1

GRUMBLE

So what was the significance of Grunhilde wearing an admiral's uniform?

Who was it that Gruier thought was manipulating Grunhilde?

If the Golden Ghost Ship is hundreds of years old, what was making it dip into subspace? And how did it do that?

If automatic systems made it light up on the outside, why didn't they also turn on the inside?

If, apparently, the ship has been found many times in the past -- once per princess birth -- then why didn't they just take it home again the first time. Why leave it out there?

What has any of this got to do with Serenity maintaining its independence from the Galactic Empire?

2 MAYBE this will be OK, if the story about Serenity isn't over. If there's more to tell, then PERHAPS I'll forgive them for omitting some critical exposition.

But even so, it'll be grudging. I'm having a hard time accepting that certain characters (i.e. Marika) aren't curious about certain events (i.e. two attempts to kill her before she became captain).[/spoiler

3

Siergen forgot to put spoiler tags around this:

Yeah, if Marika is as sharp and quick-thinking as she seems, why not ask any of these questions? I can understand her initially not being curious about a father she never knew, since she seemed to be well-raised and loved by her mother, but once people start talking about much you're like him?

And I agree about Yotof - even if the sham story about delivering a dress was believable enough to avoid official sanction, how did he and the woman get onto any of the ships in that fleet, yet alone be assigned to her personal guard?

4

sqa posted this without spoiler tags:

A few things, though I haven't read the novels (which might fill in the details).

Gruier & Grunhilde were both picked up the last time the fleet went to find the ship. They were just kept in stasis until they the Royal Family was ready to add another set of princesses. At least, that's the implication.

From what some of the novel readers were hinting at, the princesses are, effectively, clones with some rotation in who leads the family. So you don't want two copies of the same person around. Maybe the previous Gruier (called something else) ended up living longer than they expected.  That's the hints I've gotten from people trying to give subtle spoilers about their relationship.

Grunhilde's military uniform likely just means she pulled "Royal Rank" and took part of the fleet out.

We also now know why the Golden Ghost ship does what it does. It's the Serenity royal vault. Good way to hide everything, really. You're not just going to stumble onto that. Also explains why they kept upgrading it.

At least, that's my take. I think Marika isn't asking about her father for the same reason she really hasn't before: at some level, it isn't too important to her. She doesn't seem one to go on a quest for self-discovery. But, I get the feeling we'll get a bit more information.

Oh, and Grunhilde + Gruier around is going to be interesting, lol.

5 Maybe Marika isn't curious about her father but you'd think she'd be curious about who is trying to kill her, and why.

6 USE THE DAMNED SPOILER TAGS, EVERYONE! For crying out loud...

7 Sorry about forgetting the spoiler tags.

Schnitzer was so awesome.  I hope we get to know a lot more about him, over time.  (We've also gotten hints he's really not good with women, lol)  I loved the way the actually pointed out what the audience was thinking: you know a cyborg wouldn't actually need a space suit, but in a series that prides itself on the little details being correct, it does stand out. 

8

Another thing is that Marika is out of character. Others started complaining about this last episode. She isn't acting like a 16 year old captain on her first really serious job. She's acting like a 20 year veteran.

Sato had two series this season. I wonder whether he was paying primary attention to the other one? Anyway, Lagrange was only one cour, and it's over now.

9

OK, something I couldn't really do with Crunchyroll but can now do with a downloaded MKV: step through the critical scene.

The action was confusing at speed. Here's what happened:

1. Marika tossed a flash-bang grenade. But she didn't arm it.
2. Yotof tossed a coin at it, striking it and setting it off.
3. Hyakume threw a smoke bomb. (It looks like the Kero ball.)
4. Catherine, standing behind Grunhilde, opened up the hole in her air system. When Marika pushed Gruier down, she opened a similar one.
5. Marika charged through the smoke and put the anesthetic gas cannister into that hole, knocking Grunhilde out.
6. Misa put a similar cannister into Gruier's suit, likewise knocking her out.

Why was it Marika doing that to Grunhilde? Because if anyone from Serenity had done it, it would have been treason. Catherine and Yotof could cooperate in setting up the situation, but they themselves couldn't carry through. It had to be someone from Bentenmaru.

Which is all well and good, but I can see why Gruier wondered whether there was telepathy involved. It's possible that it was Marika's contingency plan for the case of Gruier and Grunhilde confronting each other. It's plausible that she found a chance to brief Hyakume and Misa (and likely also Schnitzer). But she was wagering a hell of a lot on Yotof being willing to cooperate.

The thing that helps me on that was Yotof and Catherine taking off their helmets. They didn't need to do that, and it suggests that they were sending a signal -- to Marika. And the reaction to the flash-bang is a further handshake, I guess.

It all really comes down to what was in that message that Marika sent -- and we haven't been shown that, and won't be. A ripoff.

10 Maybe it wasn't all that much of a wager. Maybe Marika could have pulled it off even without cooperation by Yotof and Catherine.

First, with the smoke going, no one from Serenity could risk firing towards the folks from Bentenmaru, for risk of hitting Gruier.

Second, if Catherine hadn't opened that port in Grunhilde's suit, Marika herself could have done it before putting in the gas cannister.

The real risk was that Catherine would have gotten in the way and prevented Marika from reaching Grunhilde -- but between confusion and the smoke, Marika might still have done it. But that was the fallback for the contingency plan. What she really hoped was that Yotof and Catherine would rather have had a situation that didn't involve both Grunhilde and Gruier getting shot.

