The Harmony Of Hope And The Dirge Of Despair: Part 2 (Senki Zesshou Symphogear G) [2.5]

(Continued from 2.4)

Part 5: Hymn Of Heroism


Finally, after 8800 words (yes, I counted) of calling this guy the worst piece of shit, I get to properly delve into his words and deeds. Dr. Ver is, without a doubt, one of the most despicable antagonists I have ever experienced in media. I haven't felt this righteous fury for someone since [REDACTED] from the [REDACTED] books by [REDACTED]. Unlike [REDACTED] though, Dr. Ver isn't a huge racist. No,  there's one driving force beyond everything Dr. Ver says and does over the course of Symphogear G. He actually told us at the beginning of the show, after Hibiki and Chris saved him from the Noise attack on the train (that he orchestrated, the PRICK). It's right there.

Of course, in the moment, Hibiki just thinks he's praising her and Chris since he had just done so a moment ago. She takes it as flattery, wanting to be praised and called a hero even more. We're going to put a huge pin in that for Hibiki at the end of the season, but right now we're in Prickville with Dr. Ver. That's it. That's what drives him. "I want to be a hero.". On the surface, that sounds like a good thing. He's working with FIS to stop the moon from falling, right? All the bad things he does must be like the bad things Maria, Kirika, and Shirabe do in order to enact the good of saving the world, yes? Their end goal was awakening Frontier, and Frontier ends up being this massive ancient flying fortress thing which was at the bottom of the sea. Presumably they're going to save as much of humanity as they can by using Frontier as an ark. Unfortunate that the moon will crash down and kill millions, but hey. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, right?


Oh no. Not for Dr. Ver. Dr. Ver, with all his manipulative plotting and terrible deeds, is a selfish prick. His scheme is basically a more pathetic version of Fine's from last season, minus all the stuff about wanting to blow up the moon to talk to God. The other half of her scheme involved her saving part of humanity from the very ecological disaster she caused, and being praised as their savior. That is why Dr. Ver wants to be a hero. He doesn't want to save the world because it's the right thing to do. He wants to save the world and get praised for it. Actually, praised is an understatement. Dr. Ver wants to be worshipped for it. His end goal is literally ruling over the remnants of humanity like an alpha male top dog, finally getting his due diligences. To accomplish this, he will do anything and everything. He has done anything and everything, in fact, but once FIS wakes up Frontier he takes a whole other level in SADISTIC PRICK.

Corruptive influence, giant hand, attacking the moon?
Oh yeah there's something there.

Once upon Frontier, Dr. Ver wastes no time in doing some bullshit to his own arm to make it a MONSTER ARM that can operate Frontier. Once he has full control of it, he proceeds to do two things that show his true colors. The first is using bursts of gravity to lay waste to the US battleships currently attacking Frontier. Now, let me remind you that Frontier is an ancient mega-fortress with heretical technology. This is not the kind of show where a couple of battleships are any threat to Frontier. This is a show of force from Dr. Ver. Having gained the power of an ancient mega-fortress, he's murdering soldiers just because he can. Maria, of course, is absolutely aghast. Is this the power to save humanity? FUCK NO IT ISN'T, MARIA, HE'S JUST A MURDEROUS PRICK!!! It's what he does next that really shows where his head is at. He manifests a giant energy hand from Frontier, up into space, and pulls against the moon to raise Frontier upwards. Yes. You read that right. Dr. Ver, the hero doing all this murder and manipulation in order to save humanity before the moon falls, just ACTIVELY ACCELERATED THE EXTINCTION-LEVEL EVENT OF THE MOON FALLING. Maria tries to stop him, but he basically slaps her 10 feet away with his monster arm. Once he ensures the end of the world, he goes off to monitor Chris as we've discussed. We already know how that ends, with utopian understanding trouncing his dumbass manipulations, but what happens in the meantime?


Maria and Nastassja cook up a plan together, while Nastassja is down in a separate control center of Frontier. Using the power of hacking, I guess, they kick up a worldwide broadcast for Maria. It's very much a mirror of how she introduced herself back in episode 1, making her grim intent known to the world. Now she's here, letting spill all the dark secrets of FIS and the American government and their intent to be the only ones to survive the imminent moon collapse. The plan, then, is a simple one: Reboot the moon with the power of songs. There's also a mention that someone called the "Custodians" like, created the moon for the purpose of stripping our mutual understanding? Let's save that for later in the series, should it come up. Still, I find this lovely. Maria turning from the grim path, realizing they've been playing to Dr. Ver's fiddle the entire time, and trying to walk along the path of right and save the world with song. On her own, it's not enough... so she does the humble thing. She asks for help. She asks the world for their songs.


