Part 4: Percussion Of Perfection
We've been talking all around the Bavarian Illuminati, but we have yet to dive into the specific ideology which drives the trio in this series. Doing that will uncover a unique but interesting ideological conflict between them and the Symphogears, so let's poke at it. Our first glimpse of them was melting a bunch of Val Verdan military leaders into glowing light, which Saint Germain then absorbed and used to summon that big god dragon. We'll get to that, but they're also here to pick up a specific something or other... that something or other being an ancient Autoscorer named Tiki who's vital to their plans. Why not use her sooner? Well...
I guess that explains why Finè didn't just fuck with alchemy from the get-go; they were heretical technology rivals? This "alchemy beating the shit out of song" shit is getting old, and it's not ending any time soon. Even so, she did delay their plan by causing Tiki to fall into the ocean. At least, it's delayed until the Nazis dig Tiki up and then one takes her down to Val Verde for Saint Germain and friends to find. Mmmmm nope I'm still not ready to talk about World War 2 and this show more. How about we talk about Saint Germain's ideology and motivation, one which her friends Cagliostro and Prelati are behind as well in order to help their friend out? It's funny that the trio had a throwdown with Finè ages ago, because their goals are near-identical. That's right, folks! We're back to the grand goal of fucking around with the moon to undo the Curse of Balal! The Tower Of Babel was real, the moon keeps the world from mutual understanding, and Saint Germain wants to eradicate the curse to bring about a worldwide harmony, whatever the cost.
The cost, as Saint Germain will never let herself forget, is thousands of lives. She is unhesitant in doing what must be done and sacrificing lives to the cause, as we've seen with her melting the Val Verdans... but she keeps count as she does it. Her tally is somewhere in the ballpark of 73,000 and climbing as we begin the series. An antagonist with noble intentions and regrets over what has to be done, but willing to do it nonetheless. You know, just the right sort of antagonist for a magical girl show. Her backstory is sufficiently tragic, a child slave in ancient times treated poorly because a lack of mutual understanding led to a world in which people like her could be treated cruely, a world where her mother could die of illness. Rebelling against control is Saint Germain's biggest motivation; as she helpfully puts it, the technology of alchemy exists to fix a world controlled by others. The grand desire of the Bavarian Illuminati is a liberated humanity, freed of the shackles of misunderstanding... all at the low low cost of about 73,000 lives or so. To that end, they have a plan... but when our Symphogear girls try to stop them in episode 4, they're met with a little surprise.
We spoke last season of power creep, and how the alchemy introduced therein was basically just taunting us with overwhelming power that our girls had to overcome by facing their weaknesses and growing from them. The result, Ignite Mode, was a powerup mode which basically weaponized the imperfect despair and doubt in their hearts to heal from it and fight back. Pretty neat idea, all things considered. Yeah, the Bavarian Illuminati come into the big fight at the climax of Episode 4 with a power creeped perfect counter to that shit that knocks the girls out of it with one parried attack. I use the word "perfect counter" literally there as our alchemists are using, no bullshitting, the power of no less than the Philosopher's Stone to create themselves a powerup called the Faust Robe. Think of it like an alchemical Symphogear; a thing you transform into to get stronger. They reached alchemical perfection thanks to Carol's little world dissection attempt, learning how to transmute the damn thing and make themselves perfect. As we learn, the Philosopher's Stone is perfection, able to purge all impurities... which is why it can exactly counter the imperfect, flawed, weaponized corruption that is the Ignite Module. Light vs. darkness, except we're on the side of darkness. How are we going to overcome that shit? Easy. We embrace imperfection.
Strap in, because it's time to play with Symphogear lore. You may recall, way back in Season 2, the arc in which the shard of Gungnir stuck in Hibiki's chest was a dangerous corruptive force that threatened her life and meant she couldn't fight. A great big mirror beam melted away the corruption with its purifying light, Hibiki got a new Gungnir from Maria, and all was well... until season 3 when Hibiki had anxiety over fighting, but let's digress for now. Elfnein, in researching a way to beat the Faust Robes, comes across this report and has light bulbs go off in her head. This is it. This is the way. As she explains:
There's some more technobabble about pair-annihilation barriers and the alchemical principal of the macrocosms and microcosms. Shove it all aside 'cause we don't need the technical formula information. Since this little speck of mineral corruption came from Hibiki, and it's going to directly oppose the Philosopher's Stone, Chris jokingly calls it the Fool's Stone as a playful rib at Hibiki's idealist naivity. Everyone else goes along with it sincerely and Hibiki is basically like "We're really calling it that?" but, with all apologies to the lovely Hibiki, it's the perfect name for it. To the grim practicality of the Bavarian Illuminati, Hibiki and friends' naive idealism is utterly foolish. You can't save the world with platitudes, heavy is the crown I wear, needs of the many, blah blah blah BLAH BLAH. This is actually played with earlier in the episode that introduces the Fool's Stone, as in the opening we have the Illuminati and the Symphogears confront one another.
