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[Aᴘᴘʟɪᴄᴀᴛɪᴏɴ]
OOC INFO;
NAME: Jules
AGE: 30 ):
CONTACT: pm, idiotequed#3937 @ discord, scuttles @ plurk
IC INFO;
CHARACTER NAME: Gaelio Bauduin (Vidar)
CANON & HISTORY: Here.
AGE: 28
CANON POINT: About halfway into episode 44 -- after the 43 events of his face-to-face throwdown/reveal with McGillis, the brief spar with Mikazuki (and reveal of Type E), and interrupting McGillis's big speech to declare himself and revenge to the galaxy (which carried into 44), and pledging himself newly to Rustal, before conferring with Julieta.
PERSONALITY: Apologies for length. I tend to tl;dr (and write histories within personalities), and to adequately cover Gaelio Bauduin, there are two to three personalities to discuss. He is a strikingly different person in season two, yet the epilogue suggests much of his season one personality is not wholly lost.
An easy-going and well-meaning guy, emotional and reactive (flares of tetchy irritability), Gaelio Bauduin was born with a diamond-encrusted spoon in his mouth. One of the noted Seven Star Families, the effective royalty/leaders of Gjallarhorn, it is clear that Gaelio has wanted for nothing. However, he does not behave entitled or very snobbish, though he has a foppish air to him. There are a few easy adjectives applied to him by the voice actor and writers: frivolous, always light-hearted, ignorant, naturally rude (likely a consequence of privileged disregard). As to that natural rudeness, he speaks to almost everyone exactly the same, the only exception McGillis's father -- no suffixes or language to indicate superiors or inferiors. It is a highly casual and overfamiliar way of speaking, the equivalent of touching someone too much. Carta has to drag polite form out of him, and he resists, irritated in it. (This persists in season two, and with Rustal it's a rank-breaking.) Triage cards describe someone who is not actually incompetent, talented and capable in his pursuits, but because he stood next to McGillis, his ability and his kindness were overshadowed. The thing about Gaelio is -- he knows that, and he doesn't care.
That begins to introduce the unexpected complexity of Gaelio in season one, his contradictions, though he looks superficially a simple, rich heir. Despite seeming frivolous (in his carefree, jesting attitude), and despite running from every betrothal his father attempts to arrange, he runs to work. Ein Dalton, an extremely serious young man with an eye for order and duty, comes to be impressed by Gaelio (despite an early encounter where Gaelio asks whether Ein has a partner, and complains that he's boring for having no relationship stories): finding him "very reliable" because he is early to bed, early to rise, never wastes his food, and "you can see his innocent soul from his orderly lifestyle." Thus, despite having a background that could easily have lead to an irresponsible, partying snot, he became a pretty sincere, hard-working guy.
Gaelio manages to juggle being both proud and not that, at all. His pride is wounded when he's defeated by a "space rat" while piloting a mobile suit, and he takes this grudge, this burn so far, he ends up chasing the group throughout the season (if later in support of Ein). Heck, he digs out his family's heirloom gundam for it (and the fact his father ALLOWS IT implies how spoiled he must have been). He is particularly irritated when McGillis suggests the pilot was superior. (This may be in part subconscious racism and/or chagrin that McGillis might have thought less of his ability, given his efforts to be worthy of standing at his side.) Gaelio might be a good pilot, but he's also a good inspector, if less fastidious than McGillis. It's reasonable to infer he's good at whatever McGillis beat him at over the years (fencing, school, piloting, etc.), yet he has no jealousy toward McGillis.
Instead, he's his number one supporter, as smug over his promotion as if it were his own. At McGillis's engagement party, he encourages McGillis to dally with adult women, while expressing no interest in that himself. (He's protective of his little sister, but definitely uncomfortable/disgusted by the fact of her engagement at nine to his twenty-seven year old best friend.) He thrills in McGillis bullying the corrupt officer who tries to bribe them, and cheerfully admits that he was an ineffective bodyguard for McGillis, instead himself saved. Further, he invites Mcgillis's monstrous father to laugh at him for it, easily putting himself down. Despite being ever second best, and so overshadowed that Carta calls him a "perpetual loser," again, there is not a shred of resentment. He earnestly admires McGillis.
