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IBO reference notes on . . . character parallels and counterpoints

Spoilers for everything, warning for references to child abuse and other unpleasantness

Iron-Blooded Orphans is obviously chock full of parallels, similar situations repeating at different times and levels of society, under different circumstances, with different degrees of desperation. Some of this is prefigurative, in the way that tragedies are structured so you can see the disaster coming. Some of it is merely reinforcing the omnipresence of the series' themes.

It is also full of things that counterpoint those parallels, despite appearing superficially similar, throwing the themes into sharper relief by the contrast.

I wanted to get my thoughts in order about a couple sets of character parallels that form the core of the story.

Spears, axes and swords: Mikazuki, Ein and Julieta

Mikazuki Augus, as we know, is utterly devoted to Orga Itsuka, hanging on his every word and doing anything he says without hesitation. Orga uses him as a weapon, in pursuit of a dream of happiness, never stopping or backing down because he's got Mika at his side.

Except, this is almost precisely backwards. Mika is devoted to Orga and the dream Orga promised him, but in actuality, Orga hasn't got a clue what that dream actually looks like and is mostly trying to make Mika's dreams come true. Mika heads steadily towards what he wants do – be a farmer – while Orga only ever runs from what he has in the moment. And though Mika outsources his morality and decisions with no complaints, Orga is driven half-crazy by trying to live up to the impossible pedestal Mika has put him on. He's terrified by how far Mika will go, knowing Mika literally won't let him stop, and in this lies the root of everything that goes wrong for Tekkadan.

It is this dynamic that we see reflected in Ein Dalton and Gaelio Bauduin's arc throughout season one. Ein forms an explicit parallel to Mika: a low-born (half-)Martian, reliant on the orders of authority figures, ultimately surrendering to machine augmentation in order to win. They even get near-identical dialogue, variants on “What shall we do now, Orga/Specialist Major?” Crucially, like Mika, Ein is the one in the dynamic with the definite dream in need of fulfilling. While Gaelio gets his pride hurt by being trounced every time he tries to fight Tekkadan, pursuing them is just his job. It's Ein who is obsessed with revenge on Mika for killing Lieutenant Crank and the moral pretext of that obsession slowly drags Gaelio into its orbit.

Interestingly, Gaelio only ever displays admiration for Ein, with none of the fear lurking behind Orga's similar praise for Mika's determination and strength. For Gaelio, Ein is an exemplar of dedication the likes of which he has never seen before in an organisation populated by schemers and toadies. From his lofty position in society, he waxes poetic about Ein's positive qualities and has his world-view shifted by coming to understand what it is like to be an outsider in Gjallarhorn. Ein really does make him a better person.

But that admiration also blinds Gaelio to how over-zealous and misguided Ein is. He cannot see the things he should be wary of in his new friend. I think, as a character, he is capable of doing so – it tracks with what is established about him that he'd one day have a moment of realisation to the effect of 'I've fallen in love with a nutcase'. This being a tragedy, however, that moment is denied to him until it is far too late.

Ein dies raving to an indifference audience. For all their similarities, Mika cannot comprehend what Ein is talking about and so has no chance to end things peacefully, if de-escalation is even something he were capable of (it absolutely is not; have you seen this kid?). Ironic, given where Mika himself ends up – another parallel, though I imagine most people reading this will have more sympathy for our protagonist than his season one nemesis. And certainly Ein is the villain here. He embraces Gjallarhorn as a way to accrue the power denied him as a colonial citizen, turning on his fellow Martians and showing not one shred of compassion for their equally (if not more) dire situation. This is despicable. But I can't help feeling sorry for him anyway, or for Gaelio in lacking Orga's clarity on precisely what kind of person has latched to his side.

With Ein off the table and rebuilt into another piece of furniture for season two, his spot on the antagonists' roster is taken in an approximate sense by Julieta Juris. For several reasons, she initially appears to be another straight parallel to Mika.

First, she is more or less explicitly a child soldier. Ein can be hand-waved as being at least a sensible age for joining the army; Julieta is clearly either very young or very immature to be holding the position she does. Second, she's a supremely gifted pilot. Ein is merely dogged until he gets wired into a mobile suit; Julieta is actually capable of giving Mika a run for his money in her own right. Third, like Mika, she is written as being somewhat off in her social interactions. She relates to people atypically compared to those around her, showing both inappropriate candidness and misinterpreting things people say. Plus there's the whole 'how does this butterfly taste' moment.

(When I say this, I mean it's used in the story to convey that she's weird. Obviously there's an ickiness in this usage, one neither unique to this show nor something I feel qualified to discuss in depth there. But it's worth noting 'being off' is part of Ein's characterisation too, just hidden better until he gets incarnated as a giant red-eyed robot and his obsessiveness goes into overdrive.)

