The Four Gundams of the Apocalypes
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The following is a Disclaimer, which I suggest you read if you have not read any of my essays before......Trust me it’s not what you think ^__^
These are the opinions of the author and no one elses. They are not official, and even though backed up with series evidence and documentation should not be regarded as fact for any reason or purposes. Any similarities between the following opinions and statements made by the producers, writers, or creators of Gundam Wing are purely coincidental. I repeat, these are opinions not facts and should not be handled as fact under any circumstances. You are free to agree with me, not to champion me :)
Thank you
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When one considers the wide wonderful world of Bibilical symbolism the first anime to come to mind as an example is certainly not Gundam Wing. At first look the GW saga seems to have no religious affilation at all, symbolic or not. But when the idea of Gundams 02-05 representing the Four Horsemen was first suggested to me, it made certain aspects of the show alot clearer.
For example many fans criticize Relena’s world of peace, complaining that it’s not realistic, that it will only fall apart, and moving on to concluded that Relena is short sighted, foolish, and naive`. But when I first began to consider the Horsemen/Gundams relationship suddenly I realized that Relena’s world of peace sounded and acted a lot like a Heaven on Earth....
Keep in mind reader that Gundam Wing has a tendency to work on multiple philosophical levels, and it’s primarily a story about man -vs- fate. Inaddition to that, the Bibilical text of Revelation is extremely hard to interpret within itself, if the original text was indeed translated correctly at all. These factors considered this little theory must be placed in the intellectual category of "Big stretch" ^___^
But back to the apocalypse.....
In order to make the theory work, I will be using just the images of the horsemen by themselves. In their proper context the four horsemen represent four stages of time leading up to judgement. I will be using the literal imagery from Revelations instead of this symbolic significance.
The horsemen are Death, Famine, Plague, and War, the exact roles and titles of the horsemen vary from translations and interpretions but these are the ones I shall be using here ^__^.
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War- War is the rider on the white horse that is given permission to conquer Earth and spread the Gospel for the final time. War could be either Trowa or Wufei depending how one wishes the interpret the role itself. On one hand Trowa is the warchild, in a sense the embodiment of a soul who has known nothing but war. On the other hand Wufei’s constant preaching about Justice could in fact be a symbolic “spreading of the Gospel”. I favor Wufei for this role on the basis of his dialogue. All his talk about the righteous being strong, conquering and defeating the evil, and testing those who believe they fight for justice, works too well with the part the first horsemen.
- Famine- Famine is the tricky one ^__^, the second horsemen rides a black horse and works more of a spiritual famine then an actual famine. This I have chosen to give to Trowa. Why? Well it’s kind of hard to explain, but if anyone made me think about a spiritual famine it’s Trowa. The question is though, could Trowa with his hidden emotions and cold logic embody a spiritual famine? I think if anything Trowa’s memory loss and immediate launch into confusion could represent a spiritual famine in a stretch. A spiritual famine is in essense a loss of direction, and moral guidance. Is Trowa not lost and overwhelmed by the war around him when he loses his memory? There’s no way to prove or disprove any of this, it’s just an instinct :)
- Plague- Plague, the third horsemen, divides men into chaos. He is given a huge supreme sword which he destorys peace with......hmmmmmm...sound a bit like a certain episode arc concerning Wing Zero? That’s right, sweet innocent Quatre is the men on the blood red horse known as Plague. Think about it, The Colonies are heading towards an alliance with OZ, and with that man’s peace. Then Quatre shows up, destroys a few colonies, and effectively destroys peace in that process.
It should be noted that the order of Plague and Famine is revised in some translations, which brings up another similarity between Revelations and GW. If Plague comes before Famine then Plague may lead to Famine, as Quatre’s rapage lead to Trowa’s memory loss ^_^
- Death- Do I really have to go into this one? ^_~
The Apocalypse as through Gundam Wing-The Remaining Seals and additional Symbolism.
- The Fifth Seal- When the fifth seal is broken those who were slaughter for living the word of God demand to know when God will punish their murderers on Earth. And how does Gundam Wing start? The Gundams being sent to Earth to envenge those who were killed and tortured purely because they wanted peace, specifically the real Heero Yuy.
- The Sixth Seal- As the sixth seal is broken three things are said to happen that I can link to GW (the scary thing being they all fall in order ^__^). First “the whole moon became like blood”, sounds to me like the manufacturing of Mobile Dolls on the lunar base. Then, “the stars in the sky fell to the Earth like unriped figs”....hmmmm like falling colonies??? or Libra and the Peacemillion? Things from space falling to Earth...Lastly “then the sky was divided”, could that be the final battle in which space was host to a three way battle?
- Satan, the red dragon- Eypon would make a fine Satan. Like Wing Zero it can manipulate the pilots to do things they would never do otherwise. But unlike Zero the Eypon is never mastered, it continues to push it’s pilot to extremes. Furthermore “Its tail swept away a third of the stars in the sky and hurled them down to the Earth” much like Zechs and his battleship droppingne? ^_~
- Heero’s Role- Heero is the only figure missing from our little story....so who is he going to be? I think he fixs the angel Micheal best...after all Wing Zero custom does have angel wings? Heero the archangel is the most likely association. Micheal defeats the dragon and seals it up in the recesses of space....and at the end of Gundam Wing Zechs “dies” in lives in the recesses of space, etc, etc, etc
