Tear Jerker / Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury

All Spoilers Are Unmarked. You Have Been Warned

Gundam is known more for its many heartbreaking scenes and it seems the latest installment will continue the trend.

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PROLOGUE and Star of the Cradle

• Wendy's desperation and her vengeful but futile Last Stand against the Beguir-Beu is really heart-wrenching especially the fact that its conclusion leaves Wendy as a Sacrificial Lamb.
• The entire slaughter of the Fólkvangr colony is very painful as a whole, seeing so many innocent people being cut down all just for the sake of a zealot's plot.
• After being informed of numerous casualties, including Dr. Nabo, Elnora breaks down in tears in front of her oblivious daughter. Not surprising given that she not only lost someone who was pretty much her mother figure but everyone else that she knew.
• In a desperate attempt to protect his family from the Beguir-Beu, Eri's father Nadim pushes his Gundam to the limit. Although his eyes become bloodshot and his breathing becomes more intense, he begins to sing "Happy Birthday" to Eri as he fights the enemy mobile suit. She joins in with him, but he ultimately ends up cutting out as he dies before the Beguir destroys his Gundam. And so, Eri finishes the song alone. During his song, one can briefly see Elnora's face, twisted with pain as she would know what the symptoms of a data storm would look like. Although Nadim is still technically alive by that point, she knows that he is way past the point of no return and any hope of him surviving is crushed.
• The interquel novel that bridges the gap between the prologue and episode one, Star of the Cradle, is told from Gundam Aerial's perspective and reveals that Elnora's reason for sending Suletta to the academy is because she wants revenge against Delling. Aerial wants to help Elnora avenge her husband but she doesn't want Suletta to be used in Elnora's revenge plot.
• Elnora started off as a caring mother and wife. However, the tragedy has caused her to become consumed by revenge that she became negligent toward her own daughter. Whether it be leaving her alone for prolonged periods or training her daughter to become an instrument of revenge, Elnora was no longer the mother her daughter needed.
• When Suletta mentions that she's going to AST, Aerial desperately begs her to run away so she doesn't get caught up in her mother's revenge plot, despite knowing that Suletta can't hear her.

Episode 1: The Witch and the Bride

• For anyone who experienced bullying, it is sad that three girls decide to target Suletta from the get-go. Thankfully, Suletta's honest answers due to being Sarcasm-Blind cause the would-be bullies to quickly lose interest.
• The fact that Miorine's own father considers it a waste of time to meet or even vet the bodyguards who are supposed to be protecting his daughter. It goes to show Miorine has a poor personal life outside of tending her greenhouse. Miorine considers her greenhouse to be her 'home', but her apathetic tone indicates she is running on fumes.
• While Suletta's ignorance can be played for laughs, it is sad she has no idea what tomatoes are. Even Miorine decides not to comment on it after it becomes abundantly clear how far Suletta's ignorance goes.
• Seeing Miorine desperately try to stop Guel from destroying her garden is pretty hard to watch, especially since it's treated as something uninteresting to her guards and something to laugh at by her classmates. When Suletta intervenes on Miorine's behalf, she appears puzzled by the fact that anyone is trying to help her at all.

Episode 2: Cursed Mobile Suit

• Suletta is forced to answer multiple times that her father is dead. Not to mention she's being locked out of the loop regarding GUND Format (to the point that she doesn't recognize the Aerial as a Gundam) and the politics between scheming adults she was forcibly dragged into.
• Even Guel, despite being a major Jerkass, deserves some sympathy for being slapped and derided by his father for losing his duel against Suletta, given that his usual bravado is completely absent and he can only meekly apologize for his loss. He doesn't even have it in him to defend himself, even though he had a good excuse with Suletta using an illegal mobile suit.
• It is made clear that Suletta is not treated well in her confinement. She starts bawling when Elan shows up and shows some concern for her.
• Miorine off-handedly mentions that one of her many gripes with her father was that he didn't allow her to attend her own mother's funeral. Just seeing her break down over how much control her father has over her life, down to every single aspect and all without her consent: From making her quit hobbies she loved like the piano, choosing the people she should be friends with, and now deciding the course of action in her life by un-enrolling her from the school and choosing her fiancee himself.
• The way the Spacians treat Earthians like Chuchu and Nia is quite upsetting, with Nia keeping up a strong front even while Chuchu confronts their bullies.

Episode 3: Guel's Pride

• Not only does Vim decide to unfairly rig Guel and Suletta's rematch to neuter Aerial's beam weapons, he goes even further and installs an AI into Guel's Darilbalde to do the fighting for him, completely removing Guel's agency in the fight. He's already miffed about the former, but Guel sounds absolutely crushed when he finds out about the latter, realizing that his father has more faith in a computer than in his own son.
• Although Guel's sudden proposal is mostly played for laughs, there's something sombering about how Guel is so starved for affection that just a single, genuine compliment from Suletta was enough to make him fall for her.

Episode 4: Unseen Trap

• Bullying at the school continues, with students sabotaging Chuchu and Suletta's Demi-Trainers' cameras with a time-delayed black paint. The teachers refuse to help, considering it a consequence of not performing pre-launch checks properly.
• The situation on Earth in general, as the planet's populace are exploited for their work by Spacians without due compensation, and their seemingly peaceful protest is met with mobile suits suppressing their illegal gathering, sending them running for their lives despite the "non-lethal" efforts to break them up. Furthermore, the news media outlet broadcasting the news is clearly pro-Spacian/anti-Earthian as their reports and headlines are clearly meant to portray the Earthians as the instigators with labels such as "Earthian Extremists" and the "dangerous weapons" they have simply being bottles of molotov cocktails. It's a deeply unpleasant view of just how badly Earthians are prejudiced against, even among schoolchildren at Asticassia, and justifies the Earth House's reluctance to accept a Spacian like Suletta. Even Chuchu's outspoken hatred for them seems warranted.
• The bullying occurs once again, with Suletta being the victim trying to retake her mobile suit tests. While initially she tries to tough it out while piloting blind with Miorine's instructions, the countless failed retries eventually breaks her, not even speaking of the immense stress she's been under since her arrival. In her words, all Suletta wanted was to just have a quiet, simple time at school, and then graduate so she could achieve her dream of starting a school on Mercury — not to be the Holder, not to be caught up in political bullshit and certainly not to get a target painted on her back. Suletta winds up sobbing in the cockpit, afraid that she won't even be able to graduate. The bullying appalls even Chuchu, who hates Spacians like Suletta, so much so that she gets into a fistfight with the bullies on her behalf. The worst part is that right from the beginning, Suletta had no chance of a peaceful school life since the reason she's there to begin with is as her mother's pawn for revenge against Delling.
• The second bully involved in the fist fight with Chuchu accidentally slugs Suletta in the collateral when the two are pulled apart. Despite her violent self-defensive rage against Chuchu, she actually stops at what she just did, as even despite bullying Suletta she wasn't out to hurt the girl. It's a brief moment that highlights it was all a school thing even with Fantastic Racism involved, rather than personal spite. And for her hesitation, Chuchu promptly punched her out too.

