Gundam Wing, ep. 41-49
Mon, Nov. 19th, 2007 05:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
oyceterOh no! I forgot to recap disc 9 after we watched it, and have thus forgotten completely what happened!
I do, however, remember that there was no random produce. I am sad. I miss the bok choy of DOOM, no matter how inconsequential its appearance in the GWing-verse.
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rachelmanija's entries for these discs are here and here.
I am not even going to try to do a plot summary, since, as mentioned, I can't remember anything and anyway, even if I could, it would be too complicated!
Let's just say that the series makes the least sense it ever did in the last few episodes, and that is really saying something. Also, I really don't think it's bad subtitles (though they don't help), just because everyone is saying roughly what I think they said when I watched it with Chinese subtitles. I think it is just that a large number of people go batshit insane in a less explode-y, more frothing rhetoric type way.
The really sad thing is that I still can't make heads or tails of what happens, and this is after watching the entire series about 4 or 5 times and having dedicated years of my life to analyzing the politics and double-crossing so I could write it up on my now defunct website.
Disc 9 was excellent! My favorite remembered moments include Trowa finally regaining his memories thanks to Zero, Wufei actually getting de-insaned by Zero (Wufei: so insane that Zero actually makes him saner!), Hilde stealing the disc from Libra, Wufei randomly floating in space in the cafeteria, Sally Po bringing the last two straggling pilots in for a grand Gundam pilot reunion, and Duo and Quatre bonding over how emo their fellow pilot Heero is.
Example (I am making this up):
Duo: Heero! You want to be social and try strategizing with us?
Heero: *broods* *probably thinks about dead puppy*
Duo: *shrug*
Quatre (telepathically, since he is psychic like that): Why do we even try?
I think this is everything I remember of disc 9. See what happens when there are no random fruits or vegetables?
! I almost forgot! When Wufei is going insane, he first hallucinates images in space, and then he hallucinates Treize! Floating in space!
Disc ten:
ZECHS IS BATSHIT INSANE!
Oh wait, actually, he started that in disc 9 by bisecting a ginormous space station with his laser sword!
"But who will think of the civilians?!" I ran around shouting after me and Rachel had both gotten the "WTF?! WTF?! WTF does he think he is doing? OMG! Insane!" out of our systems.
And? He gets more insane! He goes on this loooong rant about how humans are predisposed to war, but only the humans on earth, not the humans in the colonies.
I think he needs to retake ninth grade biology. Or any biology. Possibly his flouncing around in a bird mask while attempting to seek revenge for his father and kingdom cut short his education, but still!
The best part (and by that, I mean the craziest part) is that Zechs uses this logic to decide to BLOW UP EARTH!
He then aims the Libra beam canon at earth and blows up a city! Strangely, this does not lead to his friends and followers going, "Wow. You are batshit insane and you just blew up an entire city. Bye!" Instead, they seem to admire his nobility, no matter how misguided. Thankfully, Noin seems cognizant of the CRAZY and the BAD and the WRONG, but she later tries to stop him, then tells him that she won't stop him any longer. While he is still trying to blow up the planet!
The rest of the pilots also do not react to him like he is bugfuck insane. I do not understand this. Possibly it is Zechs' insanity field at work -- even it cannot disguise that he is ten kinds of wrong, but it can at least make people think he is not insane.
That said, I'm not that surprised his companions don't realize, as one of them is Dorothy, and she's not doing too well with the crazy points either. Quinze just stands there, looking like he's thinking, "What was I thinking, asking this guy to be in charge?"
You can tell Zechs is extremely crazy because he is actually saner when he gets off Libra and gets into the psychosis-inducing Epyon.
Treize and Zechs then have an epic battle of ranting incoherently at each other. I'm not quite sure who wins; Zechs has the advantage of threatening to blow up the world, though Treize has the advantage of saying things that seem to make sense on a sentence level and then cease to make sense as a whole.
Example (I am making this up):
Treize: War is a horrible, dehumanizing thing. But there is glory and honor to be had on the battlefield! If people see how horrible war is, they will never make war again. This is why I have decided to instigate the war to end all wars! It is ultimately to achieve total pacifism.
Zechs: Treize, you are the ruler of the world! The world is evil! People will never stop warring! Therefore, to achieve total pacifism, I will BLOW UP THE PLANET!
"BZUH?!" went me and Rachel several times (albeit without picking our noses like Mugen does).
