Gundam 00 isn’t about “UNDERSTANDING”
I hate how most people seem to think and/or mouth off that the whole point of Gundam 00, is that Peace could be achieved if people could simply UNDERSTAND each other.
No. That’s not the message, nor was it ever. Even if it’s mentioned in the final quote in the movie, there is an even larger theme that is hammered into the viewer constantly throughout the series. It even mentions it in the movie near the climax.
Remember Lockon?: “Didn’t I tell you Setsuna? You’ll change. I couldn’t, so you have to do it in my place.”
While he might have seemed the most mature and level-headed of the S1 Meisters, he was the one most gripped by his ties to his past. His drive for vengeance.
His desire to get revenge for his family even went so far that he risks his life to make one final attempt on Ali’s life. A ridiculous 1 out 1 Million chance to catch Ali off-guard and hit him with a shredded beam cannon. An attempt that ultimately proves futile.
Parallel to this is the once Civilian, Louise Hallevy; who like Lockon, had her entire family brutally murdered in front of her.
Unlike Lockon though, Louise DOES manage to get revenge by killing Nena Trinity. However, there is nothing at the end of that road. Her family is still dead, and she is all alone. Her quest for revenge gave birth to nothing but more pain.
These two subplots both connect to the show’s central theme.
Change of being takes many forms, but in this case it’s letting go of the past and moving on. To overcome ones own tragedies and regrets, and learning from them so one can live on in the present.
Almost everyone in the show who couldn’t change, who blindly held onto their self-serving motivations met a tragic end. Neil Dylandy, Wang Liu Mei, Nena Trinity, the Innovades; all met a fate that could’ve easily been avoided if they made the attempt to see another path. Then there are the people who managed to overcome their pain and live for the present. Soma Pieres, Saji Crossroad, Graham Aker, Andrei Smirnov, and even Lyle Dylandy.
Then there is Setsuna himself.
Prior to the start of 00, Setsuna had essentially traded one faith for another. In his youth Setsuna was a child soldier fighting in the name of god. Under Celestial Being, he fights in the name of achieving Peace. In the name of Gundam he blindly follows every single order from Celestial Being, truly believing that all the death and destruction he causes will really lead to Peace. He’s so obsessed that his teammates can’t even take him seriously. Remember how he told Lockon (Neil) that he wouldn’t mind being killed by him, as long as he would continue pursuing Peace under Celestial Being in his place?
Yeah, Setsuna was still that naive child soldier. Only this time instead of being armed with a broken and bandaged AK-47, he was piloting bleeding edge MS technology. A Gundam.
I could describe every point of development, but I’ll summarize by saying that it wasn’t until S2 that Setsuna began to understand that killing everyone who causes conflict wouldn’t lead to peace (that’s what A-Laws was doing). He still desired to create a world without war, but understood that his old way of fighting would not lead to it. In order for peace to be achieved he had to LET GO of his past and reform himself; he had to CHANGE.
That’s where the whole UNDERSTANDING thing comes in. But even with UNDERSTANDING, for some it only amounted to understanding that some people will never change. That’s Ali Al Saachez. That’s Ribbons Almark.
This all builds up to the movie, where Setsuna and Tieria have an incredibly important conversation before going to the ELS Homeworld.
Setsuna: Let’s go, to their homeworld. We need to understand each other.
Tieria: Is that really a good idea?
Setsuna: It doesn’t matter if it’s good or bad. It’s just… the meaning of life that I found.
Even in the face of uncertainty, the possible death of himself and everything he holds dear, Setsuna knows that he must try to understand the ELS; to get the ELS to understand him, and thus Humanity.
So in the end, what Gundam 00 says about UNDERSTANDING is that even if people could understand one another like Newtypes, it would mean NOTHING. What’s important is that people PUT IN THE EFFORT to understand each other. Something so incredibly simple, that we are all already capable of. And even if there is the potential for failure, even if it is scary or illogical, it is still something that we must do.
For peace to become a reality, all people must change for the better. Because we are all in this together.