We'll see how that goes in a bit, as there's so many plotlines and balls in the air right now. Before I peace out to another one, I want to talk about Dr. Ver again. Once he gets back from the Tsubasa and Chris misadventure, he finds out this is what Maria and Nastassja have been up to. Maria's plan hasn't worked, much to her despair. That doesn't stop Dr. Ver from giving her another smack with his big monster arm. Then he delivers the one line that lays bare his entire motivation, what drives him, what makes him do all these terrible things.

You petty fuck. You fucking. petty. fuck. All the murder, all the manipulation, all the accelerating the end of the world... it was all so you could do whatever you want, and you deliver a selfish smug narcissistic line like that when someone with more heroism in her little finger than you have in your entire body DARES to try and actually SAVE THE FUCKING WORLD? As if that wasn't fucked up enough, Dr. Ver then decides he's had enough of Nastassja's face, so he activates a console and shoots her into space. You know what else you all get? More screenshots to illustrate how much of a fuck Dr. Ver is!

This is not heroism. This isn't even selfish narcissism. This is sociopathic. Dr. Ver has no moral core, no compunctions preventing him from murdering or manipulating to his own ends. It's like he looked at the definition of hero, stopped after seeing it was a person who was revered, and said "THIS IS WHO I WANNA BE!". His pettiness will only reach bigger levels once he's taken down a peg, the pathetic prick, but before we get to that... Hibiki is here!


She's also stopping Maria from plunging Gungnir through whatever shriveled lump resembling a heart is inside Dr. Ver's chest. Protecting this piece of shit seems a bit at odds, but I choose to take it as Hibiki wanting Maria to stay on the right path and not stain her hands any more. That, plus there will be a better-presented reason for letting Dr. Ver live in a bit. Anyway, Hibiki stops Maria's Black Gungnir spear with her own hand, and then comes a miracle. The more cynical would call it a copout. Hibiki sings her Gungnir activation song, and there's this big burst of light emanating from the upper sanctum of Frontier (which EVERYONE WATCHING immediately knows is Hibiki At It Again) before... Gungnir transfers itself over from Maria to Hibiki. Our girl has her powers back! How'd this happen? Why'd this happen?


As Maria says later, her Gungnir answered Hibiki's song. Vague, but I can live with it. We've survived the worst Dr. Ver and his corruptive influence can throw at us, we've redeemed those on the dark path... so now the only one left to heal is Hibiki. I like to think that, though Gungnir's shards are gone in Hibiki, there's still a lingering essence left there which resonated with Maria's Gungnir. We can even call it the pure resonance of the Harmony Of Hope. Things are starting to turn around! Maybe Hibiki can save the world, after all! Mmm. No, that's not quite accurate to say. The world can be saved, but up until now all our approaches have been wrong. We don't need the grim practicality of saving a select few, like the Americans and Dr. Ver have been trying to do. We don't even need just a handful of magical girls to save the world. No, what we get is a collaborative effort. What we get is the successful version of what Maria was trying to do earlier. Serena comes to her in a vision, asking her the simplest of questions. What is it you want to do? Maria answers:

Everyone. Not a select few, not America, not a peasant class to rule over. Everyone. At last, utopian enlightenment. So it is that we come back to where we began. The apple song. At first a duet between Maria and Serena's spirit, but we soon see the entire world shimmering with the resonant phonic gain, hands clasped in prayer. We are saving the world. Not Dr. Ver, not America, not even just a handful of magical girls. All of us. Nastassja, up in space in her little rocket, can co-ordinate all this energy. We can stop the moon. We can save everyone. At long last, we've cast off the corruptive influence of Dr. Ver and reached a happy understanding.


Oh. but he doesn't like that. Dr. Ver has retreated deep into the heart of Frontier, and he still has another ace up his sleeve. He slaps Nephilim onto it, so the damn thing can absorb the power of Frontier. Indeed, this creates a really big monster for Hibiki, Tsubasa, and Chris to fight. It's pretty damn powerful! Not even three of them can take it out! Well, it sure is a good thing that we redeemed another trio of magical girls! Here we are. Our climax. Six girls, united by the utopian light, ready to sing their hearts out and beat back the corruption. At this unification, Dr. Ver has but one thing to say.

Fuck off. More importantly, as we all hold hands to gain the power of Set Harmonics, we have a resolution to the ideological challenge from the top of the show. Shirabe called Hibiki's naive idealism hypocritical, and too ineffective in protecting the weak. Now, holding hands and resonating, Shirabe wants to believe in Hibiki's way. So, she puts out a new ideological challenge: Show us your way, Hibiki. Show us how you'd save the world. Dr. Ver challenges this, as the prick would, and we get a hell of an exchange.