Later on, the colonies get representatives together and make a joint statement saying that they in no way, shape or form endorse the terrorist policies of White Fang, the group Zechs is now leading, though I don't blame you for losing track! I think it went: Specials pilot -> rogue Specials pilot -> part of OZ coup -> random ambassador -> random sparkly guy on beach -> insane guy with mecha running around -> White Fang. I am sure I left out more bits in which no one, Zechs included, knew what side he is on.
Rather than take this withdrawal of the colonies' assent as defeat, Zechs decides he will blow up the planet anyway! (this part I do find realistic, in terms of war.)
The Peacemillion then crashes into Libra, which makes Quinze cower under something and disables the beam canon.
Oh yeah, meanwhile, Heero and Relena are busy psychically communicating and sparkling while sappy, romantic music plays in the background. Both Rachel and I are puzzled by the music, as Heero is not doing anything that remotely resembles romantic. Also, the clear part of everyone's masks keeps appearing and disappearing at random moments. You can tell because Heero and Duo's bangs stick out of their helmets.
Now that Zechs cannot blow up the earth, hereturns to sanity decides to drop Libra on the earth and create a nuclear winter and thereby destroy all of humanity!
Um. He may be insane, but at least he is determined?
Oh yeah! Zechs was also going to blow Treize up with the beam canon before it got destroyed, leading to an awesome scene where Lady Une psychically senses his danger, apparently wakes from her coma and rips out all her IVs, steals Wing and goes into space to save him. She is awesome. There is a touching moment during which she clings to his Gundam's thumb.
Oh yeah! Treize has a Gundam (I can't believe I nearly forgot to mention that). He poses it pompously as he make pompous speeches.
After that, Wufei randomly decides that the best way to help everyone is to defeat Treize in a duel. I love how the series is set up so that attacking people with a bazillion mobile dolls is not as effective as battling one on one. Both Wufei and Treize scream incoherent philosophy at each other. I am not sure what their philosophies are. I think there is something in there about war being awful and people having to realize this and therefore we should all go kill more people.
"Well, they are very well matched," I told Rachel. "I guess that's where the fic comes from. And yet..."
"I would never want to read it," she said, as I agreed vehemently.
While getting Treize out of the way is probably good, Rachel and I were both boggled at how nearly everyone was ignoring the fact that Zechs was attempting to START NUCLEAR WINTER! Finally, Quatre, Trowa and Duo go around Libra trying to figure out how to stop it. Duo, exploring, walks in a door, and then leaps out in a very "WTF did I just walk in on?" fashion.
Given that we had just seen the Heero/Relena scenes of sappy music, I surmised that Duo had accidentally walked in on Heero/Relena nookie. Thankfully, it was not the case.
Instead, it was the return of the mad scientists! I totally would have had a WTF moment as well, particularly when confronted by one of the scientists' detachable nose and the general mad cackling. The scientists then reveal that they basically built the beam canon and refurbished other gundams programmed with Heero and Trowa's data (don't ask, I am having a hard enough time keeping track of the usual 6 as is). They work with Duo to stop Libra from crashing into Earth.
Quatre, however, gets waylaid by Dorothy on the Zero System, who is even more insane than normal!Dorothy. I know this is very hard to believe, and yet, it is true! They then proceed to duel as Dorothy spouts incoherent philosophy at Quatre (do you sense a theme yet?). She stabs him! He feels sorry for her! She says something about how he is the kindest, mostest wonderfulest person ever, as she has possibly not seen him when he is going bugfuck and blowing up colonies. Or, knowing Dorothy, maybe that's what she was thinking of when she said it.
Trowa comes to the rescue! They briefly debate incoherent philosophy as Quatre lies bleeding in a corner, and then Trowa drags Quatre out of there. Quatre tells him to get Dorothy, but Trowa wisely pretends Quatre is raving and throw Dorothy a helmet.
Heero and Zechs then begin to duel, also while screaming incoherent philosophy.
Example (I am making this up):
Zechs: The strong crush the weak! They are evil! They must be destroyed for the weak to survive!
Heero: The weak are pitiful and are crushed because they are weak!
Zechs: The strong = evil!
Heero: The weak = stupid!
Zechs: DESTROY! I DO NOT CARE WHAT ANYMORE! I JUST HAVE TO DESTROY SOMETHING!
Heero: I am weak! That is why I hate weak people. They are flawed, like me.
