"I am the ONLY one who has earned that right! In the entire

>>14002518
That he never had a back-up plan and cloned himself with that kind of justification and returned as the final boss in Destiny was a shame.

>>14002518
I like his mask.

I like FF's mask more.

>>14002518
What is his reason to be that edgy again ?

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"Your story is so unlikely even I'm starting to become convinced they were on to something - maybe their crazy dream had some validity."

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>>14002550
As Mu said, "He has no past and no future, maybe not even an identity."

He's a defective clone of a man he hated, and was basically abandoned after his progenitor died. He has no identity of his own, and sees himself as an embodiment of humanity's hubris. He ages too quickly, is wracked with unbearable pain unless he takes medicine, which we see continues to double in dosage during the series. So, he only the prospect of a short, meaningless life ahead of him. He really is a tragic figure, and that's why I think he's one of the better Gundam villains.

>>14002593
>continues to double in dosage during the series
that interesting little detail

>>14002550
He was born solely to fulfil a crazy rich person's mad ambition and was dying much faster than normal people from the day he was born

He was upset

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He tried to prevent Adam and Eve from creating a new genesis for humanity.

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>cripples the Strike but allows Mu to escape
>looks genuinely shocked to find he had been killed

>>14002750
Mu dying to save the Archangel didn't fit into Rau's narrative. He legit thought Mu killing him would have been dramatically appropriate even if Mu didn't have the power to do it at the time.

Which is why he rewrote events so that Mu survived

>>14002593
So basically Full Frontal with better writing?

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>Eve
Hey, that's MY role

>>14002777

Basically yeah. Also he has an actual original reason for wearing a mask as opposed to simply pandering to Charfags (both in and out of universe).

>>14002797
I like Cronicle's reason for wearing a mask personally.

>ugh fucking Earthnoids how do you fags even DEAL with all this dust I'm wearing a mask whenever I'm down here

But then he puts the mask on every time he sorties even though there's no "dust".

The only dust Cronicle's protecting himself from is the dust of MORALITY.

I always thought Rau had fucked up eyes (which is why his eyes are never, ever shown) or some shit aside from his visual resemblance to Mu. I mean if you think about it there's no reason to hide the fact that he looks like Mu from his fellow Zeon officers. I don't think they would care that one of their high ranking boys looks a lot like a Fed ace.

>>14002810
Or maybe he's a Char

>>14002810
>t he looks like Mu from his fellow Zeon officers. I don't think they would care that one of their high ranking boys looks a lot like a Fed ace.

He hated his own face.
Mostly because he hated the man he was cloned from. I recall one dub removed the only shot of his face you see.

>>14002810
> I always thought Rau had fucked up eyes (which is why his eyes are never, ever shown)

That may be the official excuse that he gives ZAFT, but the real reason is farore personal. Every time Rau looks in a mirror, he sees the face of the man he hates most in the world, the man he was created to be nothing but a copy of, and proof that he's not a 'real' person. Therein lies the difference; most Char clones masks hide their faces from others, while Rau's is to hide his face from himself.

>>14002759
>tfw Fukuda's self insert is actually Rau

>>14002550

He's really just naturally crazy. He killed Al Da Flaga and his wife and burned down their house when he was just a kid, long before he knew about the cloning problems he'd have.

Rau's just a psycho and his clone issues and the genocidal tone of the war (which HE mostly helped set up) is just his attempt at trying to have a moral high ground.

>>14002831

That's cause their wasn't in the original. The special edition added a shot after his mask gets knocked off where you see his face, and he just looks like an older Rey (the same SE that removed the helmet shot and came out when Destiny was about to air so they knew what was coming). The remaster added that shot in.

>>14002870
>the genocidal tone of the war (which HE mostly helped set up)

He didn't really, though. The political and financial leaders of the PLANTS and EFA were responsible for that.

His entire argument re: why humanity needs to burn is the fact that Patrick Zala and Muruta Azrael exist.

Was Rau a Coordinator?

>>14002920
No, hrs just that good.

And ultimately, for all their talk about how they're the superior species, it's all just in their head. Being born with better potential doesn't make you better. You still have to work for it. Which is why most coordinators aren't that special. Because I'm a coordinator society where everyone is special, no one is.

>>14002593
>. He really is a tragic figure, and that's why I think he's one of the better Gundam villains.


On paper I agree. In execution? Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeh not s'much

>>14002945
that's not reaaaallly all in their head. I mean having better potential still makes a superior species. Hard working people exist in both naturals and coordinators and the hard working coordinators would just be straight up better for the same effort let alone putting in more

>>14002952
That's the problem with these tv tropes style writeups/character rundowns. Laying out the concept like that can make the most low-brow fanfics seem like avant-garde high art.

Bullet pointing his motivations and shit makes it sound really incredible but watching the actual show none of that shit comes through to the viewer half as well as these posts put it

>>14002956
You're right, it's not ask in their head. But consider: a coordinator who's told he's better than everyone else, goes to military academy and finds others who were also told the same thing. Now you'll again have the normal dynamic of the hard workers and slackers.