It goes poorly, as an alchemical fight without powering up usually goes in this show, but the key are the accusations and rebuttals hurled back and forth rather than the magical girl bullets and sword slashes and punches. Saint Germain's stated goal is to make the imperfect perfect by undoing the Curse of Balal, and this is the ideology of the Bavarian Illuminati as well. The back and forth is an interesting clash between perfection and imperfection. Hibiki doesn't believe Saint Germain has the right to sacrifice others. Saint Germain clarifies they're not sacrifices, but the cornerstones of the revolution. Saint Germain dismisses Hibiki's platitudes as the words of someone who's never been oppressed for an unfair reason. Hibiki has to concede that she doesn't understand the words Saint Germain is saying... but even if that's true, thanks to her own harassment during that dark time when people called her a murderer, she can understand how she feels. This all leads to another interesting clash:
Now, I don't know how to take this one. It feels like a refutation of the old "needs of the many" thing, and the fact that we need to sacrifice people to create a shining utopia of understanding. This is something Hibiki refuses outright. There's a darker read of it that takes a sort of centrist stance, a tut-tutting of rocking the boat in order to bring about radical material progress. I don't know. It's kind of there, but I don't quite think that's what it's going for. At least, I don't think so. I think the key ideology here comes back to the nature of utopia. Saint Germain's perfect utopia will be built off the material sacrifice of others, whereas the ideal imperfect utopia Hibiki believes in will be built without the need for sacrifice; a utopia everyone can enjoy and better themselves from. Hibiki believes in utopia for the sake of bettering others, whereas Saint Germain is seeking utopia out of revenge for the hurt and pain she's been caused. Hibiki knows hurt and pain too, but she's never let it darken her idealist view of the world. This is what the show's doing, I think; embracing the imperfection, the foolishness of Hibiki's way vs. Saint Germain's perfect world. A perfect utopia would be better, but the cost is too great and so Hibiki rejects it.
So then. How do we get this Fool's Stone? Well, it was in the Undersea Dragon Palace. You know, that place where Dr. Ver was locked up for life last time. Also the place that Chris blew to fuck in her desperate battle with an Autoscorer. There's some more regret from Chris for her reckless actions in battle, but it's okay. We can do a salvage operation. The salvage operation is then interrupted by Cagliostro and Prelati. What's interesting here is the resolution of this battle. We've hammered in how oh so perfect the Philosopher's Stone is, and how alchemy will kick a Symphogear's ass every time. So, when Kirika and Shirabe team up to have a fight in this episode, you know what to expect. They'll do okay for a bit, it'll be flashy, then alchemy will do some bullshit and they'll get their asses beaten. We've seen it before. You can't surprise me with this shi--
Oh. OH. Oh, okay. Now they win? No Fool's Stone, no Ignite, none of that. Just two gay magical girls working together, and they blast the shit out of Prelati. The technical explanation is something to do with Symphogear Unison, and how Kirika and Shirabe are a great pair together. Think about what just happened in light of the ideological conflict we've been seeing, though. An imperfect pair of lesbians, without powering up, just beat the hell out of a perfect being. If that doesn't hammer the point home that the show is embracing imperfection, I don't know what does. It's even Kirika who ends up finding the Fool's Stone in the next episode, and now everyone will be able to go Ignite against the Illuminati again once Elfnein finishes her modifications. The only thing left to work on is Unison, so let's poke at that just a bit.
We've been dancing around it previously, as these next two episodes contain the Chris/Sonya resolution, Shirabe's self-doubts, and the "deaths" of Cagliostro and Prelati. Now that we're on it from this angle, let's get poking. Following getting their shit wrecked by Kirika and Shirabe, Cagliostro heals up Prelati and goes after Chris herself. When everyone else shows up, her grand plan is splitting them into unlikely pairs so that their compability is down and she can win. To that end, she ends up with Chris and Maria against her while everyone else is out of commission, so to speak. Luckily, commander Genjuro anticipated this strategy, and thus had everyone start training with each other, such that any combination of two Symphogear users could work well together. This appears to have worked for Chris and Maria, as they blast Cagliostro away. I've already said now I feel about that, so let's focus on the Shirabe arc for a moment.
We set it up before when we were complaining about Prelati's defeat, but Shirabe is having trouble with the Unison training. Kirika can do it fine, but Shirabe can't seem to do it with anyone but Kirika, and so a shrine trip for intel becomes double duty training. There are some interesting "clues" scattered about here. Like how Shirabe flashes back to meeting Kirika, and can't remember her real name; the FIS folks just named her based on a shrine charm they found with her. The priest of the shrine is an old man who offhandedly mentions these girls remind him of his grandchild whose parents died in an accident. If that grandchild were still around, she'd be about their age. HMMMM. The show spells it out in a post-credits scene at the end of the episode via some sort of twist involving how you write the kanji for Tsuki. Yeah this is where Shirabe came from, and the shrine priest is her granddad. Neither of them find out, but it's this old guy who helps Shirabe understand why she can't work with others, and gives her the space to vent:
It's the unlikely pairing of Tsubasa that helps break through this, as stated; one former lone wolf understanding another. It's lovely, it really is. It's just a shame that it's in the battle where Prelati gets blown up for speeding down the highway to warn her best friend. What can I say but yikes? Rather than get into that, let's talk about another thing. Those of you paying attention will note there's only one unlikely pairing left: Hibiki and Kirika. Aside from them being my two favorite girls on the show and this being more than welcome, I can't actually talk about their pairing yet without getting into endgame territory. So let's do that. Let's finish this sucker up, and talk about the shitlord Adam Weishaupt, and the power of the gods.
No comments:
Post a Comment