What's So Special About Zechs?

by Sharon "Tut" LaBorde

Close friends who have known me for a long time, and who know all about the different animated characters I've been in love with at one time or another, often tease me light-heartedly about Zechs Merquise, my favorite character from Gundam Wing. Most of their jokes center around the fact that I find him extremely attractive; or the fact that my fiance', who has long, blonde hair and blue eyes similar to Zechs', has a talent for imitating his breathy, classically anime voice. But despite all their teasing, I actually have some profound reasons for liking Zechs so much. I see far more in him than just a pretty animated face. In truth, I also find him to be very much a kindred spirit. For me, Zechs Merquise is a deep character who faces challenges and has motivations with which I can personally identify.

Oddly enough, the first characteristic of Zechs' that gave me a hint of his personality was the same one that concealed his face: his polished metal mask. I immediately found it to be an intriguing symbol, because it suggested to me that whatever he appeared to be on the surface was not his true self. For whatever reasons--which of course were revealed later--he could not allow anyone to see him at face value, so he kept that identity hidden. At first my reaction may only have been subconscious, but I felt I could relate to that idea of maintaining a facade. While I have never tried to hide what I really am, some aspects of my personality appear so foreign to most people that they have become like a mask. For most of my life I was labelled 'different' by almost everyone around me, including my family. They branded me odd and even outcast because I wore different clothes from everyone else, made better grades, was creative and liked things that weren't considered 'typical' of a girl. As a kid I couldn't help not fitting in and not being accepted, and I felt sad because no one seemed to know who I really was--they only knew the 'wierd' stereotype. But as I got older, I turned the label to my own advantage and started to purposefully use it as a front. I would regularly wear something outlandish, like a black cloak, or carry a figure from my Transformer collection around with me wherever I went. Even though I do enjoy wearing a cloak and have long been a fan of Transformers, those actual traits seem unusual to others and often act as a convenient focus point. I decided that if the majority of people insisted on judging me solely by a strange appearance, then they did not deserve to know the real me anyway. They would only see what I allowed them to see. What I did was no different, in essence, from fooling the outside world by putting on a mask and going by the name Zechs Merquise.

When Zechs eventually took his mask off for the first time a few episodes into the series, I began to see even more of the kindred soul that lay underneath it. The particulars of his backstory were certainly unique; he had been born Milliardo Peacecraft, prince of the Sanc Kingdom, which was overrun when he was only six. Left an orphan, he had to assume a new identity and deny his royal heritage in order to survive. In fact, Zechs also revealed that he joined the military group OZ with the ultimate aim of vengeance. But despite the obvious differences between us in dramatic details, I also noticed some striking similarities, especially in the ways we both react to strife. Righting the wrongs done to him as a child and dealing with his own immense pain became an all-consuming force for Zechs. It has been the same way for me. Every day of his life he had to wrestle with anger, sorrow and even guilt over losing his home and his family, then being forced to live a lie just to stay alive. Every day of my life I have had to deal with the pain of having been emotionally and physically abused as a child, having watched both of my younger brothers receive blatant favoritism throughout our lives, and having been dragged into my parents' marital disputes--to the point where I was told to pack my brothers' suitcases in one incident, then years later confronting my mother about her infidelity and being openly lied to in response. I know how Zechs must have felt trying to live a life that wasn't real because of the deceit and lies that I had to live with as my parents' marriage deteriorated. I know how infuriated he must felt about being made to suffer as a child because I was made to suffer, too. My parents are still alive, but so often I wonder if my mother and father ever really loved me for who I am--so in that sense, I feel that I have no real parents, either. I also know how helpless he must have felt that he was unable to change the past, despite being hellbent on changing the future in an effort to make up for it. Our life stories may have been different, but I got the overwhelming sense that we share the same pain.