It's like going from the being the topper in your school and going to a good college to find that everyone was a topper in their school. You might find your confidence bruised and start to slack off, resulting in bad performance. I know because it happened to me.

>>14002967
What I mean is that isolating themselves from naturals was definitely not good for them. Well once you put aside the persecution they faced before that is.

>>14002956
I think the point he was trying to make was that for all that we hear that coordinators are better we don't really see it. They still act like easily led idiots, and the only one that ever visibly accomplishes anything exceptional is Kira.

>>14002962
Well, not in a casual viewing. I think that a lot of this kind of stuff is something you have to sit and think about a work to realise. You might argue that a well written work should have it be clearly apparent, and you'd probably be right, but regardless, I think most works need a bit of scrutiny to bring interesting story elements to the surface. Just as long as you don't over think it and concoct a stupid meta-narrative in your head like those death of the author people.

>>14002974
Partially, I agree that the show failed to show how and why coordinators are better after a while but given Siegel Clyne's dialogue, I'm led to believe that it was at least partially intentional.

>>14002979
>I'm led to believe that it was at least partially intentional.
That partially is the problem. A theme about how for all their genetic engineering coordinators were still slave to the same base human instincts as everyone else, meaning that they really aren't any better in any meaningful capacity, would have actually been a really damn good theme, but for some reason the series seems to decide coordinators are the poor oppressed ubermenshen because everyone is just so jealous of how great they are, and that's completely unfitting with what was presented to us.

>>14002777
You'd honestly have to try hard to write someone worse than Full Frontal

>>14002999

Neo Roanoke

>>14002978
>Well, not in a casual viewing.

Look, it's one thing not to catch every detail in the first go. Im all for subtly. But you have to give the viewers SOMETHING. The big stuff should still be plainly visible and the character needs to be more than DIE DIE DIE DIE! crazy. Or at the very least more charismatic

>>14002992
Hey, I like SEED but never said it was perfect. I like its ideas and it allows me to make up my own interpretations. Not the way you should write a show but I'm satisfied.

>>14003008
Like I said, the better executed a series is, the less effort you need to put into it to extract things from it.

What do you want me to say? SEED is not a terribly well written series by any measure, so story and character elements are muted, obscured or completely mis-presented all over the shop.

>>14003014
> I like its ideas
Well, okay. What were they, in your impression?

>>14003024
Everything that's been discussed here. Not something I can properly put into words. Like a lot of the philosophical things Rau says. They may seem dumb or may not hold up on close examination but they're interesting to think about. I mean, one of my favourite episodes in Destiny is one of the recap episodes which recaps SEED of all things. Because it features Rau and Durandal's conversations with him.

>>14003024
I think we're talking about different things. I was referring to the ideas of SEED overall and you're referring specifically to Rau. Rau I have no problem with, as crazy nihilists go he's better realised than most (in that his claim to be ending the world because it sucks is just an excuse for his more petty and personal rage against the universe for the state of his own existence).

>>14003037
Meant for>>14003031

>>14003043
Right. Well, the only other notable idea I like would be Shinn staying a villain till the end and not getting redeemed halfway through. And getting humiliated by Athrun in the final battle to show how far he's fallen. And his genuine friendship with Rey which should have been a bit more developed.

>>14003019
>What do you want me to say? SEED is not a terribly well written series by any measure, so story and character elements are muted, obscured or completely mis-presented all over the shop.

Well you don't get points for ideas, is my point.

>>14003049
I think you do. You can go "Hm, well it's a shame, it could have been decent if on;y they'd..." instead of the usual blanket "it's shit".

>>14003055
That's how I feel about SEED in general. There's so much there that could be really interesting, and it either never gets used or is used improperly. For example, they introduced the concept of space whales and then never brought it up again. You can't just drop the reveal of "oh, yeah, there are space whales" and leave it at that.

>>14003005

Asspull survival aside Neo wasn't particuarly badly written. If anything he was fairly humanized for a bad guy. The real problem with him was how everyone else acted after his reveal to just rolling with it like he was Mwu again and forgetting all about him being Neo, even though Neo himself did not, which is again, less of a problem with Neo's character itself and just the shoddy way they brought him back into the story.

Though that's a more a case of them not really having any choice if they wanted to bring Mwu back because they killed him off definitively when they were under the impression that was gonna be all she wrote for Seed. Indeed many things in Destiny probably would have been improved solely if they just knew or planned for getting a sequel when writing Seed's finale.

>>14002550
>What is his reason to be that edgy again ?

It's very simple yet very deep, he lives in the Hirai-verse, as such he was cursed with the sameface curse, what's worse, he was actually a clone, so his sameface status was doubled, unable to deal with the severe buttpain of having the same face as the protagonist but not being the protagonist, Rau decides to WEAR THE MASK, partly freeing himself from the curse of the Hirai-verse.
Wearing the mask makes him effectively different from the rest, by being free from the cycle of samefaces, Rau decides to eliminate his pain from its root by genociding humans, so that the sameface would be eradicated and everyone would be free.

That's why he says>>14002518, he has the right to judge others because he's not like others, at least, not completely, he's a singular, self conscious entity in a world ridden with pain, sufference and samefaces.