For Gaelio, in both seasons, McGillis is indirectly then directly everything. The boy who stood at an unbreachable distance, toward whom he reached. Gaelio strove from their childhood beginning to catch up to McGillis, but not out of a feeling of inferiority or needing to best him. He yearned simply to stand beside him. He admired McGillis, struggling to be good enough for a position on equal ground, for true friendship. He watched McGillis, determined to reach and understand the truth beneath the mask. Wanting most throughout his life to be acknowledged by McGillis, he worked ardently to that end. Believing he'd accomplished that as a teenager, he lived obliviously content throughout most of the first season.
He manages to be observant and ignorant, the latter of which his voice actor said was his greatest flaw. He notices when McGillis overworks his subordinates and advises that he ease up a bit, if teasingly, suggestive of compassion and attention to others. Highly tuned especially into McGillis, he recognized as a child when he put on a mask, yet could not see that when McGillis began to confide in him, he had not done so fully. While Gaelio may realize and not mind, due to his upbringing in such a society, that McGillis used him to some degree, he does not realize that he is slightly hated, or the degree of use. He believed that they were best friends. He also does not realize (born a Bauduin, to privilege) just how terrible the plight is for others outside of, or even inside of Gjallarhorn.
Growing up in Gjallarhorn has left its subconscious mark. While Gaelio, influenced by McGillis and his own heart, does truly want to reform Gjallarhorn -- sincerely disgusted and outraged by the crushing tactics Gjallarhorn uses against the colonists (and smart and politically apt enough to recognize them, and before their use, to play politics as needed), disquieted by his sister's engagement, and considering their society vulgar snobs -- he has internalized their prejudices. To a degree, against Martians/space rats, given the way he speaks of Tekkadan. To a much larger degree, the Gjallarhorn attitude against cybernetics and the Alaya-Vijnana surgery, such that when he sees implants in Mikazuki's neck, he vomits. He considers that such a thing is barbaric and makes someone less human, urging Ein not to consider it.
Despite his prejudices and narrow vision, he proves adaptable and quick to adjust his worldview. Especially so if influenced by the right person. Doubtless McGillis opened his eyes to much of Gjallarhorn's corruption and turned him onto reformation, just as Ein introduced him to the miserable situation of someone born on Mars, trying to survive within Gjallarhorn's discrimination. He never looks down on Ein, and is instead moved by him, joking first that it sounds like Ein suggests he, Gaelio, is like those who discriminated -- in the process implying that he doesn't see himself as such a person, #notallGjallarhorn -- then effusing that he's never seen a man like Ein, who believes in himself regardless of the opinions of others. Disenchanted and disgusted by the corrupt artifice of Gjallarhorn society, he finds Ein incredible.
With Ein as well as Carta, his kindness and sense of responsibility can be seen. As Carta dies, he pretends to be McGillis to give her peace. He adopts Ein's cause as his own and honestly cares for his well-being -- and when Ein takes a hit for him, Gaelio refuses his apology (for letting Tekkadan get away) because the man had protected him. (There is a chivalrous bent to the Bauduin aesthetic, see: their emblem of a knightly horse, Gaelio serving as McGillis's bodyguard, the gundam's lance and shield, and the ideal of nobility in protection. Indeed, he admires Ein's "pure soul" in large part due to Ein's dedication to his deceased superior.) Yet, when Ein then takes a killing blow for him, Gaelio's horrified that Ein would sacrifice himself. He feels no wealthy entitlement or that his own life was worth more. This crushing guilt puts him on a horrible path. Because he cannot let Ein die for him, his dream not yet accomplished, he becomes susceptible to McGillis's use, something that at the time revolted him to his core. Both Carta's death and Ein's mutilation turn the frivolous strained and depressed with determination.
