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「Backward pawn」
Whew it’s been a while since we’ve seen an Exile episode. Two weeks to be exact. If you’re like me then you’ve forgotten some details. A trip 10 years back into the past really helps ease us back into the story. It also helps answer some little details concerning a few characters. To further the story, it takes us back to the first and last Grand Race.
This episode attempts to develop the character Luscinia. We got to see how he lost his sight in one eye and got the eye patch. Queen Farahnaz Augusta seemed to have cherished her two bodyguards and tasked them with the protecting the world should she be unable to continue her goal of keeping the world peaceful. Luscinia and Alauda have taken a darker path to achieving the greater good of world peace but from the way Liliana was talking about Farahnaz’s accomplishments, it is at odds with how she would have wanted the world to come together. For an attempt at developing Luscinia’s personality, the episode left me slightly puzzled. I don’t think the episode did a very good job conveying how important Farahnaz’s was to him. The whole emotionless to crazed Luscinia just didn’t pan out well (at least to me) because of it. Instead it established how Liliana might be more attached to Farahnaz.
We were able to see how much hate and bitterness there is between races and nations. It’s apparent when you see how the pilots in the hanger bring up being from Exile (as opposed to a “reject”) or seeing the soldiers pick on (who I’m assuming is) a younger Vasant. And even though the world is supposedly united, Farahnaz does point out that war is fresh in people’s memories.
There were many interesting things to see throughout the episode. We got to see many characters from the present day in the past just as history’s course was altered by the assassination of Farahnaz. We got to see cameos of the supporting characters such as many of the Ades generals (Orang, Sorush, Kayvan, Vasant), the former King of Turan, and Roshanak Babar (the noble who Fam made a bet against). Apparently Fam and Millia had previously met each other when they were younger. What was most interesting to see was how a little act of kindness made Liliana possibly fall in love.
This episode left some me with some questions. For example, why are the sky pirates invited to the grand race if everyone knows they are sky pirates? They’re sky pirates so they would have to be criminals. Should they not be enemies of Ades and Turan even at that time? They don’t travel very far to steal ships so they have to have been stealing from them. Also, why are there only Alauda and Luscinia the only two guild members with the Queen? It’s not normal for the Guild to assign people to protect politicians. They were originally intended oversee the maintenance of presters and migration back to Earth. Also, seeing Fam with that medallion of a prester makes me wonder whether she was from one.
* If you don’t know already I’m taking over this so Enzo can free up some time for newer shows
Preview
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For something called the Grand Race, the venue and the number of competitors seemed quite small. It seemed more like on the scale of the Norkia Cup from last series. The Horizon Cave race also seemed bigger.
Also, Dio seemed to have recognized Alauda as someone from a black clan of guild, but they were obviously wearing white here in the flashback. Plot hole?
unlisted, the girl that Farahnaz is talking with in this picture https://randomc.net/image/Last%20Exile%20Ginyoku%20no%20Fam/Last%20Exile%20Ginyoku%20no%20Fam%20-%2011%20-%20Large%2020.jpg is Vasant.
awww…poor fam looking for her family…and wanting to win the grand race so anybody who knows her will pop up…
MY SUSPISCIONS WERE RIGHT!
Alauda and Luscinia Hafez were from Guild! Question now is how did they manage to break from Maestro Delphine?????
They didn’t, they are from a different Guild probably from another prester.
Or maybe from an Earth-based faction of the Guild?
The Exile of Last Exile hasn’t even returned to Earth…
What do you mean?
The Exile that Claus and Lavie are on had already return to Earth.
They have their story on Earth in the manga “Last Exile: Travelers from the Hourglass”.
I wonder how was the Last Exile universe like before everyone went out to space.
While thinking of that I remember that I wondered how the Broken Blade’s world was like when Delphine was in its prime.
Primarch meant that during the events in the flashback, the Prester Exile had not yet returned to Earth. At the start of the series, it’s only been a few years (1-3?) since Prester’s Exile returned and the flashback goes back about 10 years.
As for the pre-exile-Earth; it’s implied (though that can be construed to interpretation) that that would be how our world would be like a few decades/centuries into our future.
During both series they say stuff about how rampant destruction of the Earth (just like we’ve been doing now for quite some time) had finally made the Earth lash back against humanity through ever-escalating large-scale natural disasters, which made it necessary for many to leave the planet. By that time they obviously developed the required technology to live off-world.
This was another episode of Last Exile that left me with very mixed feelings. On one hand, the story was given a major boost with this flashback, fleshing out and explaining a lot of the background to the current state of events. Yet, the execution off the story elements is once again to blame for how weak this episode felt for me. Let me just rail of a few off my observations:-
1) Why are there almost no other guards around? I mean, there must be a lot of powerful dignitaries from all the major countries present there, yet I don’t see any guards besides Luscinia and Alauda, and they’re more the Queen’s personal bodyguards. Wouldn’t it be common sense to have guards with mobile patrol units to safeguard all those foreign dignitaries?
2) When the Queen was shot, why didn’t anyone (besides Luscinia) rush in towards her to check on her condition, or even at least call for the medic or something? It may have been too late, but this is the Queen and yet not even one person was sensible enough to call for the doctor or something..
3) By the heavens and above, why did Sadri rush out in the open carrying the babe-in-arms Sara while the frickin terrorists were firing on them? Did the old man temporarily went senile or something to have made such a stupid action..
4) The Grand Race was more like a joke race or something. The course seemed way too short and not very challenging. The Norkia Cup in the 1st Last Exile was miles better with a challenging course that truly tested the abilities of the Vanship pilot and co-pilot. If this was the greatest race to be held on earth, I’d rather go back to Prester and watch the Norkia Cup all over again. I even felt sorry for Fam who previously wanted Millia to reinstate the Grand race so she could win the so called “greatest race”.