Which still doesn't explain what the hell the two of them were even doing there in the first place, instead of wearing prison greens back home.

11 Maybe if I type the spoiler tags first, I won't forget... Yeah,when I first saw the pirates and Yotof nodding at each other back and forth, I thought of the Family Guy Star Wars spoof.  There was so much nodding going on, I lost track of who was nodding to who.

12 Something just occurred to me that might explain why Yotof and Catherine weren't in jail and were with Grunhilde's boarding party.  As Marika said later, if the soldiers fired on a princess, it would be treason, which probably none of them wanted.  Maybe when Marika sent her signal earlier, it was to the Serenity fleet commander (not Yotof) offering a way to resolve things peacefully if both sides should happen to meet on the Ghost Ship. 

If the fleet commander seemed willing, Marika would ask to speak with Yotof (who may well have been in the battleship brig at this point).  As Grand Chamberlain of the Privy Council, he probably has the respect of the Serenity officers, and Marika would trust him not to betray Gruier based on his earlier actions.

Grunhilde doesn't seem the type to care much about the troops under her command, and probably didn't pay attention to the people inside the spacesuits alongside her.  She may not have even known that Yotof and Catherine were not only out of the brig, but had joined her party. 

13 Grunhilde knew. She called out to both Catherine and Yotof while the smoke was going, while Marika was running.

14 This is one of those things that probably works a little better when it's written.

Yotof also happens to be pretty much the one in charge of much of the Royal household.  Given the politics going on, that we don't know all of the details, he probably could get away with the joyride. 

It's a slight stretch, but we also don't know all of the in-fighting details.   Also, hasn't it been several weeks since that incident?  Could have been worked out in the time frame.  They used a communication box among the Royal Family, so it's also possible that Gruier wasn't the only one supportive.

Also, he's pretty much the guy that should know where all of the bodies are buried.  That counts for a bit. 

Still, taking the view from the military uniform that Grunhilde was wearing, he was "acting under orders" from Gruier and could get out of the situation that way.  Plus, I'm pretty sure the military was none too happy about Grunhilde's joy ride, either. 

But, we also got to avoid a really nasty ideological issue that could have popped up.  Artificial wombs... if that ain't an ugly topic to discuss, I'm not sure what is.

15 What is it that Schnitzer says at 06:14? It sounds like makasete morao. The first part of that I know; it's the imperative of makaseru. What's the rest of it?

16 Moraou is the volitional of morau "to receive", Vte+morau is "I receive your doing V", and makaseru is "to entrust to", making his statement literally "I intend to receive your entrusting the task to me", stronger than just saying makasete.

Te-form has a lot of different uses, and as an imperative, it's basically Vte+kudasai "give me your doing V" with the kudasai dropped, making it sound less like a request and more like an order. (chotto matte kudasai "please wait a moment" versus matte!)

-j

17 Maybe we should just assume everyone reading this has seen it? Nevertheless I wasn't 100% accurate, but I think I did hit a few of the points right in my prediction.  On thing that struck me odd was that the baby was introduced as Gruier's OLDER(?) sister?  Maybe that was just a fault with the WhyNot translation.

18 I think Gruelle's motive was that the royal family is what prevents Serenity from breaking free from the Galactic Empire. They don't rule, but they're revered, and Grunhilde is only the latest member to be manipulated by pro-Empire forces to maintain the status quo, something like the relationship between the shoguns and emperors of Japan at various points.

The adaptation of book 2 definitely seems less polished than the first arc, and leaning a bit more in the direction of fan-service, with moments like "hey, Marika's got quite the pair in that suit" and "cute little ass there, Gruelle". I'm still enjoying it, but I think I'd be enjoying it a little more if Marika hadn't seamlessly transitioned from idol-pirate to Captain Kirk.

-j

19 @ J Greely:


Fan Service in this series would be a full on space battle with 3D action and multiple fleet movements.  lol

I think more of the problem is they were a tad too subtle on important details.  Stuff you'd catch if you read the book, but if you haven't, you're a tad confused.

It basically works down to being important but both sisters were kind of blowing it out of proportion.  They were willing to use weapons to solve the problem, while no one else really was.  Marika figured most of that out during the Grunhilde vs Gruier pissing contest after the Ghost Ship showed up.  (I'd just hate to see the bill they're going to charge Gruier.  I hope they take credit)

I also thought it was obvious that Marika was going to be James T Kirk in a skirt by episode 4?  Maybe I'm the only one? It's a lot of the appeal of the series.

20 Mauser, when Misa sais Here's your onee-sama, she was speaking to the baby, rhetorically, I think.

21 Sqa, I don't object to Marika becoming an extremely competent pirate captain, it's just that it happened off-screen. One minute she's putting on a show for a cruise ship, and the next she's taking out warships and diving into the middle of a firefight. We presume that she's continued training in the simulator and with Schnitzer, but we haven't seen any of it, so the transition seems sudden. As presented, it's more "in her blood" than "hard-won experience", and I'd prefer it lean the other way a bit.

-j

22 Mauser, to correct myself, actually Misa was speaking to the baby, rhetorically. As translated, "Say hello to your big sister." The onee-sama referred to was Gruier, not the infant.

23 Okay, I can see that.  It was just staged awkwardly.  I also note that gravity works when convenient, as they float into the room then walk around in it.  (Okay, they probably have magnetic boots or something, but still....)

Some of the translations though have bugged me, like when I can distinctly hear "Bentenmaru" in a line, but it's not in the subtitle.