He is easily manipulated into approving the surgery, with hopes of reforming Gjallarhorn, with the backings of history -- and most importantly, with McGillis's firm hand. McGillis's betrayal, using Carta and Ein, guiding the former's death, turning the latter into a symbolic and literal monster, manipulating Gaelio and intending then to brutally murder him -- is an ugly thing to witness. Hysterical with devastation, he is easily crushed. Gaelio Bauduin is officially killed, cremated and buried.
Despite the fact that man is dead, the exploration of his personality helps highlight the stark difference of season two. A writer described him then as "heartless" and having "lost his way," something only understood with first season context. Furthermore, five years later still, when he seems to live bound to a wheelchair, Gaelio is unable to remember the things he said as Vidar, and is again called frivolous. In return, he notes that he was always like that. Thus, in a game environment removed from much of the second season's framing and narrow focus, development may yield earlier traces of the man he once was.
In the meantime: Vidar, the name and mask adopted as he casts aside all else but revenge. It likely made sense while researching McGillis, the man who killed him, to keep dead and not give him another chance while preparing the counter-attack/defense.
There are few details as to his activities during the two years between seasons. We know only that he was "never alone," and dedicated himself to researching McGillis and Tekkadan, so to better understand his movements. In the process, he worked with Rustal Elion to help him also understand. Though Rustal found and rescued Gaelio, knowing his identity, Gaelio does not remove his mask and reveal himself for eighteen episodes. His utility to Rustal and thorough, successfully anticipatory research does underscore one thing: indeed, Gaelio is quite competent when not in McGillis's shadow, even a stellar inspector and mind.
He's an odd figure throughout most of the season. Little wonder after what happened to him and how he survives. He spends most of his screentime standing in a mobile suit hangar, staring up at his gundam, which contains the Alaya-Vijnana System with Ein's brain, into which he was always (somehow????? bluetooth go) plugged. Julieta considers him suspicious and strange, masked and unknown, and he clearly does not speak to anyone except Rustal (concerning orders and McGillis) or the mechanic working on the A-V Type E system. He keeps very much to himself, a silent recluse.
When Julieta's persistence prompts his interaction, he is reserved, distant, and vaguely, tersely peculiar. Now polite, he goes through the motions -- if Julieta compliments him, whether calling his fighting (actually Ein's) beautiful or his face more handsome than expected, he thanks her, sounding faintly amused, but promptly looks back to Kimaris Vidar (his Gundam), again indifferent. It's hard to imagine that he cares, whether about compliments or insults. When Julieta calls him strange, he simply asks, again sounding amused (he's wearing the mask), "Am I?" It doesn't matter. He finds humor in Julieta's simple candor.
He does not seem entirely clear as to who he is, especially before removing the mask, and until then, it is of little consequence, merely an interesting philosophical question. Is he strange or handsome? Julieta wonders who he is, and he wonders too, an evasive response. Given the condition of his mind, it may be sincere. For all that his conversations with Julieta provide most of his characterization in season two, they revolve around Ein, and the subsequent notions of pride and what it means to be human, to be strong. He encourages Julieta because she strives like Ein to be enough for and devoted to a respected superior. Through her persistence and their conversations, he begins to recover semblances of humanity, even coming to worry for her.
Otherwise, it is difficult to discern what's going on in his head, or to what degree the system has affected him versus sheer trauma. Whether or not the director comments should be accepted, that Gaelio was always plugged into the Type E system containing Ein's brain, even that Gaelio "absorbed his brain," he certainly seems to believe it, as does the mechanic responsible. She declares that he has never been alone these last two years, he speaks of fighting together with Ein, and in battle, speaks to Ein. Interviews both say he absorbed Ein but that Ein's ego was destroyed in season one, so who knows. The point: his extreme connection to Ein may have influenced his personality.