>>14002978
Yeah that's definitely fair

>>14003005
Yeah, they tried really hard and ended up with a worst character.

Everyone's always bitching about Shinn and Kira, when the worst characters are Athrun and Neo

>>14002870
>which HE mostly helped set up
Not exactly.
The war was started because mad men like Patrick Zala and Azrael are in charge and started the war out of their genocidal insanity.

All he did was push the war along. He passed NJC tech to the EA, and Azrael could have easily refused to use it, but no, he used it. Rau knew that the crazy guy would use it, that's why he passed it to the crazy guy.

>>14002920
No.

But! Al naturally won the genetic jackpot. If Coordinators are modified to have maxed stats in every area, Al lucked into having that naturally. Rau and Rey got the same genes because cloning. No doubt >>14002956 and >>14002967 are right about Rau and Rey working hard, allowing them to excel even among Coordinators, but they had a good place to start from.

Incidentally, there's a Destiny drama CD where Shinn sucks at some... engineering thing? So he bullies Rey and Luna into helping him study and aces the exam. Meanwhile, Rey fails the exam because Durandal shows up to observe the academy and he gets flustered.

>>14002920

Apparantly not. Al Da Flaga was was supposedly that good.

But they never actually give an answer to that. Every time Rau and Rey's genetic types are brought up in profiles for books and such it's always listed as unknown.

>>14002945
I dunno man, being immune to genetic diseases and having better immune systems in general is a pretty sweet deal, and really is an advantage.

>>14002593
He really is. While I enjoyed SEED well enough at the time, I'm one of those for whom Destiny made it retroactively impossible to watch without getting disgusted with it and turning it off. However, he's definitely the best-written character in CE in my opinion, and probably the most interesting Char clone of them all.

>>14003359

It's less immunity and more available treatment; the original ZAFT pilot for the Gaia, Rika Sheder, was born blind. Anyone not in a third-world shithole in CE could get their child or themselves treated, until Blue Cosmos got their way and banned all genetic tampering on Earth, thus a resurgence of genetic diseases.

>>14003470

I loved how they played his Char Clone role. The entire series builds him up as mysterious so one would figure he had some profound scheme like creating a new world order or something. But nope, he just wants to literally kill everyone. They'll never be able to match that twist again.

"No matter what we learn, no matter what we manage to obtain, nothing ever changes! People are amazing that way! They become envious, hate each other, and destroy each other! If that's what they truly desire, why don't they simply exterminate each other?!"

I loved Rau. Especially the dub actor Mark Oliver's performance. Underrated voice actor.

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>>14002518
he wasn't a Coordinator, so how did he control Providence's DRAGOONs?

>>14004040
How did Mwu control the Mobius Zero's gunbarrels?

>>14004040
Why did he need to be one? Mu could operate the Mobius zero's gunpods without being an actual coordinator.

>>14004045
The Mobius Zero's gunbarrels were connected by wires, like incoms. Providence's DRAGOONs don't have wires.

>>14002810
Rau wears a mask because when he has it on, he isn't just a clone of his father. He is his own person.

>>14004040
Because Newtype.

Rau & Mu were supposed to be the last newtypes in CE.... then Fukuda made Kira go full-Amuro.

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Muh nihilism

>>14002974
In fairness, dad killed a lot of babies to make Kira what he is.

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>>14004091
The fuck? Pic was what I meant to post.

>>14004072
Right, but Coordinators aren't psychics, and the control isn't done via brainwaves that we know of. So being wired or not, being a Coordinator or not shouldn't make a difference.

>>14004040
Coordinators were just superhumans, they didn't have any fancy brainwave magic of newtypes.

>>14004072
Wait, isn't the Moebius Zero wireless, and that's why Mu is the Ace, while the Moebius uses wires?

>>14004200

Moebius were just run of the mill "Mobile Armour" that die by the many dozens, the Moebius Zero were the one with wired gunbarrels

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>>14004200
Pretty much all Fed gunbarrels are wired. Even Exus.

>>14004313
>>14004323
Thanks for clearing that up. It's been a while. And I don't have the spiritual fortitude to watch SEED again.
Anyways, I always liked them MA/space fighter designs. Hell, even the Skygrasper was cool with the striker packs

>>14004110

There's no psycommu like system in any way shape or form in CE. Dragoons are wirelessly controlled through computer signals, not mentally.

The only difference is that the second stage and later Gundam's have computer assistance to help calculate the angles so someone without top of the line spatial awareness can use them (which is pointless because Rey and Kira use them and they have it anyway)

I always just assumed that DRAGOONs were just drones running off a program based in the suit

>>14005028
>Dragoons are wirelessly controlled through computer signals, not mentally.

Must be a pain to pilot while maneuvering multiple pods around.

>>14004040

Rau is a clone of Al Da Flaga, one of the few genuine Naturals who have skills on par with what Coordinators have.

>>14002518
I can't believe Al Da Flaga's genes were so based that a defective clone of his still managed to trick Coordinators into believing he was one of them. Fuck, why did they even to create Coordinators? The pinnacle of human evolution already existed and his name was Al Da Flaga.