The key difference separating Julieta from Mikazuki lies in her relationship to Rustal Elion. Like Mika, Julieta devotes herself to someone else's cause, killing and suffering for it. But unlike Mika, for Julieta, it really is a case of having no dream of her own. As Amida highlights when they fight, there is an emptiness to Julieta's devotion to Elion. When Mika gives everything he has to Orga, it's out of a sincere belief Orga really can take him to the place where everyone is happy. I don't think anything Mika does makes sense if that's not what he honestly thinks. But for Julieta, following Elion is simply payback for being lifted out of a life of impoverishment. She knows – by the end of the series, if not before – that he isn't the kind of honourable adult she once imagined him to be. Yet she remains at his side, still assuming he knows best.

Compare this to the breakdown in Mika's demeanour when he thinks Orga might go back on his word. I could be wrong, but I think that's the only time in the entire series when Mika raises his voice. It's certainly the most outwardly emotional he gets. He near-on attacks Orga over the prospect of giving up. Of course he does. The dream Orga gave him, that he shaped for himself into a vision of being a farmer, peacefully raising crops, is something he fiercely wants to happen, for him and everyone else. Whenever he asks Orga what to do next, it's always with that goal in mind.

Julieta, meanwhile, merely waits for the next order. For all her talk of honing herself into the sharpest sword Elion has, she expresses very little interest in what she will be used for. Her devotion is the entire focus of her life and it prevents her from really growing as a person, no matter that she is more capable of interrogating and questioning the world around her than most of Tekkaan.

In their final confrontation, she can't understand why Mika keeps on fighting when it's hopeless, despite having shown a similar disregard for her own life in past battles. And I think that speaks to a sense in which she really can't conceptualise life without Elion's instruction. Mika chooses to carry Orga's vision forward after losing him because in all the most important respects, it was already his. I'm not sure Julieta could do likewise.

In summary, then, Ein provides a parallel to how Mika actually exists in his relationship to Orga, while Julieta provides one to how it appears. Julieta is utterly subservient to someone else's ambitions, while both Mika and Ein are by far the more influential halves of their respective relationships.

Hollow kings: Orga, McGillis and Elion

As I said above, Orga, bless him, hasn't got a clue what he's doing. He desperately wants something better for himself and his friends, but can't ever quite articulate what 'better' should be. We see him latch on to a series of different possibilities: the First Group, a family, a Teiwaz subsidiary, the people backing Kudelia's cause, kings of Mars. Each one of these comes from someone else and each one is a wavering mirage, always just past the next battle.

There's no insincerity in what Orga does, mind you. He is easily one of the most open hearted characters in the series, having no gear between 'indifferent you exist' and 'I would bend heaven to get you the stars on a plate.' Orga wants more than anything to give Tekkadan decent lives, where they'll never have to go back to the nothing they had before. Sadly, he's also the ultimate short-term planner, constantly revising where he's headed and letting others dazzle him into different conceptions of who he and Tekkadan should be. With the loss of one voice of reason after another, it's inevitable that things go off the rails.

One of those people telling him what he should be is the guy who, by rights, ought to be the main villain of IBO: McGillis Fareed. At first, McGillis is set up as a traditional Gundam enemy, manipulating both sides of the conflict for his own gain while wearing some funky headgear. He masterminds the deaths of several close friends, the obliteration of his adoptive father's plans and installs himself as one of the leaders of Gjallarhorn. You would be forgiven for thinking him Orga's counterpoint: the man with a solid goal who lies to everyone around him, manipulating without any genuine feeling at all.

Except, when we finally get his backstory, we discover that it's his smug, manipulative persona that is the act, carefully built over a life of poverty and sexual abuse. McGillis is, beneath the smarm and chess-mastery, exactly the same as Orga. A kid from the streets, running away from nothing, taking every chance he can get to become stronger and safer. As a result, everything he says to Tekkadan is absolutely, one hundred percent true.

I'm going to say that again for those at the back because this is absolutely crucial to everything to do with McGillis: he means everything he says about how inspiring and remarkable Tekkadan are. From the very first time he sees Barbatos in action, McGillis is enamoured with the idea this bunch of Martian kids can change the world, because that would mean that he can do the same thing. He is flat out in love with how Mikazuki fights and I honestly think he would have done everything he could to make Orga king of Mars if they'd won.

Which is plainly absurd. Thinking one group of mercenaries, no matter how talented, would tip the balance of power is as nuts as thinking the whole of Gjallarhorn would follow him for the sake of an old myth. It's a child's logic.

And, well . . . of course it is. See, Orga had Mika to help him through the misery of his early life. Whatever the horrible, terrible, not good outcomes of their co-dependency, Orga and Mika do genuinely care for one another. They drive each other forward in large part because of how much the other matters to them. But McGillis never had anyone like that. He was always alone, forced to fight only for his own survival.

Until, one day, he read a book.

If Orga has Mika than, bizarre as it sounds, McGillis has Agnika Kaieru, founder of Gjallarhorn and presumed Ars Goetia enthusiast. More precisely, he has whatever heavily editorialised version found its way into the official history. Sneaking out of his abuser's bed in the middle of the night, he comes across this text and it changes everything. Suddenly he realises that someone like him, with no one to rely on, can still reshape the world if he gains enough power. In that book, he finds his inspiration and a dream to chase.