Hibiki, our embodiment of the utopic ideal, is harmonizing with the entire planet. It's the absolute perfect counter to Dr. Ver; he only cares about saving himself, whereas Hibiki cares about saving everyone. Dr. Ver, the corruptive influence that he is, has had the very grim practical mantra FIS used for its atrocities purified. The wants of the many outweight the wants of the few, and the many want to survive. Dr. Ver really doesn't like that, so he goes full petty prick: if he can't rule the world, he will destroy it. He sets Nephilim and Frontier to go apeshit berserk and burn everything up. At this point, he's taken into custody by Tsubasa's manager and the Commander of the Second Branch, and as they cart him off we get the reason why we need to keep Dr. Ver alive.

It's perfect, denying Dr. Ver any chance of getting what he wants, even in death, and this is where we'll leave him, save for a quick line at the end of this whole mess. Whining in chains in the back of a jeep that he wants to be a hero. Get out, you selfish prick. Far more pressing is the giant fire monster in space that threatens to destroy the Earth, but we've got six Climax Song-powered magical girls to have an exciting and visually amazing battle to save the world. It's great, but the big highlight for all of this is something Hibiki says:

She actively rejects the title of hero. The thing Dr. Ver was obsessed over. The thing she took with gleeful thanks at the beginning of the show, wanting to be praised more over. After the trials and ordeals she's gone through, she's learned and grown from it. So have her five comrades here, and it's that learning that helps save the day. Chris got the Staff of Solomon, and since Nephilim is too strong to beat conventionally, they opt to instead open the portal to the Noise dimension with it and seal it inside. It's a dangerous gambit, but one that pays off. The way forward past Nephilim, back to the saved Earth? It's holding hands. Of course it was. Okay but actually they all hold hands and Maria (wielding Serena's old relic, by the by) and Hibiki each manifest a giant hand and the giant hands hold hands?? Holy FUCK I love this goddamn show. They win! It was inevitable, and in the end, as the girls land just outside the Second Branch's base, it's Miku who ends up delivering the final blow for the utopic ideal, hucking the Staff Of Solomon back through the portal to close it for good, and getting rid of the damn thing once and for all. That's it! The world is saved!


Dr. Ver's last scene is here, as he laments that a world that doesn't need heroes is wrong. Well, we proved you wrong, PRICK! Okay that's the last time I get to do that. With the day saved, there's still some lament. Nastassja is still lost in space, after all, and this whole ordeal has reset the moon, and thus the loss of mutual understanding that Fine was trying to blow up to begin with. Hibiki says what she did the last time. This world has songs, and we can understand each other through them. Maria recognizes this, and even as Hibiki tries to give her Gungnir back, she refuses. It belongs to Hibiki now. It's here I feel Hibiki has finally and truly come into her own. No longer just powered by the ghost of a relic, or trying to live up to anyone else, or aiming for a heroic ideal. She's earned the power of Gungnir, and rejected the title of hero. Heroism isn't the reward. Heroism is the choice. It's here that Shirabe passes back Fine's message, and we see that we can have the way forward, here and now. For that one shining moment, we understood each other. Who's to say we can never attain that again? The road will be long and hard, but as long as we have a hand to hold and a song to sing, we can believe in the light at the end of the tunnel.


Holy fuck. At long last, we're done with Symphogear G. I won't lie, this has been an odyssey and a half for me, between procrastination and despair at seeing how this thing ballooned out of proportion. It was supposed to be a four-parter, but it just kept expanding. I really adore this show and this season was incredible, albeit nerve-wracking on first watch. The utopic ideal was threatened, and things looked really bad there for a moment or two, but it all shone through. We got the girls going up against a selfish ideology and an absolute bastard of an antagonist, and some real challenges to the happy utopic ideal that were well-fought through and redeemed. I really really love this show, as the novella length of my words on its first two seasons has hopefully demonstrated. Here and now in a world that's facing its own very real calamities and disasters, it's a fun bit of idealist escapism to see a world where we all come together to save the day, instead of selfish people saving themselves and damning the rest. It's depressing, but this is a show that makes me feel better and enlightens me. I hope my words on it helped you feel better. We're going to move forward sooner than later, to uncharted Symphogear lands. I'll put my trust in the show and hope it doesn't betray me. Until then... Be excellent to each other, and hold someone's hand once in a while, you know?

END PART 2

TO BE CONTINUED...