Zechs: Oh Heero, you are so kind and gentle. That is why we must war! So people will appreciate kind and gentle people like you.
Heero: I kill you now.
While they are dueling, Lady Une, Relena and Sally Po are on earth and televising the footage, which is being sent to them by Noin. Lady Une is now fully integrated (Niki, take notes) and tells everyone that really, this was Treize's grand plan: he was going to machinate the War to End All Wars to make everyone see just how horrible and bad wars were, which would result in absolute pacifism.
Clearly Treize skipped over the chapter on WWI in history class. He probably played hooky for rose-scented bubble baths.
I personally think Lady Une is completely fanwanking Treize's insanity.
Anyway, eventually the scientists turn off the Libra-crash-into-Earth switch, but.... a chunk breaks off! It just happens the be the chunk Heero and Zechs are fighting on!
Everyone pitches in to try to blow it up, including a eleventh-hour appearance of the Maganaucs (sp.).
In the end, Wufei finds Heero's big gun and tosses it to him. Everyone leaves, confident that Heero and his big gun will handle everything. Heero starts blowing stuff up. Zechs appears to help! He tells Heero to go.
Heero goes and uses his big gun to blow up the giant chunk.
Everyone cheers Heero.
Oh yeah, Wufei kills Treize. Or actually, Treize commits suicide via Wufei after telling him he remembers the exact number of people who died for him and all their names too. I would be more impressed by this if Treize showed any sense of remorse for this, but I suspect given a second chance, he would do it over again.
Wow, the series finale is so insane that I forgot to recount the death of a major villain!
Anyway, Quatre says something about Heero being the soul of the universe ("No wonder he went insane when he talked to it," Rachel muttered. "I will chalk this up to trauma and blood loss."), a new government of both Earth and the colonies is set up, and Heero gives Relena a teddy bear to sappy romantic music.
I'd like to point out that the series has men and boys going stark raving mad and attempting to destroy the world, and in the end, the women take over and govern. If only they could have just escaped the guys' insanity fields, bonked them on the head, and given them video games instead to satisfy the urge to blow things up! I also wish we had at least one woman in a Gundam, but all we got was Lady Une in one for three seconds.
Er, so anyway, people who commented to say the series would make more sense later? Now is your chance to plead your case! I am currently under the impression that the final few episodes are the most incoherent of the entire series, thanks to the random ranting of philosophy, appending "For the sake of world peace!" to everything, and the thing about this all being Treize's grand plan popping up from nowhere.
In conclusion: stark raving mad.
I do, however, remember that there was no random produce. I am sad. I miss the bok choy of DOOM, no matter how inconsequential its appearance in the GWing-verse.
rachelmanija's entries for these discs are here and here.I am not even going to try to do a plot summary, since, as mentioned, I can't remember anything and anyway, even if I could, it would be too complicated!
Let's just say that the series makes the least sense it ever did in the last few episodes, and that is really saying something. Also, I really don't think it's bad subtitles (though they don't help), just because everyone is saying roughly what I think they said when I watched it with Chinese subtitles. I think it is just that a large number of people go batshit insane in a less explode-y, more frothing rhetoric type way.
The really sad thing is that I still can't make heads or tails of what happens, and this is after watching the entire series about 4 or 5 times and having dedicated years of my life to analyzing the politics and double-crossing so I could write it up on my now defunct website.
Disc 9 was excellent! My favorite remembered moments include Trowa finally regaining his memories thanks to Zero, Wufei actually getting de-insaned by Zero (Wufei: so insane that Zero actually makes him saner!), Hilde stealing the disc from Libra, Wufei randomly floating in space in the cafeteria, Sally Po bringing the last two straggling pilots in for a grand Gundam pilot reunion, and Duo and Quatre bonding over how emo their fellow pilot Heero is.
Example (I am making this up):
Duo: Heero! You want to be social and try strategizing with us?
Heero: *broods* *probably thinks about dead puppy*
Duo: *shrug*
Quatre (telepathically, since he is psychic like that): Why do we even try?
I think this is everything I remember of disc 9. See what happens when there are no random fruits or vegetables?
! I almost forgot! When Wufei is going insane, he first hallucinates images in space, and then he hallucinates Treize! Floating in space!
Disc ten:
ZECHS IS BATSHIT INSANE!
Oh wait, actually, he started that in disc 9 by bisecting a ginormous space station with his laser sword!