>>14005831
No, his name was Mu La Flaga, since he was more mentaly stable

>>14005831
coordinators are just "peak human condition" sort of people, as well as being able to customize how your children will look to a degree

>>14005899

Also functionally sterile by third generation

>>14005899
>>14005831

iirc they were supposed to intermingle with the Natural population and mix genes with them. The coordinator's genetic "unlocked potential" and the natural's normal, stable genes in the resultant child(ren) would then ensure that the coordinator's genes would be accepted into the wider gene pool and made into a part of it over time and generations, thus creating overall better-performing humans over a long period of time.

Kind of like 00's Innovades, except instead of economically, socially, and politically, it was purely genetically.

Of course, because no one can have nice things, it ended up being an expensive way to have the perfect little children. Well, in the physical sense. can't say some of the coordinators weren't more fucked up than the naturals they were fighting.

>>14005918

Right, which is why the ideal endgame of SEED was Kira and Cagalli getting married and starting a little family, as opposed to the sterile, almost loveless knight/princess relationship Kira had with Lacus

>>14005937
As much as I love incest, that's not ideal for the gene pool

>>14005938

Oh, their first generation would be fine. It's only a problem if Kira and Cagalli's kids don't marry outside the family.

>>14005937

Well, post-Alaska, it's not the first time even in SEED that flips the finger at its own settings. I wouldn't take the main characters' interactions at too much face value for the series settings.

>>14005937

What about Dearka and Miriallia along with Assram and Cagalli? The Destiny crew seemingly forgot about the "Natruals and Coordinates falling in love" theme in SEED, but still.

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>>14005938

It's fucking Kira, his genes probably have plothax in them to prevent genetic faults from surfacing as a result of continued generational incest.

As long as they have a dozen kids and those kids have a dozen kids, there will be enough cousins to sustain itself after the third or fourth generation.

Once there's enough third and fourth cousins running around at the same time, everything will be golden.

>>14006011

Yeah but that assumes Cagalli and her tiny pelvis will survive childbirth

>>14005918

AI George Glenn in Astray even laments that he intended for Coordinators to help "Coordinate" humanity's rising into a stronger better race, and instead they become space ubermen that look down on everyone else.

>>14006064

Cagalli's the actual sovereign princess of the series, I'm sure she can rent a private hospital on the Orb mainland and fill it full with artificial wombs. Then Kira and her can take walks for in the nine months needed to get a stable full of children.

But really, the only reason why no Naturals use them is because they don't need to, but it takes the series several sidestories to come up with a clone army subplot anyways.

>>14006081

This is the CE universe so I'm assuming the writers would take the time to frame a private hospital as a crucial violation of rajadharma and someone would yell at Cagalli until she started acting like a proper princess

>>14005075
>APM: 999

For my money, I think Rau's one of the best remote weapon users in all of Gundam. He kept the pressure on Kira constantly and basically beat him in beam spam. Kira won on a desperate suicide charge. It was a pretty great final fight.

>>14003252
But Rey was shit, and never did anything well not even when he was given his own Gundam. The difference in skill between Rau -> Mwu -> Rey was enormous, literally magnitudes between each of them. Rau would have killed Rey in like 2 seconds flat using the same suit.

>>14006818

And it's not even like the Providence was a significantly better suit. He just was a superior pulot.

>>14007475
>it's not even like the Providence was a significantly better suit.
Arguable. The Freedom (and like 90% of CE suits really) was never designed to deal with DRAGOONs well.

>>14002593
Why is he evil again? That sounds like the backstory of a hero.

>>14006064

Cagalli isn't petite or a weakling. On top of being rich as shit.

She'll be fine unless something goes horribly wrong, like Lacus' pink clad ninjas infiltrating her house and assassinating her.

>>14006818
Kira won because Rau was literally dying inside and going bonkers. An entire case of meds wasn't even enough to keep him sane for 1 hour at that point if he had survived it wouldn't be surprising if he just melted on the spot later when receiving a medal.

Guy even smiled when Kira rammed him, he wasn't exactly in the best of shape both body and mind and none of that was inflicted upon him by Kira unlike vice versa, where Kira's mental damage was produced by Rau himself, therefore becoming his credit.

I mean fuck, Providence even had the greatest debut BGM perfectly synced when it launched.

>>14004355
The stupid thing about this is the fact that EA wanted bigger is better with MA's. The obvious solution after reacquiring NJC tech was to develop small, fast and agile MA that would've ran circles on MS.

>>14007484

Because he wants to kill everyone out of sheer pettiness.

Frustratingly shallow character. I was expecting a lot more from him considering how long the series hyped him up. At least Providence was cool.

>I alone have the right to judge all humanity
>has a Gundam whose name means the power derived from God to guide and judge human destiny
pottery

>>14007501
All good pilots without plot hax are shallow characters. Rau, Yazan, Ali, you name it. I mean you can kinda argue Gato, but he only did well because his opponents were dog shit.

>>14007514
>Gato
>not shallow

I just rewatched 0083 because of RX's encode. Gato actually IS just "muh ideals". There is literally nothing else to his character, he's so shallow it's hilarious.