Episode 5: Reflection in an Icy Eye

• Elan's circumstances. He was specifically created with the sole purpose of piloting Gundams, and has nothing like a birthday or a family at all. Even his appearance is implied to not be his own. His interest in Suletta up till now was out of hope that she was like him. When he discovers that Aerial doesn't have the "curse" of killing its pilot with the GUND-Format, he angrily throws away his helmet, realizing that they weren't alike after all and he was still alone.
• An angered Elan cruelly berates Suletta after he finishes piloting Aerial, insulting her for seeing Aerial as family and denouncing mobile suits like it as a curse for him. These words cause Suletta to immediately tear up, when she was previously so excited to fulfil one of her wishlist's items, which was to go on a date at school. Even worse, Elan was the first person kind to Suletta during their first meeting in her confinement only to then coldly rebuke her.

Episode 6: A Gloomy Song

• Guel getting disowned. While the representative who tells him the news only throws a backpack at him, telling him to get out and that he should be grateful his father is even willing to still pay for his tuition when asked where he is even supposed to sleep. Thankfully Guel managed to make best with the situation.
• The titular gloomy song is a reprisal of "Happy Birthday", with Suletta singing it to herself while she waits for a meeting with Elan... who is also singing it to himself as he is disposed of.

Episode 7: Shall We Gundam?

• Miorine has a flashback to the day of her mother's funeral, forlornly standing next to her mother's casket as she watches her father walk away. Despite Prospera calling her out on enjoying the perks of being Delling's daughter, it's clear that her hatred for her father is genuine nonetheless because of what he did to her.
• When the four heads of the Peil Technology set Suletta up for a public witch trial, Suletta can only stand helplessly as she's being interrogated about Aerial left and right, culminating in her crying out for her mother for help. Good thing Miorine intervened in time to save Suletta and turn the tables in their favor.
• Suletta is utterly mortified when Prospera casually reveals to her that Aerial was in fact a Gundam all along, realizing that her beloved mother was lying to her this entire time and that the mobile suit she cherished as a family member wasn't what she thought it was.

Episode 8: Their Choice

• Guel has been camping out on school grounds for weeks now, not even bothering to retaliate against anyone who comes around just to humiliate him, and judging by Shaddiq's offer, he hasn't even had access to facilities to take a proper shower this whole time.
• When Suletta asks why Prospera lied about Aerial not being a gundam, Prospera claims that it was for her and Aerial's safety since gundams are hated and feared. It's an extremely obvious lie that both Miorine and the audience can see through, but Suletta buys it whole heartedly, showing how much she trusts a person who's only using her for her own ends.
• As expected of a Gundam series, Earth is revealed to have been ravaged by war, with at least Nuno Kargan of Earth House being a war orphan who sees the development of the GUND Format into advanced weaponry to be inevitable.

Episode 9: If I Could Take One More Step Toward You

• The Earth House students expressing sorrow at the GUND-ARM Inc. sign being vandalized and that they cannot start up their company due to Shaddiq's machinations from the previous episode, with them wondering if it's because they are Earthians; once more emphasizing the prejudice Spacians have over Earthians that they can just do this stuff as they please with the Earthians powerless to do anything. Till in particular looks the most upset, given that he was the one who designed the company logo in the first place.
• Guel has a chance meeting with Suletta as she searches for someone willing to help in the duel with Grassley, and she asks him for his help. Guel has to refuse due to his father banning him from dueling, and Suletta says that he must love his father for abiding by his demands before leaving. Nothing could be further from the truth, and Guel can only sadly watch her go. And then his father gives him a phone call to tell him that he'd be dropping out of Asticassia to work for the company and to not question his demands, crushing the poor boy even further. Alternatively, there may be some truth to Suletta's otherwise-mistaken assumption, as it's clear that Guel is still devoted on SOME level to his father, and still is clinging onto hope that his father would see reason and actually give a damn about him rather than being an extension of the Jeturk name and business, and that is the only reason Guel didn't take the offer then and there. Which is why the call from his father hurts more, because it's just more mounting evidence that Vim doesn't actually care about Guel as anything more than an extension of himself and his career.
• After Shaddiq and his teammates activate their anti-GUND tech Antidote to disable Aerial, Suletta can simply do nothing but survive against their assault. As she does, she apologizes to Aerial for always depending on her in duels. Later while the rest of Earth House celebrates their win over Grassley, Suletta is cleaning and repairing Aerial, weeping as she apologizes to her for constantly getting her hurt on her account.
• Prospera sheds a single tear when Aerial breaks free from the Antidote which disabled her GUND Format, clearly remembering how it spelled the doom of Vanadis and the death of her husband, and that she finally managed to triumph over it.
• Despite his shadiness, Shaddiq genuinely did love Miorine, but his inability to trust anyone prevented him from acting on his feelings, even though he wanted to save her from being treated like an object as the Holder's bride prior to Suletta's arrival. And Miorine, for her part, actually seemed to give him some measure of trust, given their history of being Childhood Friends and her willingness to vent her frustrations to him - but by the present, that trust is now gone. Before taking his leave, Shaddiq soberly tells her that if he had been honest about his affection and fought for Miorine's sake earlier, she might allowed him into her heart, but that wouldn't be possible now. The episode ends as Miorine cuts an unripe tomato off a branch and mutters "too little, too late", symbolically doing away with the feelings between them which never grew to fruition.

Episode 10: Circling Thoughts

• While Suletta is happily heading back to the greenhouse, she encounters Elan who happens to be the fifth version. The conversation starts off okay, but it takes a turn when Elan point blank telling Suletta that Miorine is only using her as a shield and doesn’t really care about her. The look in Suletta's eyes indicate that despite how much she cares for Miorine, she does fear that Miorine doesn't reciprocate. While she resists Elan’s words and temptations this time, he is confident it won’t take much more to get her to his side. Suletta even reflects on how this Elan is different and kind of frightening.
• Even though it is nice to see that Miorine and her father appear to have some level of respect for each other, it is sad that they appear more comfortable speaking to each other as fellow businesspeople rather as father and daughter.
• After spending the entire episode eagerly awaiting Miorine's return, Suletta is heartbroken when it appears Elan's words were true after all, as she believes Miorine no longer needs her around due to her hiring gardeners to tend her greenhouse and Elan to serve as an additional test pilot for GUND-ARM. Suletta asks Miorine if she "no longer needs to be here" and she keeps "getting wrong ideas", which Miorine casually affirms without realizing the deeper meaning or noticing the change in Suletta's tone. This leads to Suletta dejectedly discarding a pair of matching keychains she'd bought for Miorine and herself, capped off with Miorine turning off the lights while Suletta remains standing there, crushed. Crunchyroll's clip channel even went as far as giving the above scene the title of “Miorine Breaks Suletta’s Heart”, with many comments agreeing with the sentiment.