If not for those interludes of human emotion, including delight when fighting with Ein (the Type E system), Gaelio would be only bided time, frustration, and rage toward McGillis (and in battle with him he is all righteous, avenging fury). McGillis tends also to bring out a more verbose, dramatic, referential, and poetic side -- perhaps rooted in an education and interests less on display when frivolous. He makes declarations such as, "To think we'd meet again on Mars. This land where all your betrayals began." / "I see you're still playing the Pied Piper." / "As you wish, become the foundation for his crooked ideals." Even choosing the name Vidar is emblematic of that flare. Vidar: the Norse god and son of Odin, known as "the silent god" and for killing the wolf Fenrir to avenge Odin's death.
Vidar, the person he has permitted himself to become is a betrayal of the person he was. Having decided that every aspect of McGillis's reformation dream must have been a terrible lie, the boy who dreamed of reforming a corrupt system instead dedicates himself to upholding it. Pledging himself to Rustal, the figurehead of bringing Gjallarhorn to the same systematic glory, Gaelio takes no issue with vastly overpowering the essentially same rebelling colonists from season one -- those for whom he had been disgusted when Gjallarhorn used brutal tactics. Amusingly, when he says "I don't care who's behind them. There are armed forces that disturb order. Gjallarhorn needs no other reason to bear down upon them," Rustal says he's talkative -- he must usually say very little indeed for that to be a lot.
As to Rustal, they have a relationship of mutual use and respect, a shared goal. Initially, Gaelio thinks well of Rustal, doubtless indebted to the man who saved him and gave him the opportunity to pursue McGillis (and "save" Ein). He does not think Rustal would order Julieta to push herself to bodily harm in testing a new, dangerous mobile suit. Yet, as Rustal begins to show more of his ruthlessness, subtle visual cues suggest Gaelio's disapproval. It is there his concern for Julieta shows, as these occur in the context of Rustal's use of her (and brutality toward Tekkadan), exposing himself as an increasingly unworthy superior. Though by then it was too late, his path too set. When McGillis accuses him of being still too trusting by following Rustal and becoming his dog, Gaelio does not disagree. While they are implicitly talking about Gaelio's previous trust in McGillis, given the cues and his epilogue disturbed expression when Julieta speaks of Rustal's actions, he indeed trusted too easily yet again.
Even as Vidar, Gaelio is not without his contradictions, and not merely in the stark, terrible difference between seasons one and two. Not merely in again succumbing to swift trust.
Despite the intense horror of betrayal, the fact that he's unable to initially hear "McGillis" and "Tekkadan" without getting fired up, having to march off and declare, "I'm coming for you McGillis," -- he still speaks of trying to understand McGillis's intentions. He told Rustal that he would not remove the mask and become Gaelio Bauduin until he understood, until he found his resolve, his destiny. As if the brutal way McGillis cut him down, and disposed of those he cared for, while professing to be a creature of anger, was insufficient to resolve him entirely to that belief and the necessity of striking McGillis down.
It takes him literally finding McGillis before Bael, the gundam that symbolized power and leadership within Gjallarhorn whom all must obey, for Gaelio to believe he understands and become resolved. He had suspected McGillis sought only power, at the cost of all "respectable emotions," but may yet have wavered had McGillis done anything else. This man who slaughtered him and his friends.
At Bael, he removes his mask and declares to McGillis that he does have plenty to lose, things to bear on his shoulders, all respectable feelings like love and trust that McGillis had denied or could not understand. Bearing those things, he would deny and kill McGillis. Yet, despite thereafter declaring to Rustal that he would become who he should be -- Gaelio Bauduin, not Vidar -- despite that plenty to lose, the only purpose he has is killing McGillis. The only reason he lives, the only motivation, is that. There is nothing else. What is Gaelio Bauduin without McGillis Fareed -- or once he is dead?
There is an irony in his defending those "respectable feelings" and claiming to champion them in his opposition to a man who chose power above all else -- because if anything is clear, it is that this "lost" man has separated himself from those feelings. Another contradiction. His season one sense of duty has overtaken him, distorted and singular, as he must avenge Carta and Ein. Yet, he rarely charges McGillis with what McGillis did to him [we never. learn. about the paralysis. on screen!!!] -- speaking of betrayed trust and murder, but still striving to understand him (before and after becoming resolved), and taking some responsibility for what became of them, telling McGillis, "I couldn't rescue your heart."