>>14007485
>She'll be fine unless something goes horribly wrong, like Lacus' pink clad ninjas infiltrating her house and assassinating her
Why did I laugh hard at the thought of pink clad ninjas?

>>14007514
Yazan and Ali were literally just thugs who liked to fight. It's okay for them to be shallow. And it makes sense they excel at what they enjoy doing.
Rau was the big bad though. It's a much bigger crime for him to be so one note, specially since he was there since episode 1.

>>14007521
If this thread dies because of flooding of Gatofags, this is on you. I was being safe here.

>>14007539
>Rau
>big bad
that's a funny way of spelling Lacus, anon.

>>14007541

The people who defend 0083, including myself, don't defend it for its characters or plot. It's for that beautiful art and animation.

>>14007548
She doesn't rise to the occasion till Destiny, you know that.

>>14007550
....but the SEED's have been planted way back in ep 34

>>14007539
He wasn't a true big bad though. He's just a saboteur who ends up being the biggest obstacle to the MC.

>>14007485
>Cagalli isn't petite or a weakling

She is a tiny human being anon, what are you talking about

At her adult height she's like 4'11"

>>14007539

Rau wasn't really the BBEG of SEEd, anon.

The BBEG of SEED was HUMAN NATURE or some shit.

Rau's just a product of that. The physical threat.

>>14007539
>Rau was the big bad though. It's a much bigger crime for him to be so one note, specially since he was there since episode 1.

The thing is up until the final 20-ish episodes, Rau isn't the big bad. He's basically Quattro Bajeena to Athrun and his redcoats (the same way Mu is to Kira, Cagalli, and the other kids). There are hints that he has some other agenda, but until then he seems like a reasonable, enemy ace with more personal loyalties than ideological or political ones (again, just like Mu).

I kind of wish he stayed that way for most of the show, even if him absolutely losing his shit was worth it. Toshihiko Seki is pretty based.

>>14007505
Based Providence Gundam

>>14002518
Hilarious how one of the most popular Gundam series has the least popular and memorable Mask characters.

>>14007998
Can you blame him, though? Who gives a fuck about what happens to Satan when he fights against Jesus?

>>14007916
>>14007505

Providence is genuinely sex.

>>14008017

He wasn't Satan though

He didn't take Kira to the top of a mountain (in space) and tell him that he could have everything the light touches if he would just bow to him.

He told Kira "look the world is fucked and I'm gonna blow it up, now prove the strength of your justice or die in darkness".

>>14007644
Cagalli is 5'4". She's not as well equipped as Murrue, but she's not a midget either.

>>14007648
There's effectively three big bads at the end of SEED. Rau is the biggest bad by virtue of wanting to kill all of humanity, whereas the other two only wanted to kill most of humanity (and were lightly prodded by Rau into doing so). One could argue that he prodded Durandal and Ray into taking the paths that he did in Destiny, so he gets an acknowledgement there, too.

>>14002746
Ew.

>>14007484
Solid Snake is not a hero.

>>14006818
Maybe it's just me, but DRAGOONs always came across as much more deadly than remote weapons from UC

>>14007480
>Arguable. The Freedom (and like 90% of CE suits really) was never designed to deal with DRAGOONs well.

How do you equip a mobile suit to deal with GETTING SHOT BY BEAM WEAPONS FROM EVERY DIRECTION.

Aside from painting it gold.

>>14008623
Wasn't the UC solution I-Fields? So by basically making it immune. So yeah, painting it hold in CE is a solution that makes sense.

>>14002879

You learned something today, congrats.

But I wasn't talking about that shot, I was talking about Destiny's.

>>14008623
Hyperion Gundam

>>14002593
He's probably one of the few Char clones with a good reason for why he conceals his face: he despises his own appearance because it reminds him of the truth concerning his existence, and because he resembles the person that brought him into the world.

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>The English Gundam Wiki still classifies Rau as a Modified Coordinator: http://gundam.wikia.com/wiki/Rau_Le_Creuset

Why has no one rectified this? It's been over a decade since Seed aired, and even the Japanese Wikipedia lists Rau as a Natural Clone, with sources to prove it. Rey gets the same deal, too. Where are the sources that state he's a Modified Coordinator Clone of Al Da Flaga?

>>14009061
>English Gundam Wiki

Could have fooled me. Half of it reads like it was repeatedly vandalized by well-meaning ESL speakers.

>>14009960
Gundam Wikia is really, really hit or miss like that. Fair number of ESL pacific islands people, plus SEED is one of those things someone took as a pet project and got ludicrously in depth (but unsourced) about.

>>14007484

He wanted to watch mankind destroy itself out of sheer bitterness. Destroying Washington DC would have probably sent the world into a financial meltdown, and he absolutely loved the madness of the Blue Cosmos purge.

>>14009960
>well-meaning ESL speakers
that's a nice way to put "tryhard filipino/malaysians" like that one guy who wouldn't stop putting his fanfic on gundam wiki

>>14008623
Cheat and use their beams against them?

>tfw a fully functional Stargazer with the NJC its supposed to get would render most of the Strike Freedom's weapon worthless

>>14009999
Check em

Also, the 00 articles are far more indept, almost ludicrously so.