“Folks were doin’ a lot of running that day. …Did you, during all this running, run for a doctor?”
This episode would have been so much better if no for the little acts of stupidity here and there.
Worst bodyguards ever. First rule of executive security: SECURE YOUR CLIENT! And no machine pistols? Two of the old series guilders with machine pistols and a little common sense could have saved the day. My suspension of disbelief is starting to take a hit from some bad writing. All in all, this episode was just too contrived. Just like Divine said with the pirates being there.
While “Secure the Client” may be true in today’s professional security forces this series Last Exile doesn’t take after our world. Our world has a methodology ironed out for everything these days. Decades ago that wasn’t remotely the case.
Look at the assassination of Franz Ferdinand a century ago. They had no such security detail back then. In Last Exile, Luscinia and Alauda seem like more than adequate guards for security situations besides a full on raid which the assassins essentially had.
The stupidity of the other characters behavior isn’t dispelled though.
But we’re not talking about normal grunts, we’re talking people with access to a lot more information and training. But then again, we’re talking about the Guild. They do make plenty of mistakes, but I took that in the last series to be more an issue of the vanity and flat out insanity on the part of Delphine.
Um, Worse Bodyguards? You forgotten, that they have a Shield. So Behind them was Save
Remember, when one of them go Shoot on the Bridge, he have a Shield. And i bet back then he still has it, too
But yeah. Where where their Guards. The Assaulter’s, have all time of the World to kill the Queen
Btw, good Move. that they used the Episode for the Flashback. So the Story how they got in the Train at the end. Can be told later.
I didn’t mind the episode, I was glad that we got to see the characters were all connected from the grand race. Still, I am hoping in th enext few episodes something propels the story because right now I feel as if it is just stuck where it has been from thr beginning; Millia nationless and Fam by her side accompishing next to nothing.
I thought this episode was well done and showed how most of the characters were connected to that event.
The writers of this series are still having trouble conveying the importance of all of what is at stake. Why we should even care at this point. The brillance of the Last Exile, was the writers were able to convey what was “at stake” within the first episode. Hell within the first 10 mins with the soldier repeating his chant. This series just seems so choppy. They are trying so hard to develop mysteries, that a lot of the characters motivations/desires are under developed half way through the story. They are taking entire episodes to explain a back story, instead of an image of Delphine smelling roses smiling as Alec et al were dying in the grand stream. Or Al’s drawing of what a united Anatoray/Disith would look like (A drawing that she added to throughout her time on Silivana and which got clearer the closer we got to the ending).
We get Fam and Gisey’s motivations, you the writers have been telling us since the 1st episode. Now can we focus on why the Silvana is there? Dio and Al? What are they trying to accomplish?
It’s like they don’t have enough story to show us. We’re halfway through and while there were some decent fighting, all I’ve gotten so far is:
1. introduced main characters
2. goal is to rehost grand race – is this even important? other than linking Millia and Fam?
3. Ades / world / Anatoray war
4. character drama… the development is arguable.
Then again it’s not as bad as it sounds, but I definitely 100% agree with how choppy this series is. It’s almost like they’re trying to make each episode standalone.
I wonder will the true identity of Fam play a big part in the story?
Or is that just some normal accident, another innocent backstory for a character?
I have a feeling that the Guild was originally much more of a corporation than anything else. A corporation that specialized and developed high technologies and built things like Prester, the Exiles ‘n such. Individual countries and entities would invest their resources and ‘partner’ with the Guild in order to safe-guard their own future, either on Earth or on Prester(s), in light of the planet becoming less and less habitable. This could explain why even at the start of the colonization of Prester, the people who lived ‘on land’ on Anatoray and Disith had considerably less advanced technology than the Guild. I think the Guild simply made sure people from different countries made it to Prester safe and sound on their space craft and let them take it from there, continuing with their culture and level of tech as it was on Earth. After a period of time the Guild on Prester degenerated, culminating in Delphine the Unbalanced One. I wonder what happened to the Earth-based faction of the Guild and whether there are other factions as well. Question: has the existence of other Presters been confirmed or is that still a big enigma?
“Question: has the existence of other Presters been confirmed or is that still a big enigma?”
Yes, it’s been confirmed. 🙂
There’s the fan wiki ofcourse that has info about the Guild and the role of the Exiles and Presters, but now it has also now been confirmed directly within the shows in Last Exile: GnF a few times, not only by the existence of multiple other Exile ships (those moons and the fully activated ship seen in the first ep by Dio), but also by Luscinia’s words about returnees in ep 2 when he activated an Exile through Liliana, and even more explicitly in the Ades meeting back in ep 3 explaining that the Turan people came back to Earth aboard an Exile and settled back on Earth a little over a hundred years before the start of Fam.
Thanks! I gleaned a lot from the wiki. And I re-watched those episodes as well, so I’m totally in-the-know now. 😉
Just what the hell were they doing on the train anyway? Probably some explanation will be told later. At least this episode made me understand the events more.
Pardon me if I’m rude, but this is the second episode in a row that I noticed a blatant drop in animation quality, as the previous episode showed some serious off-model character designs(Vincent’s, of all people). This time it’s the Augusta and the Lukia-Alauda pair.
Apart from that, Vassant’s pledge as soon as the empress died could have been more dramatic. It’s just that the entire scene felt really, really flat.
Ah, the ever so popular Explain all the Details about all the Characters in One Place at One Time Flash-Back-Story.
Nice and pat, without any extra work needed. Like a detailed plot or characterization Just go ahead and assume that a single confluence of events can explain everything. Weak execution overall.