Well we are down to the second last post of this season…or at least I would say that but it’s been confirmed that we are getting another season of this so my job is once again far from over. Don’t take that to mean I dislike that this is continuing as four seasons is a massive rarity for most series and to see a show with the quality of Logh get it is well deserved. Moving on to the episodes It’s a bit odd to start with a staff officer giving a painting to a sickly man and a rather cryptic musing over how the officer was surprised at the lack of a pet in his room. I would say that this is a remark akin to “Grass is greener on the other side” as the sickly man claiming the officer as his ideal. So the remark about disabled individuals having pets who could do things that they could not is in reference to how the sickly man views the officer but fails to see that just like pets, there are restrictions to the freedoms given. As for Maries conversation with Reinhard, I feel she is giving Braunschweig far too much credit if she thinks he simply lost due to three things. He displayed incompetence in almost every area that it’s hard to even imagine how be could best Reinhard, in truth the only thing he succeeded at was pushing his subordinate to kill Kircheis which was mainly delagation. Though her assertion that an enemy was needed in order to grow a nation is a fascinating one. When you think about it this is similar to the idea of how competition helps to improve a product or service. If nothing threatens your position then you have no drive to improve and something which is a point of comparison. People have a tendency to place a group in an “other” category either by difference of opinion or status and part of what may drive a person is the desire to “Not be them” An enemy may be a good term for such a person or group and it’s an amusing concept to have something whose purpose is to prove you are above it. Nobody wants to lose or be beaten by something they have deemed counter to their core beliefs so it would be a curious thought that the strive for innovation and improvement be derived from a negative source.
Well it’s time for the Free Planets Alliance stupidity hour as thanks in part to Fezzans previous prodding, Yang has been called down to Heinessen for an “Inquiry”. That being a thinly veiled attempt to examine Yang’s history and attempt to pin some sort of anarchist agenda to his choices. With the end of the coup d’etat it appears that poliations have gained far more power within the free planets Alliance and trying to devalue Yang’s name is all the rage. I find it funny to see a smear article on him and the worst photo they got is a woman straightening his collar. Trying to drag his name through the mud is a bit like trying to throw dirt on a wall you are simultaneously powerwashing. The eternal contractidiction remains with them needing Yang to put up a decent fight to the empire but not wanting him to get too popular to potentially overthrow them. Ah yes, to hell with that hero who has saved our asses more times than we can count and instead place your trust in us politicians who are currently sending you all to die to increase our polling numbers. Who are also controlling the media and painting a peaceful rally as a violent protest because the messages they were trying to spread about how those in high positions conveniently didn’t need to send their children to die hit too close to the truth. Well rather than hit close, it is the truth.
It’s an odd thing isn’t it, the dictatorship is looking more like a democracy while the democracy is looking more like a dictatorship. It’s a wonder as to what Yang really thinks about this as he does seem well and truly sick of it until hearings end with him about to throw down his resignation. Yang has in a way been the story’s moral compass which makes it all the stranger when he’s the one currently defending the place that’s becoming even more of a dystopian hellscape than it was when he started. He never truly advocated for the values of the Free Planets Alliance and he sees the corruption as clear as day, yet continues to defend it. The main driving force stated by him is his desire for his retirement pay though it seems he’s more driven out of a need to protect those he cares about and at least upholding the idea of democracy even if his home has lost all touch with it. At the end of these three episodes one of the better politicians puts forward the idea that if Yang was to obtain power, he could become the next big dictator. In general, stating that absolute power corrupts absolutely. However I greatly disagree with this notion as the idea of Yang deifying himself into a dictator is utterly absurd and he is a man with a clear lack of ego. Yang never boasts of his achievements and any time he is complemented on them he generally plays them down. He is a man so humble that I think even he himself underestimated just how much value he holds to the Free Planets Alliance as a whole, nor how highly regarded he is within the universe itself. It’s truly evidence that the politicians are so busy seeing Yang through his accomplishments that they fail to realize that by his very nature he would never attempt to seize power by his own volition.
The crescendo to this utter idiocy is the reveal that Iserlohn Fortress is being attacked and they just dragged the single man who could stop it far away so they could mentally torture him for days. There is shooting yourself in the foot and then there’s shooting yourself in every limb and stopping for a reload. Suitably summed up by one of the members of the inquiry board who proceed to put a bookend on just how stupid the whole thing was while pointing out the utter hypocrisy of the National Defense chairman. It would have been nice if he had spoken up in defense of Yang during the inquiry though I suspect he could say all he did simply because matters had gone so south. The degree of shamelessness the chairman displayed as he went from accusing Yang of treason to practically kissing his boots upon news of the attack just makes one wish that someone could have punched his lights out. I guess we must settle for the fact that it is highly likely he won’t be defense chairman for very long. One would think upon seeing him approach Yang by episode’s end that he might at least have the courtesy to apologize but instead is begging Yang to not speak of the inquiry in hopes of saving his own hide. I will admit that the chairman is the kind of one dimensional personality that kind of annoyed me about the nobles of the Goldenbaum dynasty but nonetheless I feel it is used more effectively here. I think the difference is in how politicians, despite having the same temperament of nobles, still need to curry favor with the local populace in order to retain power. As such their motivations go a bit beyond the usual thing with the nobles where it’s all “I can do what I want, cause I am noble!” I at least apprecate that the board of the inquiry had some indivuals who were at least self aware or did argee with Yangs remarks, if not openly. But well it’s back to battle with death star vs death star which is a concept I am surprised hasn’t been attempted in Star Wars canon, at least to my knowlege.