"But who will think of the civilians?!" I ran around shouting after me and Rachel had both gotten the "WTF?! WTF?! WTF does he think he is doing? OMG! Insane!" out of our systems.
And? He gets more insane! He goes on this loooong rant about how humans are predisposed to war, but only the humans on earth, not the humans in the colonies.
I think he needs to retake ninth grade biology. Or any biology. Possibly his flouncing around in a bird mask while attempting to seek revenge for his father and kingdom cut short his education, but still!
The best part (and by that, I mean the craziest part) is that Zechs uses this logic to decide to BLOW UP EARTH!
He then aims the Libra beam canon at earth and blows up a city! Strangely, this does not lead to his friends and followers going, "Wow. You are batshit insane and you just blew up an entire city. Bye!" Instead, they seem to admire his nobility, no matter how misguided. Thankfully, Noin seems cognizant of the CRAZY and the BAD and the WRONG, but she later tries to stop him, then tells him that she won't stop him any longer. While he is still trying to blow up the planet!
The rest of the pilots also do not react to him like he is bugfuck insane. I do not understand this. Possibly it is Zechs' insanity field at work -- even it cannot disguise that he is ten kinds of wrong, but it can at least make people think he is not insane.
That said, I'm not that surprised his companions don't realize, as one of them is Dorothy, and she's not doing too well with the crazy points either. Quinze just stands there, looking like he's thinking, "What was I thinking, asking this guy to be in charge?"
You can tell Zechs is extremely crazy because he is actually saner when he gets off Libra and gets into the psychosis-inducing Epyon.
Treize and Zechs then have an epic battle of ranting incoherently at each other. I'm not quite sure who wins; Zechs has the advantage of threatening to blow up the world, though Treize has the advantage of saying things that seem to make sense on a sentence level and then cease to make sense as a whole.
Example (I am making this up):
Treize: War is a horrible, dehumanizing thing. But there is glory and honor to be had on the battlefield! If people see how horrible war is, they will never make war again. This is why I have decided to instigate the war to end all wars! It is ultimately to achieve total pacifism.
Zechs: Treize, you are the ruler of the world! The world is evil! People will never stop warring! Therefore, to achieve total pacifism, I will BLOW UP THE PLANET!
"BZUH?!" went me and Rachel several times (albeit without picking our noses like Mugen does).
Later on, the colonies get representatives together and make a joint statement saying that they in no way, shape or form endorse the terrorist policies of White Fang, the group Zechs is now leading, though I don't blame you for losing track! I think it went: Specials pilot -> rogue Specials pilot -> part of OZ coup -> random ambassador -> random sparkly guy on beach -> insane guy with mecha running around -> White Fang. I am sure I left out more bits in which no one, Zechs included, knew what side he is on.
Rather than take this withdrawal of the colonies' assent as defeat, Zechs decides he will blow up the planet anyway! (this part I do find realistic, in terms of war.)
The Peacemillion then crashes into Libra, which makes Quinze cower under something and disables the beam canon.
Oh yeah, meanwhile, Heero and Relena are busy psychically communicating and sparkling while sappy, romantic music plays in the background. Both Rachel and I are puzzled by the music, as Heero is not doing anything that remotely resembles romantic. Also, the clear part of everyone's masks keeps appearing and disappearing at random moments. You can tell because Heero and Duo's bangs stick out of their helmets.
Now that Zechs cannot blow up the earth, he
Um. He may be insane, but at least he is determined?
Oh yeah! Zechs was also going to blow Treize up with the beam canon before it got destroyed, leading to an awesome scene where Lady Une psychically senses his danger, apparently wakes from her coma and rips out all her IVs, steals Wing and goes into space to save him. She is awesome. There is a touching moment during which she clings to his Gundam's thumb.
Oh yeah! Treize has a Gundam (I can't believe I nearly forgot to mention that). He poses it pompously as he make pompous speeches.
After that, Wufei randomly decides that the best way to help everyone is to defeat Treize in a duel. I love how the series is set up so that attacking people with a bazillion mobile dolls is not as effective as battling one on one. Both Wufei and Treize scream incoherent philosophy at each other. I am not sure what their philosophies are. I think there is something in there about war being awful and people having to realize this and therefore we should all go kill more people.
"Well, they are very well matched," I told Rachel. "I guess that's where the fic comes from. And yet..."