Episode 11: The Witches from Earth

• Continuing on from her feeling rejected by Miorine in the previous episode, Suletta spends much of this one desperately trying to feel useful. In the very first scene she's diligently cleaning the ship's bridge, rushes off to fix a problem in the livestock room, volunteers to haul the group's supplies, briefly thinks Nuno is calling her "useless" when he’s just complaining about an app, and even insists that Ojelo take the lunchbox they both reached for over his objections. And when it looks like there aren't any lunchboxes left for her, she winds up leaving to sulk in a toilet, and no one notices Suletta is missing until Miorine asks them.
  • Ojelo insists that Suletta had reached for the lunchbox first, but Suletta is so scared of being disliked or that the others don't want her around that she insists on giving it to him anyway. This leads directly to there apparently not being any food left for her, at which point she again is too scared of bothering the others to mention it. If she had said anything, or if she had taken the first lunchbox, the others would've been happy to help her.
• Suletta also goes through a lot of trouble to avoid Miorine after the events of the previous episode whether she hides from her in the livestock room, refusing to go with Chuchu to deliver lunches, and isolating herself in the bathroom. When Miorine attempts to confront her, Suletta's first instinct is to close the door and then to runaway while denying she has any problems she wishes to speak about.
• While the heart-to-heart was heartwarming there is a lot of sadness in it. Suletta doesn’t think much of herself, and the events of this and the previous episode hammered her insecurities to the point Miorine is surprised by this. This causes Miorine to lose all composure as she admits to how much Suletta changed her life while crying into her chest.
• After spending the entire episode avoiding Miorine and then making peace with her, the attack on the station causes them to be separated. The one time Suletta reached out to Miorine, the steel door comes down and separates them. Likewise, Miorine barely regains consciousness to see Suletta be blocked by said door as she calls out to her.

Episode 12: Keep Marching On Instead Of Running Off

• When the attack is transpiring, Belmeria seems more concerned regarding Suletta's safety than her own mother as she wants to find Suletta and the other members of Earth House and make sure they're safe. However, Lady Prospera merely tells Belmeria 'that girl' will come here because that is where Aerial will be waiting.
• Guel, upon learning Suletta is on the station, hijacks a Dawn of Fold mobile suit to escape from the terrorists and try to rescue her. Unfortunately for him, Vim is on the frontlines himself and mistakes his son for an enemy, and tries to kill him. Guel, desperately trying to run, eventually sees no alternative but to fight and tearfully stabs the cockpit - before realizing his father was in there and he'd just fatally wounded him, getting a view of the blood-splattered interior to boot. And Vim, for his part, spends his last moments telling Guel he was searching for him, and although Guel tries to save him, his mobile suit explodes and kills him for good. The last we see of Guel is screaming into space with the destroyed remains of his father's mobile suit, knowing he'd just murdered his own father.
• As Norea is busy blowing up any means of escape from Plant Quetta, she eventually looks to destroy Earth House's ship, before Nika manages to wave her off by signalling Dawn of Fold's callsign. Unfortunately for her, Martin saw the whole thing, jeopardizing her relationship with her friends despite only wanting to save them.
• Poor Suletta has to witness her own mother kill a group of terrorists, sitting mere feet away from the bodies, and then said mother convinces her to fight and kill her enemies. Worse still is that Prospera warps her and Suletta's motto of "move forward, gain two" by using it to justify killing, especially in the name of saving Miorine, and Suletta actually agrees due to her unflinching trust in her mother. We can see something shift in Suletta, which lends all the more credence to the idea that Prospera has brainwashed her.
• To protect her fiancée, Suletta uses Aerial to kill a terrorist who was about to shoot Miorine and her father. The result is not pretty and leaves poor Miorine splattered with his blood, traumatized and with a Thousand-Yard Stare. It's only made worse when Suletta greets her just as cheery as usual with not an ounce of concern about the bloody pulp she slips in and gets covered with, and even offers her a hand soaked in the terrorist's blood. Miorine is understandably terrified of her and the final line of the episode is her calling Suletta a murderer.
• For all of her trauma from her asshole father, Miorine is put through the wringer, first utterly terrified of the idea that Suletta was murdered pointedly by terrorists just as she was about to make up with her, followed by her father receiving a fatal injury for her sake, and then by the nightmarish scene above. It's clear that she's entirely used to political antics and the occasional fight, not the harsh reality of death and true conflict. Just the sight of the pulped terrorist is enough to readily jumpstart a Heroic BSoD, because her entire life has been flipped upside-down in a single day and the person she'd learned to care for most is seemingly the most hellish of it all as she seems unaware of the gravity of her own actions. What makes this even sadder is that the events of Episode 11 and 12 happen within a short span of time from one another in-universe, meaning Miorine went from having one of the (if not the) happiest moments of her life alongside the person who made it possible, to having the most hellish moments of her life in less than a day (or an hour even) with that same person being a major contributor to that living hell.
• Miorine and Guel each try and follow Suletta's encouraging "Move forward, gain two" mantra, with GUND-ARM Inc. and the pursuit to start a new life respectively. But in a sick turn of irony, all they get out of it by the end of this episode seem to be pain, serving as a dark mirror to how Prospera has used the phrase to twist Suletta.

