The Harmony Of Hope And The Dirge Of Despair: Part 2 (Senki Zesshou Symphogear G) [2.3]

(Continued from 2.2)

Part 3: Bolero Of Betrayal


Having made a case for Nephilim's bite creating both a literal and extra-narrative infection, we now have to explore what that infection enables to threaten the narrative beyond just the corruption. Indeed, Nephilim's bite isn't the sole cause of this, as we have seen (and will see) the whiffs of conflict before the big chomp. I actually want to start by talking about a scene that happens earlier, in episode 3. We've not talked about Chris that much, and that's a shame since I quite like Chris. She's now a student at the new Lydian Academy, and isn't the best at being friendly... as is evident by the scene in which she's actively running away from friendly classmates trying to rope her into school festival duty. She and Tsubasa do get roped into it, but it's not all bad. Their fellow classmates have a lovely bit of reflection where they talk about how they felt Tsubasa was this solitary idol, but once they talked to her they found she was just like them. It's understanding by talking, and Chris sighs and says she should try a little harder herself. It's a sweet moment, and the show is full of these. Episode 4's ending has Chris actively recruited as a last-minute entrant in a singing contest, and her song is absolutely beautiful. A heartfelt well-sung narrative about learning to love to sing, and finding a new place to belong. You love to see it. Of course, Nephilim's bite is going to threaten all that, but let's rewind. Before we talk about Chris more, I want to talk about Maria and Finè.



Okay, that's not all I want to talk about here. I want to lay down some roadwork that will become incredibly important going forward, and this particular early moment with Maria/Finè is as good enough as any to set it up. I have spoken of the utopic ideal being threatened by corruption, and the entire ideology and stability of this show being at risk. I want to define that risk, and how it made me feel watching Symphogear G, with some easy terminology. Certain things I've talked about, like Hibiki's inability to fight in the middle portion of the show, could be called narrative collapse; a threat to the very ability of the show to tell its story. A very different sort of narrative tension reared its head for me, and I settled on calling it "utopic tension". Utopic tension is simple enough: it's narrative tension built on the anxiety over a show's utopic ideals being at risk. One might simply call this investment in the show and its characters, but I feel it's different. I'm confident everything will turn out fine in the end. The issue is what lines the show crosses during its darker moments to create tension and get there. Cross the wrong one without the right reason, and the entire utopic ideal gets tainted by proxy. A certain other show did this at basically the last minute during an extra-narrative corruptive moment, and it's made me jumpy while watching Symphogear. More on that later, but let's use Maria and Finè as an example.


The ending to the first season of Symphogear was quite sweet, with Hibiki knowing that Finè would just regenerate again in the future and giving her a message to pass on. The utopian past enlightening the future. It was just really nice, I thought. Now here we are just months later and she's back in a new body, totally a baddie doing bad things for supposed good reasons? The thought cuts against the very redemptive arc that the first season's ending was setting up. Finè was antagonistic and disdainful of humanity, but she did seem to warm up there with Hibiki's message. It almost seemed like Hibiki's idealism got through. Now here we are again and Finè's fighting Tsubasa in the form of Maria, singing about how she'll fight for what she believes in and never yield and whatnot. This disappointment isn't just my own, though. Even Hibiki, after the battle is over and the enemy has retreated, is glum about it all. She thought they had connected on some level. They talked! Now here we are, fighting again. The Commander is encouraging, of course, and tells her not to give up on trying to connect to her... but this is a little betrayal. Finè turning back to the antagonist side, shrugging off redemption. The show creates not just tension, but utopic tension; if we can't get through to our foes, how are we supposed to understand each other? Is there no hope of redemption? No hope at all?