Best mask

>>14002550
His dad gave modified him so he would die by 30 just so he could replace Mu
The imperfect cloning and the telomeric modification gave him space AIDS that he was quickly building a resistance to the medicine for
His only friend was Mu and it was a pretty one sided friendship
He was surrounded by arrogant coordinators who were completely inferior to him
Everyone undervalues him despite the fact that he is the second most advanced being in SEED
He is basically surrounded by arrogant people for his entire life

>>14005877
Did you even pay attention anon?
Al wasnt joking when he said Mu was tainted by his mother's genes, he was far worse than Rau and Al in every way

>>14010564
Not sure about Al, as he has seen zero action, but Rau is inferior as a pilot to Mu. Mu fights Rau off multiple times with just a freaking plane.

>>14005911
That was such a stupid plot point.

>>14010750

Mu gets his shit pushed in every time he fights Rau, but Rau is always in a superior machine. By the time Mu is in an MS, Rau has a GuAIZ.

>>14011306

Rau is generally disappointing at duels. He couldn't shoot down his rival under superior battlefield conditions in superior battlefield equipment. He also fell prey to 2D thinking when his immediate reaction to Jesus kamikazi tackle was to full reverse in a straight line. He was better off as an intelligence officer or a commander.

>>14011266

I think it was more to show that coordinators weren't as perfect as they implied they were.

>>14004040
>>14004045

They both had high spatial potential.

Also, didn't Providence have the quantum computer like every other ZAFT GUNDAM?

>>14008612

In SDGO, they hit harder but lasted shorter.

In the show, they're mainly used in bursts to rape suits.

>>14011567
"quantum" computer... It's retarded

>>14010176

The SEED and 00 character articles are basically various ESL speakers' pet projects.

>>14011516
Did you forget he was pretty much more crackhead than the druggies at that point?

>>14002518
>"The whole universe has to die and mankind must be wiped out because it turns out I'm a huge faggot with daddy issues and an inferiority complex!"

>>14015837

Yes anon, that is what he meant by that

>>14015848
And that is why he is the hands down worst antagonist in any Gundam series.

>>14015854

What? No. Everyone loves petty villains.

There are the grand dreamers like Fonze Kagatie, Gilbert Durandal, and Pap Smeerocco, who are men of power, vision, and ideals and who could change the entire Earth Sphere if not for a handful of brave young people (and a massive Fed fleet, and enough MS to drown a whale).

And then there are the nutty bitches like Rau, Char, and Haman, who talk a big game but in the end are just massive cunts who are driven by extremely personal, and extremely petty. They are the best villains, because they are total shitheads.

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>>14015863
Villains who just really want a dick inside them are the best

>>14015863
>Petty villains.
He's not even that.

>>14015869
>huge faggot with daddy issues and an inferiority complex
>not petty

Anon do you and I have different definitions of petty?

>>14015876
He's a throw away character set up as a minor antagonist who solely served a purpose to fight Kira at the end of Seed because he had no real motivations or development as a character.

>>14002797
>>14002851
>>14002831
>>14002830
>>14002810
Thanks for telling me about Rau and why he wears the mask.

>>14015892

If you took it off, he would die, but only because of completely unrelated reasons to the actual mask.

>>14015887
>Rau "I gobble screentime that could be used for actually developing the rest of the cast" le Creuset
>throwaway

If anything, the problem was that he wasn't throwaway enough

>>14015908
Not him but my only issue was for being the big bad at the end of the first series, his reasons for doing what he did where really really underwhelming.

I mean Patrick Zala at least truly believed in Coordinators superiority and wanted to do what he did to protect his people. Same with Azrael's own misguided if somewhat justified racial beliefs. But Rau? He was a complete letdown.

>>14015887
>Rau
>minor antagonist
He was the Big Bad of the series who manipulated both Azrael and Athrun's Dad.

>>14015937

He didn't really manipulate them. The seeds of Azrael and Patrick's evil were already there. He helped things along so that the war would reach genocide level pitch faster, but even without him giving the NJC to Azrael, Patrick would have ended by committing an ultragenocidal war crime against Earth.

>>14015917

He never really felt like the big bad to me, either. He was the final physical obstacle who was there so that Kira had a dragon to slay, but he was less the instigator of the main ideological and physical issues of the war, and more the product.

The ideological big bads were very much Azrael and Patrick Zala.

>>14015917
And I was getting tired of Gundam villains who just wanted to take over the world or change it "for the greater good". One who wanted to just kill everybody was a breath of fresh air.

>>14015951
>And I was getting tired of Gundam villains who just wanted to take over the world or change it "for the greater good".

That's only half of them though

The other half are people like Char 'I actually just want to fight Amuro again kk' Aznable or Katejina 'Stick your presumably massive penis inside me, Usso, also I just killed all your friends' Loos

>>14015945
What this guy said. You could remove Rau and the war still would have happened, just with presumably less casualties, and that's under the assumption that they got their shit together somehow and magically worked out peace.

That still doesn't really change the fact that the war had already took place, and millions of lives were already lost and shit.