Episode 13: Envoys from the Earth

• Earth House is still feeling the weight of the attack on Plant Quetta after two weeks, and only they are aware of what truly happened as a result of a cover-up by the Benerit Group and the media. They can't even talk about it or else they'll be expelled, so it becomes clear they aren't receiving any professional help. Ojelo and Lilique in particular were hit the hardest, with the latter expressing fear over getting involved in a real combat situation again. Suletta promising that she'll protect them is the only levity they receive, and even then they show some concern about how Suletta appears to be the only one in high spirits.
• As for Suletta and Miorine, their relationship is now strained as a result of the attack, with Miorine watching over her injured father and not responding to Suletta's emails. While Suletta is otherwise in high spirits, she fears Miorine hates her for her gruesome killing of the terrorist that nearly killed her and her father, and wonders if she really had no other option to save them. Miorine, for her part, does not, and holds Prospera accountable for pushing her to do it, but she has no retort for how Suletta's violent actions did save her and Delling, and seems aware that Suletta would once again do something terrible if it was for her sake. Worst of all is that Prospera herself is still manipulating the two girls, reassuring Suletta that she made the right choice and then immediately agreeing that Suletta had went too far when asking Miorine to forgive her, as well as offering her to take up her father's work on Quiet Zero.
• Even Lauda deserves some sympathy, as he is now the Acting CEO of Jeturk Heavy Machinery following his brother's disappearance and his father's death. It's bad enough that he's still unaware of Guel's whereabouts, and now he's forced to take up the late Vim's company while also being under fire for the Dawn of Fold terrorists using Desultor suits from his own company, all while completely on his own.
• While Felsi and Petra's arrival at Gund-ARM Inc.'s booth mainly serves as a means of introducing the Rumble Royal Suletta has to participate in later, neither of them bother to hide the fact that they're still bitter over Guel being ousted as Holder, claiming it should be him who should be showing off his skills in the Royal. They clearly still admire and care about him as their former House leader even after his unceremonious fall from grace, and resent Suletta for being the primary cause for it, which is likely worsened by the fact that he's still missing.
• Nika is similarly not doing well at all, wracked with guilt over nearly getting all her friends killed by Dawn of Fold's attack, and refusing to come clean about her involvement to Martin, who pleads with her to stop hiding things so he can help her and protect their friends. Worse still, Sophie and Norea transfer to Asticassia for their own agenda, and her efforts to get them to leave fall completely short, with Norea threatening her with a knife when confronting her over her presence, and when Nika threatens to confess that they are all there illegally, they attack her and Norea tries to kill her by stomping on her with Pharact, only narrowly escaping death thanks to Suletta rescuing her. The pair also take the time to tear her down for her desire to be a bridge between Earth and Space, which was why she became a go-between between them and Shaddiq to begin with, and cruelly insult her for believing she, a lowly Earthian orphan, could ever make a difference by attending Asticassia.
• Of all people, Sophie and Norea have their own sympathetic qualities. While Sophie mostly flips between acting like a Blood Knight and Genki Girl, and Norea is The Stoic and an Ice Queen, there are several hints the pair are traumatized from being Earthian orphans and terrorists, and are coping with it in however they can. Sophie has a group of stuffed animals that she refers to as her family, even giving them roles like father, mother, and sisters, and she instantly latches onto Suletta as a big sister, following her around like a little kid who's just happy to have an older role model for the first time in her life. Norea, in contrast, is far more colder and withdrawn, wandering around the academy during the festival with a sketchbook filled with drawings of death and decay, silently seething with rage over the natural beauty of Asticassia when Earth is now desolate due to the Spacians.

Episode 14: What They Want

• In a conversation with Suletta, Nika opens up about her past as an orphan on Earth. She never knew her parents or where she was born, and that her life before Asticassia was spent alone in a tiny room, only being able to tinker on her machinery. It was a dream come true for her when Dawn of Fold allowed her to go to school, especially with her aforementioned dream to be a bridge Earthians and Spacians, and saw Suletta as a kindred spirit since it was her first time at school too. It would then all came crashing down as she unwillingly found herself part of a terrorist plot and was putting the lives of her closest friends at risk, especially during the events at Plant Quetta. Burdened by her guilt, she sadly says that she was just projecting herself onto the innocent Suletta and tells her that she'll sort out the problem on her own. As she leaves, she tells Suletta she should just keep enjoying her life at school, seemingly resigning herself to give up on her dream.
• Elan #5 once again tries to seduce Suletta, and once again gets thwarted by Sophie, who drags her away. Once they're alone, Sophie claims that he's gross for doing such a thing, and Suletta can only half-heartedly defend him. While she far too polite to say something rude about him and has grown to care about him during their conflict early in the previous cour, she can obviously tell that something is off about his behavior and is disturbed by it, unaware that the Elan she bonded with is long dead and this one is an imposter.
• Jeturk House is participating in the Rumble Ring, and throughout it all, Lauda, Felsi, and Petra make it clear that their prime objective is to take down Suletta, blaming her for everything that has gone wrong for their house, company, and in Lauda's case, family. It's quite sad, considering they're not wholly off the mark and Lauda in particular has it the worst.
• During the Rumble Ring, even before shit goes south, Chuchu suffers a flashback to the events of Plant Quetta when she's about to fire her gun at one of the enemy mobile suits, with her shot going completely wide. The events of that day were so traumatizing that even Chuchu is suffering PTSD from it. And when Dawn of Fold once again strikes, Chuchu, while always predisposed to violence, gets outright murderous and declares she would kill them all, and would have likely fought to the death if she didn't hear Felsi begging for someone to save a greivously injured Lauda.
• In the wake of Dawn of Fold attacking Asticassia, Martin ultimately decides to call the authorities on Nika and outs her as a terrorist, seeing no other way to protect the rest of Earth House while she refuses to tell him the truth. As he unhappily stares at his notebook, the authorities force their way into Earth House's control room, demanding them to bring out Nika on suspicions of terrorism while also taking them in for questioning, and just after they experienced another terrorist attack, no less. And for her part, Nika does try to turn herself into the authorities to prevent her friends from getting hurt, only to be accosted by Henao before she can.
• Sophie's death. Despite being a terrorist with a violent streak and a Yandere towards Suletta, it's obvious that all she truly wanted were the things that were denied her as an orphan, asking Suletta to become her sister as her stake in the duel, and ranting about wanting enough food to fill her stomach, a soft bed to sleep in, a warm shower, and a family - all things that children her age are supposed to have. She dies from overusing her GUND-format, seeing Ericht Samaya in her last moments and being brought to tears by the sight, realizing that Ericht, not Suletta, was who she was looking for. Meanwhile, Suletta is begging Aerial not to kill her, and though Aerial listens, it's too late for Sophie, with Suletta finding her corpse in the cockpit. This reveal also makes Sophie's over-enthusiasm when touring the campus the episode prior hit a lot harder - she was living the life she always wanted but could never have, as short-lived as it was.
• Immediately after her death, Norea arrives shortly afterward to collect Sophie's body and mobile suit, and assures Suletta that she didn't kill Sophie. However, she somberly notes that the Gundam's curse was what killed her, and will one day kill her too, all while subtly cursing Suletta for somehow being the only exception. This also marks the first time we see Norea express an emotion other than her emotionless front or silent anger - and it's pure sorrow, with tears floating from her eyes in space as she's trying her hardest to not break down crying.
• Despite Suletta having a disturbing amount of trust in her mother, the events of the episode seem to finally put a crack in her faith.
  • Her fight with Sophie, who reveals herself to be one of the terrorists who attacked Plant Quetta, gets taken to the space outside of Asticassia, who goes at length about using her Gundams for violence to get the things she wanted but couldn't have as an orphan. Suletta tries to claim that killing people for such a reason is wrong, before realizing she herself was guilty of killing for what she wanted, having killed the terrorist at Plant Quetta because she wanted to save Miorine.
  • Sophie denounces Aerial as a tool of murder, and Suletta immediately claims otherwise. However, the Earthian retorts that there was no other reason for it to be outfitted with such devastating weapons, and when Suletta tries to find the reason her mother built Aerial that way, she can't. And this is before Aerial, now revealed to be Ericht Samaya, seems to take full control and tries to kill Sophie, all while Suletta desperately begs her to stop.
  • In the aftermath, Suletta talks to Aerial and says that Sophie had to be wrong since she and Aerial did protect Miorine, Nika, and the school, and tries to repeat her mother's motto of "move forward, gain two" - before she begins crying, unable to lie to herself any longer.
• After all the elements and hints piling up as people were wondering what the truth was, Prospera outright says what everyone was hoping wasn't the case: Aerial has been Ericht Samaya all along. Which means everything Aerial has been known to consider about Prospera's actions, from weaponizing Suletta to being uncomfortable with her schemes, is literally Ericht seeing all of this death and pain personally and not being able to do anything but be there for Suletta as her own guardian. Their own mother has effectively killed her and put her in protection of her own duplicate. We're also told that this is to help fend off the data storm that overwhelms GUND-System users, which is why Suletta is The Chosen One — Ericht and Suletta are effectively synchronized so the former holds off all the data from affecting the latter. And the episode leaves it ambiguous if Ericht is thus the one suffering all of the strain in her mechanical state, or if she's immune to it.
• The end card depicts Sophie smiling with Norea at the school festival. Bittersweet considering her ultimate fate.

