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Aldnoah.Zero (TV) (both seasons).


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Key
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PostPosted: Tue Jul 29, 2014 11:41 pm Reply with quote
dtm42 wrote:
^
spoiler[She seemed pretty sheltered to me when we saw her on the ship, and the fact that she had to have the Count escort her to Earth makes me wonder if she hasn't been wrapped in cotton wool all her life. Plus every Martian we've seen thus far in cataphract combat and on the landing castles has been male, indicating that women are not afforded the same status as men when it comes to fighting (which is true in almost all historical warrior cultures). I think a female bodyguard who can fight is much more plausible than a princess who can fight.]

What about points one and two? You didn't address them.


At least one of the Knights shown in episode one, right before the landing castles dropped, was clearly female.

For your point #2, I have one word for you: spoiler[acclimatization]. Will admit that your point #1 is currently unexplained and I had wondered about that myself. I can only think that spoiler[she was left with but a small retinue because to do otherwise might attract the wrong kind of attention to the ruse. Presumably shit happened to lead her to the circumstances where Inaho encountered them - perhaps someone in the retinue turned traitor and they had to flee, which might have been what the "spy" reference was actually about. And, frankly, Edelrittuo (or whatever her name is) doesn't seem like a cool enough customer to pull off the kind of deception you're describing.]

That all being said, it is an amusing notion.
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dtm42



Joined: 05 Feb 2008
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PostPosted: Tue Jul 29, 2014 11:48 pm Reply with quote
Key wrote:
At least one of the Knights shown in episode one, right before the landing castles dropped, was clearly female.


You are quite correct. Since they showed her in the same sequence along with Bowl Cut dude I expect we'll see her in time.
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Galap
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PostPosted: Wed Jul 30, 2014 12:39 am Reply with quote
dtm42 wrote:
Apologies if you've heard this theory before, but I hadn't and I wanted to share it. I read about it on RandomC and it makes good sense. The theory is that spoiler[the princess actually did die in the explosion and that's her bodyguard/bodydouble running around pretending to be her.] It's plausible and it neatly answers several questions:

1): spoiler[Why is the "princess" only left with a single handmaiden? Even if the real princess was indeed sick and did not take part in the parade she would still have had a large retinue with her wherever she was recovering at.]

2): spoiler[If the princess was sick enough to not take part in a parade that she herself had scheduled, then why is she fine now? She has displayed no problem with the gravity. If the whole gravity sickness thing is a cover story to fool Inaho and it was indeed the real princess in the car . . .]

3): spoiler[Why is the "princess" so proficient with martial arts and weapons such as a missile launcher? Those are skills you'd expect from a trained bodyguard, not an actual princess who has been sheltered all her life.]

4): spoiler[This is different from the others but nevertheless it's food for thought. When the "princess" begins to give her name in episode four and then catches herself, and the handmaiden is visible startled, we think it is because the "princess" almost spoke her real royal name of Asseylum in front of Inaho's sister. But what if it was because she is really the bodydouble and almost spoke her own name in front of Inaho himself?]

Anyway, while I don't know if the theory is true, it would spoiler[be a cool double-twist if the princess had actually died back then.] In fact, I'd be pretty disappointed if it isn't true.


It's an interesting thought. That may end up being the case spoiler[(mabye the 'princess' state is the holographic avatar, and the darker, shorter haired girl we see most of the time represents the true state of affairs)]

I'd personally probably prefer it wasn't true, because I kind of like the idea of spoiler[the princess just being able to take down Inaho and shoot the grenade launcher. And I don't think it's unreasonable that she'd be able to do those things even if she didn't get any particular training with them (for one, why would she get training on human projectile arms?), and I think the show acknowledging that sure training matters, but a lot of the time, people can just do stuff if they have to.]

My thoughts on your points:

spoiler[1: She and Edelrittuo probably just checked out when shit started to go down, due to concerns of retaliation or just from chaos. If you know someone wanted you dead, It'd probably be a good idea to lay low for a while. Also, maybe she didn't have the big entourage to avoid attention.

2: She probably just recovered.]