Well, the resolution to this whole Finè thing is quite complex and a little of it will bleed into Part 4 here. Let us just ease some of the utopic tension, however: Maria's only playing the role of Finè as part of a long game to get Dr. Ver's assistance for their group's plans of world saving. Now, only like 700 words later, we can get to Maria. She's quite fascinating. We have established that Maria is playing the role of a grim practicalist, ready to stain her hands red to save the world. That does not mean, however, she likes the lengths she and FIS have to go to in order to make those ends meet. Betrayal is in the air, so let's go back to the Aria Of Apples. We get context for the flashback that opens the series, and see it in color with audible dialogue. Back when Maria, Nastassja, and Serena were working with the actual American FIS to awaken the Nephilim relic. Serena volunteered to do it, things didn't end well for her, and she had to Climax Song to calm it down. Rather than save her sister's life, all the FIS people did was bitch about how the experiment failed and how much this was going to cost, ignoring Maria's pleas for help. So, FIS itself betrayed Maria at a young age. Maria's quite complex and layered, and we get to see inside her shell several times while she's alone. She still keeps Serena's damaged relic pendant, the last remnant of her long-gone sister (a big big mirror to Kanade lingering in the form of a relic, huh?) and speaks to it from time to time, conversing with Serena. Pondering if she's really doing the right thing.

Yeah Maria takes child murder about as well as expected.

Despite the role she's playing, Maria does want to keep her hands clean while saving the world. This is why, at the very beginning, she lets the people in the concert hall go. There's no need for another Zwei Wing massacre; FIS has made their point with its broadcast. Why kill when it's not needed? Of course, for a corrupt little shit like Dr. Ver, a moral line in the sand is just a bunch of dirt. So, when a bunch of American agents track FIS down, and Maria hesitates in going out there to kill them? It's Dr. Ver who summons Noise to wipe them all out. Oh, and some innocent kids witness it. He totally bumps them off too, much to the horror of Maria. Yeah. Dr. Ver KILLED KIDS. You don't see it, thank God, but a bunch of kids totally got dusted by Noise. FIS moves from this hiding place like, two seconds later. There was no goddamned need for this to happen... other than the fact that Dr. Ver wanted to do it. The point of all this is that while Maria can play the role of the grim practicalist, she's actually quite remorseful about having to take on that persona. She laments her own weak resolve, and is plagued with self-doubt over not measuring up to Serena's own ideals. In a way, she's let Serena down... and isn't that its own form of betrayal?


This lingering doubt all comes to a head when Nastassja and Maria actually try and broker peace with the main branch of FIS and the US in general. A betrayal of what they set out to do, yes, but things have escalated too far at this point and Dr. Ver is overreaching. Unfortunately at this point, he's overheard the fact that Maria isn't Finè. It's here that the US try and double cross Nastassja and Maria, taking the moon data they brought as a peace offering before whipping their guns out... but Dr. Ver followed them here and unleashes a hellstorm of Noise to kill everyone. So, you know, betrayal all around. In the ensuing escape, Maria loses control of herself and indirectly causes a man to be shot and killed. She's broken her own rules. She's stained her hands. She's horrified and remorseful at this. The corruption at the heart of FIS's noble (though flawed) intentions has led to this. Maria letting down Serena, her comrades, and even her own morals. It's true tragedy, but before we can see how Maria deals with this we have a bigger problem. Something big and bad is lurking on the horizon, and it must be dealt with. The ultimate betrayals are coming. Be afraid.


Unfortunately, the whole business with the FIS double cross and Dr. Ver's timely noise attack is taking place at Tokyo Sky Tower. That's symbolic, considering we had Chris's redemption take place here in the first season. It's also narratively pressing because Hibiki and Miku are on a little date here at the moment. I haven't had much chance to mention Miku yet in Symphogear G, but that's about to change thanks to what's about to go down. Miku has her own ideology, you see, and it's protecting Hibiki. Indeed, when Hibiki is told she can no longer fight and has to stay off active duty, it's the Commander who tells her that her love for Hibiki is what can help Hibiki remain human. Which, my god. I love it. That's sweet as hell, gay as hell, and utopic as hell. Indeed, this is now Miku's driving ideology; to protect Hibiki. Unfortunately we're in a show infecting by Nephilim's bite, so this is going to get corrupted TO HELL AND BACK. I am getting ahead of myself, though. One thing leads to another and Hibiki is about to fall to her death, with Miku holding on for dear life, and we get this.