Episode 15: Father and Child

• Guel's current state following the events of Plant Quetta. Having been captured by Dawn of Fold after killing his father, Guel is reduced to a near-catatonic state, handcuffed in a toilet and refusing to eat for three days, incoherently mumbling about how sorry he is for killing his father. The boy effectively wants to die, and he won't even have that as a result of Olcott force-feeding him to keep him alive as a bargain chip, all while he cries and chokes on the food.
• Nika, now a captive of Shaddiq, is being brutally beaten by Norea, who blames her efforts to turn herself in for Sophie dying. Even Nika's arm, which is seemingly injured and in a sling, doesn't deter Norea from violently kicking her, and when Nika tries to tell her that needlessly killing was wrong, Norea gets even angrier. She repeatedly stomps on her in a rage while asking how she dare say such a thing, and preemptively blaming her and her ideals for any loss of life on Earth as a result of the Benerit Group's military presence, leaving the poor girl crying in a heap on the floor before Sabina finally steps in to stop her. Even Norea isn't wholly unsympathetic here, as Nika hardly had any involvement with Sophie's death and the Benerit Group were already sending its forces to Earth after Plant Quetta, making it blatantly obvious that she's just venting her grief over Sophie's death.
• As Dawn of Fold prepares to evacuate their refugee camp, some children are taking the time to build a grave for Sophie, as she was apparently a Cool Big Sis to them before her death.
• Before the Earthian refugee transports leave, a young Earthian girl, Seethia, attempts to kill Guel, blaming him for her father's death at Plant Quetta. Guel, slightly roused but unable to hear her, thinks she's talking about his father, and he voices his belief that if it weren't for him, Vim would still be alive. After she gets stopped by Olcott, she breaks down crying on the ground for her father.
• Olcott is revealed to be a former member of Cathedra, having defected to Dawn of Fold after his family was killed as collateral damage in an Earthian attack. Throughout the episode, he has flashbacks to the loss of his son as the two are trapped under rubble, uselessly reaching out to him while he calls out to his father.
• Despite his best efforts, Guel ultimately fails to save Seethia, who dies in his lap long before he can reach the refugee transport in his borrowed mobile suit. He's seen making a grave for her shortly after the confrontation with the Benerit group's forces ends, and Olcott is similarly affected, being reminded of his failure to save his son prior to his defection. Guel's attempt to save her was also doomed from the very start, as Olcott took one look at her and knew she wasn't going to make it before Guel tried to get her to safety anyway.
• Most of Dawn of Fold's fighters decide to stay behind at their base to distract the Benerit forces so that the refugees have time to escape the area. Most of them know it's likely a Suicide Mission but decide to stay anyways. Throughout the course of the battle, the fighters are picked off one by one until both forces essentially wipe each other out, but the Dawn of Fold fighters' Heroic Sacrifice ensures the refugees are safely evacuated.

Episode 16: Cycle of Sin

• The state of Asticassia following Dawn of Fold's terrorist attack. Many students have left or are leaving the school out of fear for their lives, and the students' social media is filled with either expressions of fear and trauma or highly anti-Earthian remarks, putting the blame for the attack at Earth House's feet.
• While cleared of suspicion, the members of Earth House have been suspended and their mobile suits confiscated. Nika is also still missing and everyone is worried about her, especially Chuchu, who has to be held back from getting answers herself with a wrench in hand. They then find a group of Spacian students vandalizing their dormitory, and when confronted, the students initially seem to subscribe to the anti-Earthian sentiments seen time and time again - only it turns out their classmate, Jubeju, was the student Norea murdered and they're visibly grief-stricken over his death, reminding us The Dead Have Names. Even Chuchu is too shocked to talk back to them, and the situation almost turns violent after one Spacian throws a can of spray paint and injures Martin, only being defused by the timely arrival of Miorine.
• For all of his Manipulative Bastard behavior, Elan #5 hits the audience (and Belmeria) with a harsh reminder that he's only doing Peil's bidding because he'll be disposed of otherwise. He's actually terrified when Eri hits him with a Permet Mind Rape, and gives Bel a brutal "Reason You Suck" Speech and even hits her for having the audacity to claim any kind of moral high ground over Prospera after what she did to him and the other Enhanced Persons, claiming it was hardly any better than what Prospera turning Eri into the Aerial. Even Bel isn't above sympathy, because despite her somewhat valid reasons for following Peil's orders in avoiding prosecution as a Vanadis researcher, she herself realizes that both Prospera and Elan #5 are right to call her out on her hypocrisy, and is reduced to a sobbing wreck as a disgusted Elan #5 leaves her in Aerial's hangar.
• When they are at the greenhouse, Suletta is initially worried that Miorine is angry with her. However, it is revealed that Miorine regretted calling Suletta a murderer at the end of Episode 12, and she should’ve thanked her for saving her and her father instead. Then Miorine confronts Suletta about her Blind Obedience to her mother. Though Suletta claims that she wouldn't do anything her mother asks, it quickly becomes obvious that she would, including giving up on her dreams of building a school on Mercury or once again killing another person. Realizing how deeply indoctrinated Suletta is by her mother, Miorine breaks into tears and runs away, leaving Suletta alone.
  • The worst part is that Suletta gets visibly uncomfortable as Miorine keeps asking how much she'd do just because her mother asked, culminating in a very quiet yes when Miorine asks if she'd kill people just because Prospera told her to. As the scene goes on it becomes clear that Suletta is effectively forcing herself to rationalize her Undying Loyalty to her mother, but she still can't bring herself to say she wouldn't do whatever Prospera asks. The only silver lining to this is that Miorine realizes this too, and immediately sets out to confront Prospera over how much she's emotionally manipulating her own daughter.
• When Miorine confronts Lady Prospera regarding her manipulation of her daughter, Lady Prospera turns it around and asks Miorine if she intends to have her way with Suletta instead. This fuels Miorine's anger further as she strongly wishes to deny that she is on any level similar to Lady Prospera even if it is unintentionally.
• Prospera reveals her true identity and desire for revenge for the Vanadis incident to Miorine, claiming that she can still hear the voices of her husband, mentor and colleagues demanding vengeance against Delling. It’s a clear sign of how far she has fallen from the kind and caring woman she was in the prologue after Delling took literally everything from her.
  • Earlier in the episode, Prospera told Belmeria that uploading Eri into the Aerial wasn’t entirely her choice. She apparently had to do it to save her daughter’s life due to her body not being able to handle outer space which is what GUND technology was aiming to make possible. This wouldn’t have happened if Delling didn’t order the attack on Folkvangr either.