Rau was simply taking advantage of things, no different than a cherry picker.

>>14017212

Actually without Rau Zaft probably would have won midseries long before the genocide came about.

Patrick Zala may have been thinking about killing them all, but only really made steps towards doing it when Spitbreak failed (because Rau told EA all about it and they set up the Cyclops) and he started going crazy about betrayal and all the Zaft guys lost there. Likewise he only actually decided to use Genesis after EA started nuking stuff agian, which only happened because Rau gave Azrael the NJC data.

Without him the war never would have escalated to that level.

Why is Rau became an unstoppable genocidal maniac the moment he man the Providence Gundam?

>>14017264
Millions were lost before reaching that point, from both sides.

To be fair, Rau's whole existence is based on the hubris and hypocrisy of humanity. He was created via artificial means and not a natural birth. He's the echo of an actual human being who was deranged with eugenics autism.

Rau was a lunatic, but I can't say I blame him for what he tried to do. CE Earth and its space colonies are shitty beyond belief. The culture and political factionalism as well as the Natural vs Coordinator debate is proof of this.

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>>14002746
Yes.

>>14004091
>>14004099
I'm keking till the cows come home!

>>14018460
The power of stock footage.

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>>14021279

>>14023366

That footage was actually pretty cool, when Providence did it (which was once in the entire episode). In fact aside from the dragoons shooting Providence was pretty stock footage free. Every dragoon launch was a new animation.

Destiny is really when they started abusing not just stock footage but also reusing cells so that all fights were the same with a new MS skin or backdrop.

>>14006818
Go back and watch the last battle again. Look at how often his constant funnelspam fails to hit a fatass like the METEOR.

>>14026550

Not him, but Rau utterly wrecked the Meteor while Kira failed to get a single hit on him with it. And Rau wasn't even trying that hard, he was too busy trying to mind fuck him and shoot his girl.

Rau doesn't even start taking the fight seriously until later on, and it's not until Kira rushes him that Rau finally realizes he might be in trouble and by then it's too late.

>>14026570

This. It took a while, but Rau effectively and efficiently dismantled the meteor, forcing Freedom to go mano e mano. And even then, Rau and Providence went on to mutilate the poor Freedon, and then lost simply because Rau was literally at his limit.

If Rau at his tip top condition, not even Strike Freedom could touch him.

>>14026938
Makes you wonder, is he the most impressive Char clone in terms of how hard he shat on the MC end game in all of Gundam? Or are there others?

Paptimus kinda works I guess, but I'm not wholly convinced he could have beaten Kamille even without the space ghosts if they just started off at final destination with their suits.

Except the Kira on Strike Freedom dismantled Legend in literally just a handful of minutes, shooting out every dragoon it has

>>14029726
Who are you retorting? Nobody gives a shit about Rey and Legend is just a pussy version of Providence.

>>14002750
He might had been a clone of Mwu's father but Mwu is technically still his son.

>>14029689
>in terms of how hard he shat on the MC end game in all of Gundam
To be fair, he didn't just wreck the Freedom with little to no effort.

He also gave arguments that are completely valid in the context of CE, and Kira didn't refute any of it. Then Destiny happened.

I bet Rau was laughing in the afterlife when Destiny happened.

>>14029689
>Makes you wonder, is he the most impressive Char clone in terms of how hard he shat on the MC end game in all of Gundam

I dunno man. Rau v Kira was as even as Char v Amuro.

They ended by shredding each others' suits near completely.

>>14030183
while char and amuro were even in the beginning, the second half of the fight saw the sazabi taking more damage and losing limbs while the nu only took cosmetic damage to the skirt armor

I don't recall rau taking any damage except for the beam sabre stab shortly before it got hit by the GENESIS misfire

>>14029772
>SEED
>Kira piloting Freedom versus Rau piloting Providence

>Destiny
>A more skilled Kira piloting a more powerful version of Freedom versus a less skilled Rau piloting a second rate copy of Providence

>>14030183
Char got his shit pushed in, it was extremely one-sided.

>>14026546
Honestly, I thought SEED was the first to showcase how terrifying funnel units can be. Sure the animation was kinda lazy, but the speed at which the DRAGOONS shifted and attacked was rather overwhelming.

>>14026570
>shoot his girl.
Oh my god that was so funny
>Kira blocks the shot with his shield just in time, as expected
>the funnel just zips around behind and shoots the bitch anyway

>>14030199
>I don't recall rau taking any damage except for the beam sabre stab shortly before it got hit by the GENESIS misfire

Rau had about half his dragoons destroyed and his left arm shot off prior to the final clash, where he also had his other arm sliced off just before he was stabbed.

Freedom meanwhile lost a leg and it's rifle arm prior to the final charge.

Assuming all those dragoons could equal a leg they were about even.

>>14030397

Not to mention Kira not having to waste the first half of the fight wondering what to do about those flying shooting things because he'd already fought them before, and he knew exactly how they worked being that he had them equipped himself.

Hence him ditching the Meteor from the start knowing it would be no help, and immediately moving to shooting down the dragoons.

>>14030199
>>14030424

I meant Char in the John, anons. Not Char in the Sazabi.

