would be nice if the reason specified the
American or Japanese voice actress, because I consider anyone who has not seen
bothversions not a hard core fan of GW.
She's Relena. Do we need to say
anything else? She's Relena, 'nuff said, I just hate her:
This is actually a reason I can
understand. Simply not liking someone. Everyone has a character that they don't like off
the bat.However, it's the scrambling around to create reasons that annoys the
hell out of me.
She makes Dr. J look hot:
Urk... I would think that that is a matter
of view.However, basing whether you like someone on looks... that is incredibly
superficial.
She has the worst friends:
She didn't make them her friends did she?
They latched themselves onto her. Throughout the show, she is polite and
detached. Equal to everyone. Simply because she doesn't know who to trust and who to
be wary of. And remember, she stays calm when the mobile suits were attacking.
She even comforts those three girls that follow her around. They are lives to
her, pure and simple. If telling them off and screaming at them to leave her
alone would have made her more popular, I would not have liked her as much. She
was always polite to them, no matter how fake they might be.
And out of respect to those three girls, I
actually think they genuinely care for Relena as a person and not as a doll or
a rich girl.
Her fave color clashes with my color.
Black!:
I wonder where that came from... ^_^
She adds no meaning to Gundam Wing
whatsoever:
This made me angry. If she wasn't in the
show, there would have been NO show. The pilots would have fought, yada yada.
And lost. They would have found themselves outcast by both Earth and the
colonies.
Relena has been termed boring, useless,
idiotic, bitchy, whiny, selfish, greedy, spoiled, obsessive, psychotic stalker,
bad dresser, self-righteous, etc. etc., and I will never fucking figure out how
they can say that of her. Some might be from the fans that want Duo and Heero
together, and without making her seem like a total idiot, won't be able to put
them together. (Which only makes that couple all the more dubious to believe in.
Don't take that wrong; I love yaoi.)
Marimeia says herself that Relena has a
greater deal of influence than even she herself knows. A person who is not loved,
respected, cannot be influential. I must repeat myself that she's only sixteen
or seventeen when she was vice-foreign minister. She has the two worlds, earth
and the colonies, balanced on those two shoulders of hers. Many would have
collapsed under that sort of weight. Yet, she bore it, and continued to do so. I
have never heard her complain about being too tired or too stressed. (Except in
those fics that have her stressed out. We're the ones that make her tired)
She is a pivotal character to both GW and
EW. Without her, there would not have been any real battle between OZ and the
rest of the world. The Gundam Pilots could have fought all they wanted to, and
they would not have won. If you hit dog, the dog bites back. If you pet a dog,
the dog settles at your feet. Though a crude example, it shows the effectiveness
of Relena's ways of handling war and peace. The pilots all respond to her
differently. I think most of them don't really believe what she says will come true,
but all of them respect her for trying to bring peace to them. All five of them
have seen what war is like; especially Duo, Trowa, and Heero. All of them don't
want to fight anymore. Relena to them is like a person who would be able to
stop the fighting, to stop the birth of more soldiers who knew nothing other than
the will to fight.
Relena, in essence, is hope.
That's about all I can say now. I'm
completely drained. Some day, some day in the future, I probably will write an essay
even lengthier and with proofs and episodes... but for now, I think I can be
satisfied that the Relena I see is shown onto paper... so I say adieu.
Demeter