Much later in the series, I saw even more parallels between Zechs and myself in how he interacted with his younger sister Relena. Being three years younger than him, she never remembered any of the events that seperated the two of them and overthrew their kingdom. Because she never had to hide herself, or lead a life that defied their father's teachings of pacifism, at first Zechs considered her deserving enough to be instated as rightful ruler of the restored Sanc Kingdom. However, he probably regretted that decision later when she dissolved the entire country in a futile attempt to avoid invasion. At that point, he more than likely saw her innocence instead as foolish naivite', and perhaps even stupidity. Worse, she repeated her father's mistake of refusing to defend the kingdom and she never realized it--but Zechs did. I also understood this because, being a firstborn like him, I have a brother who reminds me very much of Relena. He is six years younger than I am, and like Relena is completely innocent and oblivious of some of the harsh realities I grew up with. Some of our differences are situational; when I was a child, for example, our family was poor, so I grew up with very little. But before my brother was even out of elementary school, our parents began making significantly more money, so he was never told, "no, we can't afford that." As a result, he is much less aware of how to save money and live with less. However, not all of our respective variances come from circumstance. My brother also received blatantly preferential treatment from our mother throughout his life. This factors heavily into what most makes him a Relena to my Zechs: how we were differently involved in our parents' divorce. When I was a teenager and my brother was only in grade school, too young to be aware of the growing discontent, our mother not only got me involved in it, but also manipulated me into taking her side. As I got older, though, I began to grow disillusioned with her empty promises and being part of an ongoing fight that was not mine. Most importantly, I realized my mother was not as innocent as she professed to be. So when I refused to let her commiserate with me any further, she then turned to my brother. She had given him special treatment and affection his entire life, so he could see no wrong in her and quickly took her side. When I found out about this, I was infuriated because I knew firsthand that what our mother was doing was wrong. But she simply accused me of being mean to my brother when I tried to confront her, and he was too young and too sheltered to even fathom that he was being mislead. In spite of my efforts to warn him, I ultimately felt as helpless as Zechs must have as his homeland fell a second time. This has taken a heavy toll on my relationship with my brother; often it has been too painful even to listen to him speak about his mother, and more recently his stepfamily. In comparison, I found it significant that Zechs barely spoke to his sister after she renounced the kingdom's soveriegnty. Just as my brother never realized our mother's wrongdoing, Relena never understood the mistake she repeated by letting her home country be destroyed without resisting. Zechs and I, both being the oldest in our families, understood our respective situations all too well. Having a firstborn's perspective, we see the world very differently from our younger siblings, but through very similar eyes to one another.

While I strongly sympathized with Zechs because of his life story, I came to respect, admire and further identify with him because of his actions on the battlefield. What impressed me most, however, was not his skill in piloting a mobile suit or keeping cool under fire--it was his courage to think independently and follow his conscience. He had allied himself to OZ in order to avenge his conquered home nation, but afterward he began to question how the organization dealt with the Gundam pilots, who were freedom fighters in their own right. He began to quietly disobey orders as his own sense of duty grew further and further at odds with OZ. This was yet again something I could relate to, because I too have had to make the difficult choice to act upon conscience. As part of a community of fans of the Transformers, I once had a close friend who not only held very radical views about the genre, but also actively sought to convince everyone around her that her views alone were correct. I never considered the ways she felt about life, the Transformers or anything else to be a problem. However, attempting to control how others think and force opinions onto them--as I realized she was doing to others and even to me--is abjectly wrong. As friends we found commonality in the fact that others considered us different, but deep down I felt that what she was doing was no better than the chastising we received for not "fitting in". Still intent on being a friend, though, I resolved to quietly promote individual thinking and spread a different message among our fellow fans, much as Zechs disobeyed orders in secret to help the Gundam pilots. However, both he and I reached a point where our dissent could no longer remain hidden. In my case, I wrote and posted an essay about a topic that had been central to my friend's counter-view of the Transformers. At one point I had agreed with her on it, but time, my own experiences and mounting evidence of her same viewpoint cloning itself in other fans gave me cause to reconsider. I was never prepared for the response I got from her. She very hatefully pronounced me an eternal traitor to her 'cause', never to have her friendship again. I felt shocked, angered, and deeply saddened, emotions I still feel to this day. One reason why I admire Zechs is because he not only had the courage to stand firm in his convictions, but did so with full knowledge of the consequences, knowledge I did not have at the time. Just as posting an essay on the Internet forever marked where I stood, Zechs irrevocably declared his stand when he turned his own mobile suit, the Tallgeese, against oncoming OZ forces in defense of two Gundam pilots on a battlefield in Antarctica. Just as I lost a friend in the process, so did he lose a good friend: Treize Kushrenada, commander of OZ. Treize had obviously known Zechs for a long time, and even knew his real name was Milliardo--ironically, I was one of few people that knew my friend's real name and not just her alias. The way Zechs announced that his ties with Treize had been severed further cemented my own sense of affinity with him. He faced down a would-be execution squad of mobile suits aboard Tallgeese, defeating them all, but not before his mask shattered from the force of a particularly brutal attack. As the pieces fell, he calmly said, "And now, Treize, I cannot be your friend any longer." That became one of my favorite moments in the entire series. At that point I felt that Zechs was someone who could not only understand what I grew up with, because he had felt similar pain, but also respect the choices I had made to stand true to my own convictions, because he risked his own life to remain true to his.

Indeed, Zechs Merquise and I are kindred souls for many reasons. Even when he did do things toward the end of the series that I disagreed with, I could still understand why he felt and acted as he did--which is why I also cheered for his return and vindication in the sequel Gundam Wing: Endless Waltz. Watching the struggles he went through and the choices he made ultimately helped me to feel better about the conflict in my own life; if he could survive and move past it, so could I. Zechs is definitely a hero to me, especially because he isn't perfect. He may be an ink-and-paint character, but he has feelings and fallibilities that are very human. Of the many similarities he and I have, that quality is perhaps greatest of all.

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