I do think it's an interesting theory.
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Blood-
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PostPosted: Wed Jul 30, 2014 5:59 am Reply with quote
Hmm, yes it is interesting. I have nothing new to add to the plausibility of it except to note that it seems like a very Urobuchi-esque flourish which makes me kind of lean toward it.
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ChibiKangaroo



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PostPosted: Wed Jul 30, 2014 9:11 am Reply with quote
I suppose it wouldn't surprise me if that theory came true, but I don't think there would be much point to it other than simply trolling the audience with some massive head fake.

I mean, spoiler[it would be different if we had some intricate and moving back story going on here where there was a race of people that served as body doubles or clones or something, and there was a history of them being severely abused and we had seen some scenes of the princess taking up their cause or otherwise interacting with them - then it would definitely make sense to have a plot twist of the princess really being dead and her body double taking over her persona. There would be all kinds of opportunity to explore the impact of that on her personally and on the politics and society around her.]

However, we don't have any depth right now to spoiler[a body double "becoming the princess,]" so it seems like it would just be Urobuchi saying "Haha!! Gotcha!! You thought it was really her, but it wasn't!" And us saying, "Ohhh, you got us that time! Urobuchi, you rascal you!!"
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Blood-
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PostPosted: Wed Jul 30, 2014 9:20 am Reply with quote
Nah, you are taking a way too narrow view of the potential for this (if it turns out to be true). Think of all the complications that could arise if people eventually learn that spoiler[the princess is still alive but then it turns out it's not really her. Say she's revealed and so the Martian invasion is called off - only for it to be learned she is just a body double. On a much smaller scale, imagine the impact on Slaine if he thinks the Princess has survived but then it's not really her.] In the hands of good writers, a twist like this could be far more than just a gimmick.
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ChibiKangaroo



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PostPosted: Wed Jul 30, 2014 9:38 am Reply with quote
Blood- wrote:
Nah, you are taking a way too narrow view of the potential for this (if it turns out to be true). Think of all the complications that could arise if people eventually learn that spoiler[the princess is still alive but then it turns out it's not really her. Say she's revealed and so the Martian invasion is called off - only for it to be learned she is just a body double. On a much smaller scale, imagine the impact on Slaine if he thinks the Princess has survived but then it's not really her.] In the hands of good writers, a twist like this could be far more than just a gimmick.


I agree with you that in the hands of good writers, it could be a great twist. The problem is I haven't seen anything so far that would create proper set-up for them to maximize on such a twist. Even the things you mentioned there would just be a similar head fake, just that head fake is directed at the Martian people and Slaine. I would think that in order for it to be more than just a gimmick, there would have to be something deeper to it other than just "gotcha!!"
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Blood-
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PostPosted: Wed Jul 30, 2014 9:56 am Reply with quote
And there could be. Conceptually, there is no reason why there couldn't be effective use of it. That doesn't mean (if its even true) that it will be used for more than a gimmick, but it certainly has the potential to be an interesting complicating factor. We'll see. (Although I do take your point that the fact that we didn't really know spoiler[the Princess is a limiting factor.])

To tell you the truth, I kinda wish I hadn't read the speculation. Because if it is true it would have far more impact for me if I hadn't had a head's up. Oh well.
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Tuor_of_Gondolin



Joined: 20 Apr 2009
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PostPosted: Wed Jul 30, 2014 1:26 pm Reply with quote
Well, we'll find out the accuracy of that theory when she runs into Slaine again (which we know is going to happen eventually). Slaine knows her, and he gave her something. I doubt spoiler[a double] would be able to fool him for very long. Personally, that scenario feels very unlikely. However, her "I was sick" excuse does seem to me to be hiding something, I just don't think that what she's hiding is what the theory states she's hiding.
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Key
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PostPosted: Wed Jul 30, 2014 3:50 pm Reply with quote
The simplest explanation is that the princess's "I was sick" excuse is hiding the fact that spoiler[she was actually out exploring Earth incognito, which would also explain why she was without a retinue when she encountered Inaho and had the holographic disguise in the first place]. It's not like we haven't seen that in anime before, and that's a gimmick hardly limited to anime storytelling. (Hell, there are actually historical examples of this happening, if certain historical accounts can be considered credible.)
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Penguin_Factory



Joined: 28 Oct 2007
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PostPosted: Wed Jul 30, 2014 6:17 pm Reply with quote
Key wrote:
The simplest explanation is that the princess's "I was sick" excuse is hiding the fact that spoiler[she was actually out exploring Earth incognito, which would also explain why she was without a retinue when she encountered Inaho and had the holographic disguise in the first place].