"I would never want to read it," she said, as I agreed vehemently.
While getting Treize out of the way is probably good, Rachel and I were both boggled at how nearly everyone was ignoring the fact that Zechs was attempting to START NUCLEAR WINTER! Finally, Quatre, Trowa and Duo go around Libra trying to figure out how to stop it. Duo, exploring, walks in a door, and then leaps out in a very "WTF did I just walk in on?" fashion.
Given that we had just seen the Heero/Relena scenes of sappy music, I surmised that Duo had accidentally walked in on Heero/Relena nookie. Thankfully, it was not the case.
Instead, it was the return of the mad scientists! I totally would have had a WTF moment as well, particularly when confronted by one of the scientists' detachable nose and the general mad cackling. The scientists then reveal that they basically built the beam canon and refurbished other gundams programmed with Heero and Trowa's data (don't ask, I am having a hard enough time keeping track of the usual 6 as is). They work with Duo to stop Libra from crashing into Earth.
Quatre, however, gets waylaid by Dorothy on the Zero System, who is even more insane than normal!Dorothy. I know this is very hard to believe, and yet, it is true! They then proceed to duel as Dorothy spouts incoherent philosophy at Quatre (do you sense a theme yet?). She stabs him! He feels sorry for her! She says something about how he is the kindest, mostest wonderfulest person ever, as she has possibly not seen him when he is going bugfuck and blowing up colonies. Or, knowing Dorothy, maybe that's what she was thinking of when she said it.
Trowa comes to the rescue! They briefly debate incoherent philosophy as Quatre lies bleeding in a corner, and then Trowa drags Quatre out of there. Quatre tells him to get Dorothy, but Trowa wisely pretends Quatre is raving and throw Dorothy a helmet.
Heero and Zechs then begin to duel, also while screaming incoherent philosophy.
Example (I am making this up):
Zechs: The strong crush the weak! They are evil! They must be destroyed for the weak to survive!
Heero: The weak are pitiful and are crushed because they are weak!
Zechs: The strong = evil!
Heero: The weak = stupid!
Zechs: DESTROY! I DO NOT CARE WHAT ANYMORE! I JUST HAVE TO DESTROY SOMETHING!
Heero: I am weak! That is why I hate weak people. They are flawed, like me.
Zechs: Oh Heero, you are so kind and gentle. That is why we must war! So people will appreciate kind and gentle people like you.
Heero: I kill you now.
While they are dueling, Lady Une, Relena and Sally Po are on earth and televising the footage, which is being sent to them by Noin. Lady Une is now fully integrated (Niki, take notes) and tells everyone that really, this was Treize's grand plan: he was going to machinate the War to End All Wars to make everyone see just how horrible and bad wars were, which would result in absolute pacifism.
Clearly Treize skipped over the chapter on WWI in history class. He probably played hooky for rose-scented bubble baths.
I personally think Lady Une is completely fanwanking Treize's insanity.
Anyway, eventually the scientists turn off the Libra-crash-into-Earth switch, but.... a chunk breaks off! It just happens the be the chunk Heero and Zechs are fighting on!
Everyone pitches in to try to blow it up, including a eleventh-hour appearance of the Maganaucs (sp.).
In the end, Wufei finds Heero's big gun and tosses it to him. Everyone leaves, confident that Heero and his big gun will handle everything. Heero starts blowing stuff up. Zechs appears to help! He tells Heero to go.
Heero goes and uses his big gun to blow up the giant chunk.
Everyone cheers Heero.
Oh yeah, Wufei kills Treize. Or actually, Treize commits suicide via Wufei after telling him he remembers the exact number of people who died for him and all their names too. I would be more impressed by this if Treize showed any sense of remorse for this, but I suspect given a second chance, he would do it over again.
Wow, the series finale is so insane that I forgot to recount the death of a major villain!
Anyway, Quatre says something about Heero being the soul of the universe ("No wonder he went insane when he talked to it," Rachel muttered. "I will chalk this up to trauma and blood loss."), a new government of both Earth and the colonies is set up, and Heero gives Relena a teddy bear to sappy romantic music.
I'd like to point out that the series has men and boys going stark raving mad and attempting to destroy the world, and in the end, the women take over and govern. If only they could have just escaped the guys' insanity fields, bonked them on the head, and given them video games instead to satisfy the urge to blow things up! I also wish we had at least one woman in a Gundam, but all we got was Lady Une in one for three seconds.