By CCA Char and Amuro were so even that if you put them in equivalent mobile suits Char got fucked in the ass.

Even Char's in his Gelgoog wasn't up to scratch against Amuro.

>>14031269
>even

I mean, uneven.

>>14004040
Mu and Rau are newtypes

Mu was also part of another unit when the war started that had newtypes but they all got killed in the moon campaign early in the war

most newtypes in the CE universe got killed in the early stages of the war as the earth alliance used them against zaft since they could pilot the mobious zero which was able to go head to head with a zaft ms

>>14002518
They thirsted for knowledge! They sought to fulfill their desires! And ultimately, they forgot why they were doing it. Even as they proclaimed their reverence for human life, they began toying with it, and then they began destroying it!

"Why torment yourself saying, 'Eventually, someday?' How long have you been fighting with your thoughts clouded by that brand of sweet poison?"

whoever did the english voice of Rau was fucking amazing he nailed the character

>>14031383
There is a podcast on Trevor Devall's (rather old and clunky) website with an episode with Mark Oliver. The latter has a rather impressive background as I remember and he seemed to genuinely love voicing Rau because of how soft spoken and commanding he was in the beginning and then went so fucking crazy in the end.

>>14003151

Azrael only got as far as he did because Rau was helping him. Otherwise EA would have gotten defeated at Spitbreak. As for Patrick, it's unknown how genocidal he would have gotten if the war wasn't as bad as it was.

Unlike Azrael who started out wishing all Cooridinators dead out of geniune malice, Patrick only goes full genocide when all the losses they've taken just makes him snap at the end, insisting they're all doomed if they don't kill all naturals because they'll kill them first, even though the EA had already been completely defeated.

>>14030397
I still don't know what point you are trying to make. It wouldn't have mattered even if it was S1 Kira with the fucking Strike, Rey still would have lost if Kira got serious on his ass.

>>14032211
You know millions already died before the show even started right?

>>14033109

And? They still weren't in genocide mode until the end game arc, and Patrick only started going crazy when Spitbreak failed and then when the EA started using nukes, both of which only happened because of Rau.

>>14033092
S2 kira in serious mode got his strike fucked up by S2 grunts

>>14033205
coating all of space and earth in n jammers that caused the deaths of millions of people from cold and starvation just to gain an advantage should count as some sort of genocide

>>14033247

It's only a regular war crime, what Pat was planning to do with GENESIS was Zanscare-level turbogenocide.

>>14033247

And EA nuked one Plant. Both are pretty bad, but neither are on the level of nuking every single Plant there is, and blowing up the Earth, which is what the final stretch of the war boiled down to.

>>14033276
so deliberate actions resulting in hundreds of thousands to several million dead no longer counts as genocide, and only extinction level events count as genocide now?

>>14033283

Yeah anon

If the majority of the targeted ethnicity survives, it's just attempted genocide

>>14033283

That's not genocide any more than blowing up a nations food or power supplies is. An act of war yes, but not intended to kill every single person in the country.

Genocide is the deliberate attempt to wipe out a race or species. They didn't send the N Jammers down with the intent of killing all the Naturals. Just cause them damage and makes them less able to resist an invasion. Firing Genesis at the planet however, was intended to do exactly that.

Zaft's goal up until Zala pulls out Genesis wasn't to kill all Naturals, but simply to defeat and occupy the EA nations.

>>14029772
>Legend is just a pussy version of Providence

Legend is far better given that it has two master dragoons to Providence's 1, which also have beam spikes, and it has seperate sabers and shields instead of cramming them all onto one easily destroyed combo pod.

It's also far more manueveable than the fatass Providence.

Rey just sucks and they went maximum lazy with the stock footage.

>>14033283
Well, according to ICTY, the war crimes the Serbs did in Bosnia weren't genocidal, so no.

>>14035872
I was mostly referring to how it looked.

>>14033239
No he wasn't, guy wasn't even remotely angry or nothing.

>>14033205
The point is people were already 'evil' back then, they just hid it behind very flimsy rationality.

Look at it this way, if the war ended at episode 1, Patrick, Azrael, and the associated ZAFT/Feds would still be considered as the main villains over Rau, because Rau was just a little bitter fucker who was biding his time and doing whatever he could. Rau is definitely a villain, but it was only because the two sides were too fucking stupid and obsessed with their hateboners that they could allow Rau to fuck everything up.

Or to put it another way, if you replaced Patrick with Lacus and Azrael with Cagalli, the war would have ended before ep 1 even aired even assuming millions of lives were lost before these two were placed in power. What the fuck would Rau do then? Nothing. He would need to plan some crazy gambit and kill Lacus and blame it on the Feds in order to do so, which is much harder than just going along with some crazy Zeon clone geezer and taking advantage of him Char style.

Alright, so many people here probably think that the natural vs coordinator conflict was handled poorly.

What other transhumanist fiction can I watch/read that handles it better? It really is an interesting conflict to think about.

>>14039259
Gattaca

>>14002518
After reading through some of the recent Destiny threads, he really does have that right, if only because he was the only villain in all of CE with some writing effort behind him.