That would also explain why she was getting Earth Lessons from Slaine, which wouldn't really be necessary for a quick (and presumably heavily micro-managed) state visit but would make sense under the scenario you're suggesting.

In fact -I'm surprised I never thought to ask this before- if she was really sick then how the hell did she end up wandering around Tokyo with just a child maid for protection? Wouldn't she have been at a hospital or back in orbit or something?
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meiam



Joined: 23 Jun 2013
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PostPosted: Wed Jul 30, 2014 6:29 pm Reply with quote
ChibiKangaroo wrote:
However, we don't have any depth right now to spoiler[a body double "becoming the princess,]" so it seems like it would just be Urobuchi saying "Haha!! Gotcha!! You thought it was really her, but it wasn't!" And us saying, "Ohhh, you got us that time! Urobuchi, you rascal you!!"


Pretty much, I think someone actually brought it up way earlier after episode 1, it would essentially only be there to fool the viewer, which I think would just be bad writing.

It also would be really dumb because the ver empire should have no trouble figuring out wether she's the real deal or not (pretty sure they heard of DNA test), so she'd be useless at stopping the war anyway. Maybe there's like a secret twin of the princess that was hiding out on earth or something, but even that would be weak and easy to prove.

It also doesn't explain why the handmaiden wasn't in the car with the princess, unless the handmaiden is also supposed to be a fake.

I won't say it's not the case, but if it does turn out to be true it would really drag the show down.
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Stark700



Joined: 30 Jan 2012
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PostPosted: Sat Aug 02, 2014 12:53 pm Reply with quote
Episode 5:

Decent episode. The first 3 minutes caught me off guard somewhat. Well, it is a spoiler[CPR-kiss after all Wink]

I'm kinda curious on how spoiler[Inaho will deal with the upcoming war as well as the others. Also, I wouldn't be surprised if at some point that Slaine defects from the empire in the future. I think his priority right now is still to find the princess since he doesn't know where she is.]
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RestLessone



Joined: 02 Aug 2009
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PostPosted: Sat Aug 02, 2014 1:26 pm Reply with quote
To be honest, I was much more interested in the Vers going-ons than the fight Inaho and co. had with spoiler[Vlad]. It felt a little shoe-horned in, as if the writers just needed a reason to have Inaho featured again. It wasn't even that great a fight; spoiler[Vlad drops in and gets killed a few minutes later.] I suppose it will give the Knights more of an excuse to target them...

I wonder if the truth about spoiler[Trillram will be revealed to Cruhteo soon, now that Saazbaum has the empire/emperor on his side and knows for certain that Slaine believes the princess to be alive. Saazbaum could theoretically approach Cruhteo, framing Slaine as a traitor.]

EDIT:
Under the assumption that spoiler[Saazbaum's team will find Trillram's body in the next couple episodes. Though even if they don't, Saazbaum already suspects that Slaine was involved.]


Last edited by RestLessone on Sat Aug 02, 2014 1:53 pm; edited 1 time in total
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ookamigirl



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PostPosted: Sat Aug 02, 2014 1:49 pm Reply with quote
So we finally got to see how spoiler[Slaine met the Princess.]
He finally got a bigger spotlight.
spoiler[Inaho] got the recognition he deserved.
Looks like things are changing with spoiler[Vers.]
I admire Inaho's calmness.
He sure got rid of that spoiler[plasma sword mecha with ease.
Slaine made an attempt to stop the meaningless war.
It's a shame his majesty got fooled..
Now Slaine]
is in a world of trouble..
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