Er, so anyway, people who commented to say the series would make more sense later? Now is your chance to plead your case! I am currently under the impression that the final few episodes are the most incoherent of the entire series, thanks to the random ranting of philosophy, appending "For the sake of world peace!" to everything, and the thing about this all being Treize's grand plan popping up from nowhere.
In conclusion: stark raving mad.
Tags:
(no subject)
Tue, Nov. 20th, 2007 01:48 am (UTC)We both forgot the scene in the Peacemillion cafeteria, with Wu Fei's squeaky arm exerciser, and Duo clutching his head for no apparent reason unless he walked into a door off-screen. OK, not quite as good as produce of D00M, but I'll take what I can get.
I must ask if Gundam SEED (recently recced) has female Gundam pilots. Personally, I think women probably make better Gundam pilots overall: less insane, and possibly with some physiological advantages (http://www.theglobeandmail.com/series/astronauts/astronauts02.html), but mostly, less insane!
Also, are you sure you made up the dialogue? It sounded verbatim to me!
(no subject)
Tue, Nov. 20th, 2007 03:22 am (UTC)(no subject)
Tue, Nov. 20th, 2007 08:06 pm (UTC)Yes, SEED had several female pilots. It was, after all, a remake of the original Gundam which also boasted female pilots. And just like Universal Century, they mostly exist to die in horrible, mind-damaging ways to cause their friends/SOs to go batshit insane. Also, no, men don't have a monopoly on the crazy. Stellar, Meer, I'm looking at you!
You want to see how SEED and the UC gundam franchises handle women? Go find Char's Counterattack. I dare you.
As a side note, Zeta's Haman Karn is one of my favorite gundam ladies. She is so awesome in that Qubeley of her's. She also has one of the more kickass story lines in the Dynasty Warriors: Gundam game. (Though it still doesn't surpass Heero and Master Asia teaming up, Master Asia stopping an ENTIRE PLANET from falling with ONE super move, or Master Asia actually getting Heero to smile. That game is awesomejuice)
~Onion
(no subject)
Wed, Nov. 21st, 2007 01:43 am (UTC)You mean I'll be infuriated on feminist grounds, or what?
(no subject)
Wed, Nov. 21st, 2007 02:05 am (UTC)To be fair, a good chunk of the men get axed in rapid succession, as well. Let it never be said that Tomino was sexist.
As for SEED, take out most of the male deaths and throw in "Killed for emo-tivation". What they did to the Astray girls still pisses me off.
Honestly, I thought SEED was just ok (everyone was a dick) and SEED Destiny DOES NOT EXIST. >_>
The new one that's out right now is pretty good so far. Its sort of Gundam meets FMP - the funny + character designs by Yun Kouga (the creator of Loveless, a boy's-love manga with some beautiful character designs) + a fair sized cast of women. No gundam pilots, though.
~Onion
Vegetables of DOOM
Tue, Nov. 20th, 2007 07:46 am (UTC)Re: Vegetables of DOOM
Tue, Nov. 20th, 2007 06:28 pm (UTC)Re: Vegetables of DOOM
Wed, Nov. 21st, 2007 07:07 am (UTC)Re: Vegetables of DOOM
Wed, Nov. 21st, 2007 12:04 am (UTC)(no subject)
Tue, Nov. 20th, 2007 11:58 pm (UTC)Ok, but which should I try to explain first; Treize's philosophy or the factions you weren't keeping up with? Oh, and remember, I haven't seen this in years so feel free to correct me.
~Onion
(no subject)
Sat, Nov. 24th, 2007 06:35 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Tue, Jan. 15th, 2008 05:44 am (UTC)I watched the show and thought "He's totally fucking insane!" and I thought Treize was totaly bugshit insane too.
Then I went to the fandom and the fanfic and it was all "they are not evil, not really! they're just misunderstood! It was their plan all along for peace!" and I found that repeating "But... but he's crazy!" was not a convincing argument from one fan to another.
Luckily most of what I did for GW was read fanfic. It was before Livejournal and I had not yet discovered messageboards.
I'd like to point out that the series has men and boys going stark raving mad and attempting to destroy the world, and in the end, the women take over and govern.
I did like that about the finale. Lady Une was also stark raving insane for a while, but she GOT BETTER and became so not-crazy-and-awesome that I loved her.
It kinda makes me want to rewatch the show...