Is that dream any more well-formed than Orga's? Certainly McGillis is capable of long-term planning. He wanted Bael since he was twelve and he gets it, finally becoming one with his hero. But what were the next steps? What did restoring Gjallarhorn to its original glory look like? He's very vague on the details, never committing to an actual description of what will change past him being king of the world. I suspect the truth is, he no more knows than Orga knows what 'that place' where he and Mika can belong will be like. These are two characters escaping horrible presents by aiming for the idea of somewhere else, be it an imagined future or an imagined past.

For the true counterpoint to these would-be kings, we have to turn to the man who actually does end up as king: Rustal Elion. Now, Elion spends much of his screen-time calling McGillis 'power mad' or some variation thereof, which is ironic given everything Elion does is in the name of preserving a status quo in which he is one of the most powerful people in the world. I say ironic, what I really mean is: fucking aristocrats, man. I've explored how I think Elion sees the world in fan-fic, but to summarise, he's your typical colonial officer, dressing brutality up in terms of the way things ought to be while showing nothing but contempt for anyone who dares disrupt an unjust order. He doesn't aim for dreams; he aims for exactly what he already has, with all the unequalled force at his command.

Orga and McGillis are actors, both less than they appear, constantly favouring how they think they should present themselves over who they actually are. In Orga's case, this manifests as trying to be like Naze and the other besuited big shots in Teiwaz, a no-nonsense boss who can make the tough calls. He feels he has to be, for everyone else's sake. He hides away his doubt and his uncertainty, his desperate longing for someone to please tell him what he's supposed to do, even though he has plenty of people around him who would be willing to help. McGillis starts out playing the roll of diligent son and dedicated officer, slowly revealing the ambition beneath. Only, that ambition itself seems more aspiration than truth: it's what he wants to become, the ideal he plucked out of mythology, and it shakes in the light of actually having people who give a damn about him. A poor boy with a storybook, his loneliness is how he defines himself and winning will only matter if he does it alone. He can't face the idea that might not be possible.

But Elion is exactly what he looks like: the consummate pragmatist, supremely comfortable in his position as a leader. Moreover, he's good at being what he is in a way McGillis and Orga can only dream of. Lethally stupid though he and this comment are, Iok has a point when he remarks on the fact Elion plans of what happens after the battle. Of course he does. He can see the big picture, divorced from the pressures that make it hard for others to grasp or do anything about.

I think that's why it doesn't trouble me overmuch that Elion swerves unexpectedly into democratisation in the epilogue. This is a man who will do anything to preserve his authority, including starting wars and breaking ancient weapons bans. A little adjustment to the existing system, introducing homeopathic traces of what McGillis claimed he was after, that leaves Elion on top, doesn't seem especially contradictory given the circumstances at the end of the series.

Because ultimately, Orga and McGillis are chasing ideals that they've shaped their entire sense of self around. They have to play those parts, not because the alternative is unthinkable but because they've lived it and it sucked. Orga has to give his family everything. McGillis has to be the singular great man of history. Anything else is a lethal failure. Elion has the luxury to reshape himself as events required. He can go from bombing children from orbit to signing a slavery abolition treaty because these are equally minimal costs in the service of keeping his big fancy chair.

If Julieta is an empty vessel of devotion in comparison to Mika, then Elion is the perfect inverse of Orga for her to attach herself to.

Concluding note: It's all in the presentation

Like my previous character interpretation, I don't really have a point to make here beyond that I find it interesting how this plays out over the series and, well, this is how I read what's shown on screen. All acts of reading or viewing are in part hallucinations, filling in what is not said outright, and I don't know for sure to what extent anything I have constructed here was intended.

That said, there are clear deliberate motifs that recur throughout the comparisons I'm drawing. The most blatantly obvious is Mika and Orga, Ein and Gaelio, and Julieta and Elion all consist of a short person in a (seemingly) subordinate role to a taller one. Then we have things like the way Elion and Orga both favour a coat worn over their shoulders when directing battles, and the way McGillis and Orga use their hair to obscure their faces at certain points. There are constant similarities in how one side of each relationship addresses the other, with the overarching theme of what it means to 'give everything you've got', and echoes of Orga's concern for Mika's deterioration in how Elion treats Julieta or Gaelio's fear for Ein after his injuries. And I think it telling that Orga and McGillis both meet ignoble, anticlimactic fates, the one succeeding with his aim as best he can, the other having it stripped away from him, piece by piece.

A parallel in a story is often more to show the tyranny of small differences than anything else. Switch any of these characters around and they might have done the same as the person they swapped with. Even those I raise as counterpoints are perhaps only so because of how they lived. It's a neat trick, evoking the tragedy that comes from missed understanding. And I personally think IBO pulls it off very, very well.

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