Hibiki falls, but she'll be fine. She can still transform, if only for a second, just so she has the superpowered strength to not break her bones on impact. She does, but immediately after landing the part of the tower that Miku was on blows up. Oh lord no they did not just kill Miku. They didn't. Sorry to spoil your utopic tension, but they didn't. Don't worry, we'll have more. We're on episode 9 now, and this is an incredibly important run up until the finale. There's something that happens here which ties in to another plotline, but I don't want to break the Miku stride. Put a pin right about here. No, we've got to fast forward through plot summary, I'm afraid, so here goes. Miku's not dead. Maria saved her, but took her back to FIS's base. Their base, by the way, is a big aircraft carrier which has stealth technology thanks to the mirror-based relic Shenshoujin. I'd mark out, but I'm patiently waiting. Miku's a captive now, but this is where Dr. Ver comes in. The manipulative little prick comes in to sweet talk Miku, and it leads to some horrific shit.

And her mirror beam attack is called "Shooting Star". Like the
ones she wanted to watch with Hibiki in S1. MY HEART

I'll just say it. FIS's main plan to save the world has been using the combined powers of Nephilim and the Shenshoujin relic to break the seal on something called "Frontier", but their earlier attempt lacked enough energy to make it work. Now they're back again, and Dr. Ver is gleefully blasting through US battleships with Noise to stop them. Tsubasa and Chris show up to try and save the day, but that's when Dr. Ver deploys his secret weapon. It's Shenshoujin. Wielded by Miku. Are you kidding me. Are you fucking kidding me. The mirrors... betrayed me? All jokes aside. Jesus CHRIST this is a shocker, and a mouthful for me. As it turns out, Shenshoujin has this "battle program" built into it, as well as the power to "deceive the heart". As Dr. Ver triumphantly proclaims, it was love which let him do this to Miku. Her love for Hibiki, her desire to protect her. That is the wedge which the manipulative Dr. Ver used to convince her to help them. The logic being that, Dr. Ver's way will create a world where there's no need for conflict. No conflict means Hibiki won't have to fight, and can thus be protected. Shenshoujin isn't just mirroring Miku. It's mirroring Dr. Ver and his corruptive influence. He's taken one of the emotional cores of the show and turned her into a mirror murder machine. Miku is basically just under mind control now, following the program set into Shenshoujin and attacking the other Symphogear users.


This is too much. This is actually too much utopic tension. If even sweet Miku can be swayed to a heel turn for the sake of shocking drama, how do we come back from it? It gets worse, somehow. Shenshoujin has the ability to degrade relic power, so Tsubasa and Chris are in a hell of a bind trying to fight back. Hibiki has to come out and try and sort this out, and now we see just how far the corruption has spread through the show. They talk it out, Miku explaining the conflict-free utopia she wants to make for Hibiki, and Hibiki explaining that such a world wouldn't be the "warm" one she has with Miku. That's sweet, but look at the mess we're in. That doesn't stop Miku and her program from going at it. They can no longer understand each other by talking. They have to have a magical girl fight. The actual core theme of the series has been damaged. Jesus Christ almighty. Again I ask, as I thought when first seeing this, how do we come back from this? Hold that thought, because it's about to get even worse somehow.


The resolution to Miku's heel turn and Hibiki's own corruption comes here, but it is a heavy cost. Hibiki's going to go all out to try and disable Shenshoujin, at great risk to herself thanks to the corruption lurking inside her. All of this is enough to make Miku, the real Miku, begin to show through, but not enough to stop Shenshoujin from firing an ultimate mirror beam... one that both Miku and Hibiki get hit by. One strong enough to awaken Frontier, which was Dr. Ver's goal this entire time. All of this corruption and betrayal. All to serve his needs. As if things weren't utterly fucked enough, one final betrayal serves as the shocking post-credits scene of Episode 11. Chris, who's been haunted by guilt over the Staff Of Solomon all series, shoots Tsubasa in the back and betrays her. NO, REALLY: HOW IN THE FUCK DO WE COME BACK FROM THIS? You're going full grim here, Symphogear G, and down a gritty path of betrayal and lack of trust that's making me lose faith in you! Please. I implore you. We need that utopic spirit to come back. We need to cast out this corruption, but in a way that doesn't betray any other ideals.


We need some utopian understanding.

(Continued in 2.4)