Episode 17: Precious Things

• Miorine ultimately decides that the only way to save Suletta from Prospera's manipulation is to follow her orders to become the CEO of the Benerit Group... And in the process, irreversibly push Suletta away and rob her of Aerial.
• Miorine asks Suletta if she'd be willing to part with Aerial if she asked her to, and Suletta confidently says she wouldn't, as Aerial is a precious family member to her. Miorine wants to know if she'd be able to still be with Suletta without her Gundam, but Suletta unwittingly proves her wrong when she says she'd never willingly let Aerial go.
• After a harrowing encounter with Elan #5 and subsequently getting saved by Guel, Guel finally gets the chance to tell Suletta how he feels about her, expressing his gratitude for giving him the strength to push through his struggles and that he loves her. While touched, Suletta turns him down, saying that she already had Miorine and that she was precious to her. All while Miorine is hearing this knowing full well she'll be forced to break her heart.
• Miorine asks Guel to duel Suletta, with the intent of beating her with the stake that she gives up the Aerial. Neither of them feels good about it as they both love her, but their own goals, whether it's Guel's desire to save his family's business or Miorine's desire to protect Suletta, take precedence over Suletta's happiness.
• When Miorine expresses her desires for Suletta to live happily and freely in a world free of the Gundams' curse and the machinations of the Benerit Group, Guel softly mutters to himself that "such a world doesn't exist" clearly thinking about what he had just personally witnessed back when he was on Earth.
• As the other students watch in anticipation for Suletta and Guel's duel, one such student cannot bear to even watch another duel, clearly still traumatized from the Dawn of Fold's attack on Asticassia episodes prior.
• At multiple points in their battle, Guel's trauma causes him to freeze up as he constantly relives his Accidental Murder of his father or Seethia's death on Earth, and he even gags upon first entering Darilbalde's cockpit. The only reason he's able to keep fighting is through pure willpower.
• Suletta loses.
  • In the form of a "good luck charm" app that Miorine put on her notebook, Miorine activates a kill switch which was developed by Prospera and Belmeria that shuts Aerial down right as she's about to defeat Guel in their duel, causing her to lose. As Suletta is in a daze, Miorine arrives and reveals that she was the reason Suletta had lost and had wanted her to lose. Miorine then cruelly claims that their entire relationship was a mere "trade" as she tosses back the keychain Suletta had previously bought her, as a mortified Suletta begs Guel for a rematch. Miorine then states that Suletta had failed to uphold her end of their deal to never lose a duel and revokes her status as Holder, all while Suletta can do nothing but cry and scream. The last thing Miorine says to her is an exceedingly cold Call-Back to the aftermath of Suletta's first duel, bidding farewell to her as her "Mercurian country bumpkin" when she had previously greeted her as her groom.
  • Prior to this, viewers have noticed Miorine's hands visibly shaking before she activates the app, as she overhears Suletta expressing her desires for a future with Miorine: including asking her to stay by her side forever the way Miorine once did, getting them both rings at their wedding, wearing the best dresses, ending it with her wishing for Miorine to "choose her". It seemed like Miorine was reconsidering not going through with her plan so that Suletta can be happy and she probably would have loved doing the things Suletta expressed for their future...but goes against her feelings in order to guarantee Suletta's safety instead even it means hurting Suletta's feelings in the process.
  • Just the fact that even at that point, Suletta is still pleading for Miorine to "please choose her" with her believing she has to fulfill her promise to her to never lose in order to prove herself "worthy" to be with her. Even after Miorine's reassurance back in Episode 11, Suletta still has not gotten over the feeling that she has to prove her worth in order to be accepted whether it is by her mother, the Mercurian elders, and now Miorine. This makes Miorine's decision to shut Aerial down all the sadder because when you factor in why she is doing this in the first place: It shows that Miorine did in fact choose her, she chose to do this in order to protect Suletta from what was to come. Suletta wanting to ask Miorine to choose her also means that she wanted to give her complete freedom of choice and not force her into a marriage conditioned by her obligation to marry the Holder. Even with how eager she is to marry her, Suletta still values Miorine's freedom and agency above her own feelings, because she always saw her as a person rather than a trophy
  • Before Miorine shuts her down, Aerial says two words to Suletta right as she's about to win: "I'm sorry." As if it wasn't enough that the girl she loves, the boy who loves her, and her own mother are all conspiring to make her lose, her own mobile suit, who Suletta sees as her sister, betrays her. As you'd remember from the Star of the Cradle story, Aerial never wanted Suletta to get wrapped up in Prospera's schemes for vengeance, and Miorine's cruel methods of "saving" Suletta were something Aerial was on board with. And the alternate reading is just as sad with the apology instead being read as Aerial apologizing for not being able to stop what happens, being just a disembodied voice that can do nothing but watch as the tragedy unfolds in front of her.
  • While Suletta is begging Guel for a rematch, Guel from the Darilbalde can only watch and hear her anguish in somber silence, clearly just as upset and disgusted as Miorine for what they felt needed to be done for Suletta's safety.
  • Suletta is an anxious girl who has a tendency to overthink things. Earlier in the season she spun an entire belief that her friends and Miorine did not need or like her because there was no lunch for her. All over a mistake and a misunderstanding which Miorine had to work hard on to fix. Now everyone in her life, including Aerial, betrayed her and Miorine told her to her face that everything Suletta thought they had was a lie. That all she ever was, was a tool for Miorine's goals and that basically any reassurances she provided were lies. There is nothing left in this world for Suletta, except for her mother.
• Just the fact everyone involved loses at the end of the episode. Suletta has her heart torn apart by Miorine and is left a sobbing wreck, Miorine is forced to effectively throw away everything she's been working towards, including Suletta, to protect Suletta from the latter's own mother, and Guel has to effectively crush the hopes and dreams of the person whose words have been keeping him going all this time to both help Miorine protect her and to save his own family. It's clear neither Miorine or Guel want to do it, but they effectively have no choice; Suletta is too deep in Prospera's clutches for any alternatives. The only person that wins? Prospera, who effectively engineered the whole situation to begin with.
• After so much Character Development, and all that she's gone through to gradually stop being a Shrinking Violet so that she can stand alongside the more confident and headstrong Miorine, Suletta ends the episode in so much heartache. She's little more than a screaming, crying mess, because she's so blindsided by losing nearly everything all so suddenly that she can't even coherently speak anymore and is practically a ball of anguish she can't even start to comprehend the scale of. Given the audience would want to see her happy and know Miorine and Guel are trying to Break Her Heart to Save Her, it hurts to see her like this.

