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The story
A thread on 5ch’s “Nandemo Jikkyo G” board debated the true motive behind Char Aznable’s attempt to drop the asteroid Axis on Earth in the 1988 theatrical film Mobile Suit Gundam: Char’s Counterattack. The opening post read, “I still can’t get on board with this script,” and the main point of contention became whether Char genuinely wanted to destroy Earth, or whether he actually just wanted Amuro to stop him. The discussion expanded to touch on the series-wide Gundam theme of whether people can truly understand one another, as well as comparisons to Eren’s actions in Attack on Titan.
What people said
So secretly he was hoping Amuro would say "I'll stop you." But as a private man he genuinely wanted to beat Amuro. Guy's a walking contradiction
You'd think once you grow up you'd get where Char was coming from
But there's no other way to keep Earth sustainable, so it is what it is
Blame the Federation for being too dumb to fix things themselves
That part makes zero sense to me
Nobody there actually wants to destroy Earth deep down
There's an underlying fear of mob psychology dragging everyone toward war
If you don't get that, Char's Counterattack just isn't going to click for you
That's him wanting to be stopped
Also wanting to fight
At that point just go play the Build Fighters plastic-model-battling game instead
That part was very Char
The line about "I'm doing something rotten" made me think, "ah, so he is aware he's sunk to being a villain"
He probably already clocked that back when he got locked up during Zeta
Amuro never actually trusted the Federation to begin with
He knows full well parts of it are rotten, but he believes people can still rise above that, which is exactly why wiping out the Earth is unacceptable to him
That alone would've sorted the whole thing out
Amuro's useless at basically everything except fighting in a mobile suit…
Hathaway's Flash basically retells the collapse of the leftist student movement, just dressed up as Gundam
Honestly a lot of characters end up getting warped just because the plot needs them to
Even Bonnie from Toy Story got turned into a total brat in Toy Story 4
Eh, they probably just wanted to ride on the coattails of The Empire Strikes Back — as long as they could sell some model kits, job done
Leave it to Mr. Special to say something totally different
Sure, we saw the future where he builds a happy life with Mikasa, but that timeline doesn't wipe out the Titans, so it is what it is
So he's basically Tom from Tom and Jerry, huh
Even Newtypes don't understand each other
If anything, Gundam has only ever told stories about people failing to understand each other
I saw somewhere that some of the pilots had no clue what was going on, but is it really plausible that mobile suit pilots would be kept that clueless?
The asteroid drop was only kept secret from civilians — the actual strike force surely knew, right?
My theory is they got hit by that mysterious light
and saw some kind of weird vision inside Newtype space
and that's what made them change their minds
like maybe their dead family showed up and lectured them or something
Same with Gyunei — a lot of the soldiers had lost family or friends to colony drops
They were just following orders, but seeing Federation troops desperately using their psycoframes to push the asteroid back probably woke their conscience up at the last second
Soldiers follow orders, that's the job
but when the choice comes down to whether Earth lives or dies, it makes sense someone could have a last-second change of heart about what they should actually be doing
Why does everyone treat it like a masterpiece?
Because the battle scenes still look awesome even today
I think it's good, but then again it's basically the finale of the Amuro-vs-Char rivalry, so there's that
Background and Key Points of the Debate
The climactic moment of Char’s Counterattack — the “Axis Shock,” in which the asteroid Axis is dropped toward Earth — has split interpretations ever since the film’s 1988 theatrical release. The theory that came up most in the thread, that Char secretly wanted Amuro to stop him, is an interpretation that the later work Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn pushed to the forefront; it isn’t something the original theatrical script explicitly spelled out. Some commenters drew a parallel between Char’s actions and the collapse of the student movement, while others pointed to ties with Hathaway’s Flash, which depicts a corrupt Federation — cross-referencing between different Gundam works was a notable feature of the thread.
*This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Nandemo Jikkyo G) thread “Char’s Counterattack: ‘Gonna drop an asteroid on Earth lol’ — I still can’t get on board with this script.”
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