Episode 18: Our Empty Selves

• Suletta, despite being betrayed by Miorine and losing everything in the previous episode, projects a Stepford Smiler persona, enthusiastically participating in her studies and spending time with her friends. However, everyone in Earth House, even the otherwise apathetic Nuno and belligerent Chuchu, are greatly distressed by this and know full well that she's hiding her pain. And if you pay attention to her student notebook, you'll notice that a bunch of things on Suletta's list of things to do at school are checked off... except for "Celebrate a birthday party with friends." Ouch.
• Chuchu meets Suletta at Miorine's greenhouse, where she continues to tend to her tomatoes. When Chuchu asks Suletta how she isn't angry at Miorine, Suletta just replies that their engagement was just a mistake, and that she could have never hoped to become her groom. Then Lauda arrives with Felsi and Petra in tow, and while he only wanted to thank Chuchu for saving his life at the Open Campus, he can't help but kick Suletta while she’s down, worsening Suletta's already depressed and self-depreciating state of mind.
• As Nika, Elan #5, and Norea continue hiding out under Grassley, #5 tells a shocked Nika about how he was just a double of the original Elan Ceres, their purpose behind him and the creation of the Gundam Pharact, and that Gundams will kill their pilots. He then presses Norea for her reasons to risk her life piloting a Gundam, and when he gets no answer, he accuses her of being empty and only fighting Spacians as a way to fill herself up with something. This immediately enrages her to the point of attacking him with her pencil, and after #5 grabs her, he tells her that they should both be honest, given that their lives were so cheap. It recontextualizes Norea's vendetta as an Earthian in the sense that she feels she has nothing left to live for if not fighting and killing.
• As some students in Jeturk House are talking about how incredible Guel is for coming back to the academy and reacquiring his status as Holder, they unintentionally put Lauda down while they're at it, all while he's listening. He can't do anything but silently bear it.
• Martin is still guilt-ridden for his role in Nika's disappearance as the one who ratted her out to the authorities. He's noticeably affected when Chuchu attributes her more calm approach to solving the issues between Suletta and Miorine to Nika, and outright feels the need to use Asticassia's counseling service to confess and get it off his chest.
• After Suletta is led to Aerial, she takes her out for a flight where she confesses all of her worries and heartaches to the Gundam, finally admitting how her mantra of "move forward, gain two" no longer seems to be working. However, just like Miorine, Aerial too feels the need to Break Her Heart to Save Her.
  • Aerial responds to Suletta's emotional confession by summoning her data storm and taking Suletta on a Journey to the Center of the Mind, where Suletta encounters Eri and a slew of her clones, known as the Children of the Coven. As Suletta reels from what is happening, the Children tell her about the plan to go ahead with Quiet Zero so that Eri can regain her autonomy, and that Suletta is another of her clones, intended to act as her body and control while they developed her network... and that, since their goal is near completion, Suletta is no longer needed, as Aerial doesn't require a pilot at Permet Score 8. As Suletta begs and pleads to still be seen of use, Eri attacks her, subjecting her to data storms, painfully showing her Eri's memories of the Vanadis Incident, and Suletta's own earliest memory of the day Eri "died", proving her nature as a copy. Aerial finally forces Suletta out of the cockpit, leaving her tumbling in space.
    • As Suletta is being shown deeply traumatic memories of Eri's past, there is the brief and painful scene of a devastated Elnora cradling the now lifeless body of Ericht as her mind transfers to Lfrith.
  • After Suletta gets forcibly ejected from Aerial's cockpit, Prospera is there to greet her, confirming to her that everything Aerial had told her was true, before abandoning Suletta out in space while she leaves with Aerial. However, before she leaves, she puts an SOS beacon on Suletta, and encourages her to return to school to fill her now-empty heart. As they depart for Earth, Prospera voices her doubts to Eri about leaving Suletta behind and whether she was really okay with it, before accepting Eri's decision and agreeing that she deserves to live a free life. Just like Miorine, Aerial wants Suletta to be free and live happily, but more tellingly, Prospera, who consistently seemed to disfavor Suletta compared to Eri and treated her as little more than a tool, actually displays some measure of genuine care for her, having misled Suletta so she could have one final meeting with Aerial in the first place and sharing Aerial's sentiments that Suletta should be left out of their plan for revenge.
  • After being abandoned by everyone she thought cared about her, from Miorine to her mother to even her own sister in Aerial, the episode ends with Suletta crying her eyes out in the emptiness of space, no longer able to put on a happy facade.

Episode 19: Not The Best Way

• Suletta's state at the start of the episode is, as expected, dire, lying down in her bed all day, skipping classes, and unable to eat anything.
• Just before her negotiations with the Earthians begin, Miorine is seen watching the GUND-Arm Inc. PV of Suletta dancing with Aerial with a torn expression on her face.
• Norea suffers an absolutely heartwrenching breakdown, incoherently mumbling as she scribbles in her notebook and savagely attacking Elan #5 when he looks inside, before beginning to sob uncontrollably over Sophie leaving her and how afraid she is to die. Despite her icy exterior and the atrocities she committed in the name of her hatred against Spacians, all she really is is just a child afraid of Dying Alone. Even #5, despite his otherwise flippant demeanor, is dead serious as she cries, refraining from making his usual snide remarks and looking at her with genuine concern and pity as he silently holds her.
• Prospera's reaction to finding a cache of Pre-Production Lfriths is a seething Tranquil Fury, enraged that her friends and family's work on the GUND-Format, as well as Eri's means of a normal life, were being defiled for the sake of the political games between the High Council and the Benerit Group.
• Watching Miorine's despair at the destruction caused in her name after she was on the verge of resolving the Quinharbor protests peacefully. The fact that she has once again ended up as a pawn to Prospera's schemes when she thought she was finally in control makes it even worse.
• Eri herself winds up effectively being the face of a massive terror attack and the detonation of a powder keg situation that's resulting in just as much death and destruction as the attack that killed her father in the first place. What's worse is, based on Suletta's realization at the end of this episode and Eri's own actions in the previous one, it's heavily implied that she knows what she's doing is wrong but can't bring herself to disobey her mother. She's still trapped in the same situation she tried so hard to save Suletta from, except due to her condition she can do even less about it.

Episode 20: The End of Hope

• Earth House continues to receive harassment, this time as a result of Aerial being used to violently suppress the Quinharbor riots.
• Petra, after being kind enough to share her notes with a despondent Suletta and then trying to save some unconscious students during Norea's rampage, winds up getting crushed under rubble, with it unclear if she's even alive. And this was after she was legitimately opening up to Suletta about her love for Lauda and what she'd do with him if she survives the attack. Suletta's reaction upon finding her body is equally gutwrenching. While it is revealed that she's still alive in the following episode (even if just barely), it doesn't make the sight of her pinned under the rubble and bleeding heavily, any less harrowing.
• Norea's mental stability nosedives HARD upon seeing the massacre in Quinharbor, and once Shaddiq turns her loose as part of his plans, she makes a beeline for Thorn, all while Elan #5 is begging her to not throw her life away by getting back in the Gundam. She then goes on a rampage, attacking the school with her Gundam and Gundvolvas and racking up a gruesome body count even with Chuchu, Felsi, and the Dominicus trying to hold her off, including students. As a final punch to the gut, Elan desperately tries to talk her down inside the Ur, begging her to run away with him so they could live out their lives without having to fight, and it almost works... But much like with Shinn and Stella, just as Norea tries to ask #5 for his real name, she gets Killed Mid-Sentence by a Dominicus sniper. All #5 can do at the sight is howl in grief, unconsciously raising his Permet Score for the first time to send the Gundvolvas into a frenzy before fleeing.
• Miorine’s greenhouse, which contained her late mother’s prized tomatoes as a keepsake, is destroyed in the wake of Norea’s rampage.
• Poor Lauda goes through the absolute wringer. During Guel's battle with Shaddiq, Shaddiq taunts Guel for ultimately being the one who killed his father Vim, with a mortified Lauda hearing their conversation. And then, towards the end of the episode, he's left speechless and with an utterly crushed expression on his face as Kamil calls him about Petra becoming a casualty in the attack.
• Despite all his son's atrocities, all Sarius can do in the aftermath after being rescued is to let out an unhappy lament over his "foolish" son. Compared to the likes of Prospera, Vim, and Delling, he's the only parent of the main cast who consistently cared for his child, and he still cares about Shaddiq even after he's been arrested for his crimes.
• The aftermath of Norea's rampage at Asticassia is heartbreaking, with students being put into body bags as other students cry over them. With Earth House in particular, Chuchu slams her fist against her mobile suit's controls in frustration upon finding more dead students under the rubble, Ojelo dazedly asks if this was all a dream as Till unhappily tells him it wasn't, and Suletta had been trying to clear the rubble on her own to the point her hands are bloodied.
• The end card features Norea and Elan #5 peacefully spending time together on a patch of grass somewhere, and both actually look happy and without any of their respective worries. It never came to pass.

Episode 21: What We Can Do Now

• Miorine's state in the episode. As a result of the violent suppression of the Quinharbor riots that led to mass casualties, Miorine feels that she is to blame for the loss of life, as her decision to trust Prospera is what caused all the destruction. She has bags under her eyes and consistently feels like she's one step away from breaking down. And even though she refuses to let anyone else be sacrificed for her goals, telling this much to Sarius when he tries to make her cut Grassley off to preserve the group, she still can't stop the slaughter of the entire Assembly League's fleet when they try to capture Quiet Zero, crushing the poor girl.
• Miorine's meeting with Shaddiq. Despite everything he'd done, Miorine says that she still can't hate him because her own actions to accomplish her goals, that being protecting Suletta, led to a massive loss of life in the same way that Shaddiq's did as he tried to erase the disparities between Earth and Space.
• Suletta explains to her friends, Belmeria and Guston that reasoning with Prospera at this point is likely impossible due to her commitment to Ericht and Quiet Zero, and her true nature as a clone of the real Ericht that makes her truly lesser in her mother's eyes. While Suletta has grown enough for it to not get her too down, she's still obviously sad as she tells everyone about the harsh reality.
• Belmeria breaks down crying when Nika tears into her for thinking about putting Suletta in the Calibarn Gundam, acknowledging how pathetic and selfish she is for being unable to do anything but sacrifice others for her own survival, and wishing she'd just died in the Vanadis Incident so she wouldn't have to live like this. Even Elan #5, who was eavesdropping on the meeting, seems to pity her, even though he'd suffered because of her more than anyone else.
• When Elan #5 shows himself, he offers to help Suletta and everyone in their plan to stop Prospera, in exchange for being let free since he "has somewhere to be." It's heavily implied that the "somewhere" is a place drawn in Norea's sketchbook, likely the clear lake that had caught his eye earlier.

Episode 22: The Woven Path

• Miorine is so broken down from the previous episode's events that she had isolated herself in her office, and she isn't allowing anyone to see her. Guel is unable to get through to her.
• While Miorine's reunion with Suletta is mostly heartwarming, it is sad to hear how she continues to blame herself for the deaths and injuries on Earth and the school. Additionally, she even briefly mentions that her betraying Suletta was another mistake as well. Thankfully, this is followed up by a Tear Dryer moment when Suletta is able to get through to her.

Episode 23: Unrelenting Tenderness

• Eri’s sacrifice along with Lady Prospera’s reaction. At the end of the episode, Aerial is reduced to pieces, and it is unknown if anything of Eri has survived.
• Somehow equal parts funny and depressing, Elan #5 calls Kenanji out on his killing an already subdued Norea.

Episode 24: May All Blessings Find Their Way To You, I'm Wishing It

• Suletta's reunion with Elan #4 in the form of a Permet ghost is very bittersweet. While they finally get to meet again, it won't last for long, and Suletta immediately begins shedding tears and apologizing for being unable to see him after their duel as she promised.
• While it was heartwarming for Prospera/Elnora to be reunited with the Permet ghosts of those she loved who tell her that it isn’t her time yet, it's easy to see how heartbreaking it is for Prospera because of how fleeting this reunion will be, as well has how Prospera believes she's Beyond Redemption after over two decades of trying to take her revenge.
• Elan #5 manages to see Norea's Permet ghost, and she's gently smiling at him, a far cry from the deeply bitter and hateful girl she used to be.
• When Miorine finds Suletta floating in space, she non-audibly shouts for Suletta and Suletta isn't responsive, causing Miorine to believe she's dead and beginning to break down in tears. Thankfully, this moment becomes a Tear Dryer quickly afterwards.
• In exchange for amnesty for the Grassley Girls as well as to allow Prospera to be with her daughters, Shaddiq agrees to take the fall for everything involving Quiet Zero. While he is at peace with his decision knowing that Miorine is fulfilling his dream of ending the war partitioning on Earth, it’s still rather saddening to know that Shaddiq, in spite of everything he’s done, will likely spend the rest of his days in prison and possibly even face capital punishment.
• Although Prospera gets to live a peaceful life on Earth with Suletta, it is deeply sad to see her state after finally succumbing to the effects of the data storm infection, as she's now wheelchair-bound and half her hair has gone white.

MISC

• Following the airing of Episode 12, Suletta's Japanese voice actor, Kana Ichinose, posted a tweet that crosses with Nightmare fuel which she is begging for Miorine to help Suletta "wake up".
• The second opening features a forlorn Guel slumped against a wall, before he gets up and shows himself to be on what is likely Earth, still miserable about the events at Plant Quetta that resulted in him accidentally killing his father in self-defense.
  • In the first opening, Guel stood proudly up front and in the middle of the dueling committee appearing proud. In the second opening, Guel has his back turned, hunched over, and in the background while Elan and Shaddiq are in focus further symbolizing his fall from grace and disheveled state.
• Following episode 17, in the radio show that airs after each episode, Lynn (Miorine's VA) mentions that she almost flubbed her final lines because Suletta's anguished desperation affected her so much. You can even hear her getting slightly choked up as she talks about it.

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