Yet, he too has become heartless. Given what was done to Ein to enable Gaelio to walk, to pilot effectively, and to have a chance to kill McGillis, Gaelio too did wretched things for power (and for personal revenge rather than an overall noble cause, though he sees nobility in it). That what he helped do to Ein was worse than what McGillis did, if motivated at least in part (at least as far as he could consciously recognize) from warm, desperate feelings, is beyond the scope of his crazed comprehension. Instead, he is blinded by his warped belief in his fighting with Ein, in living out their goals together.
It does not stop at that, because he also modified his body with what had once disgusted him for power. Implanting that modified A-V into his neck, he embraced the system, no longer finding that modification makes one inhuman. When Julieta expresses as much, he returns that only humans can pilot, and yearnings make one human. Human emotion, wanting to be better for a loved and respected person, that makes the man, and modifications, whatever helps accomplish that, cannot detract. In this, there is a trace of season one Gaelio -- not only in a sensitivity to what it is to be human and strive for another person, but because like the man who recalibrated because of learning about Ein's disadvantages, Gaelio apologizes to Mikazuki for his season one prejudice against Alaya-Vijnana.
Whatever of him that can still sympathize or empathize, it cannot go far. Julieta, like Ein, manages it. Isurugi, also like Ein but following McGillis, has only his pity -- he sees too much of himself in the young officer. He believes that, despite being born a Bauduin, he can understand Isurugi's miserable existence because of Ein, but his hatred of McGillis and inability to see anything associated with him as anything but tainted, precludes all but pity.
Even trying to kill McGillis, he is wild with the need to understand him and be understood. Gaelio comes to insist that if he beats McGillis with his methods, then they will understand one another. Unfortunately, he's correct in that insane declaration. After defeating McGillis in their last battle, he comes undone when they speak in person as McGillis finally speaks truth and dies. Demanding, after everything, that McGillis look at him, McGillis replies that he had always seen him, but had to pretend not to see, because being with him made his aspirations waver. Abruptly, Gaelio is breaking, his expressions contorting with shocked emotion. He's stunned, horrified by it, but he cries over McGillis. Refusing a gesture of comfort, he literally begs McGillis not to speak, because he would forgive him, something he cannot do, living as he does to kill him and avenge Carta and Ein.
He who claimed to carry those emotions with him, yet had suppressed them in himself, breaks into tears, then sobs. He would still cry over the man who killed and betrayed him. He would forgive him if he finally said what Gaelio had always longed to hear, that he really had stood at his side. That they had meant as much to one another, rather than this one-sided, used and discarded thing. Gaelio longed still for recognition, look at me, and broke down completely to learn that he may have had it, after all, that in fact, it was the enormity of it that forced McGillis's hand.
Five years later, even as Gaelio recovers himself, this regret lasts: that he failed to understand McGillis sooner.
POWERS: N/A, but see next response.
OTHER: There is technically nothing superhuman about him -- he had been a talented pilot and soldier, as noted more competent/intelligent than he seemed because he stood next to supergenius workhorse McGillis. However, he has modified his body. This is more complicated than they had time to show in the series, because details were leaked in interview extras: whatever it is of the modified A-V system surgery that he had implanted in his neck, it apparently
As there is quite a bit of philosophizing in IBO about whether even standard A-V makes one less human, this is all arguably superhuman. However, because it also apparently helps him to walk and is dependent on something he will not have immediate access to (the system within his gundam), with quasi-mod permission from FAQ discussions, I'm assuming some time-space magic gobbledygook reason that keeps the connection active despite the immensely long distance. ...I probably need to articulate it better than that, right...
GAME INFO;
MAGIC ABILITY: Illusion Manipulation (utilizing the creation/manipulaton wiggle room). While he will need practice to cause the target to experience precisely what he intends, this power will tamper with the target's perception and senses, causing them to experience illusions as though reality. Limitations: The more detailed the "world" and the more expansive/sizable, the shorter it lasts. The more familiar he personally is with what he's trying to create, the more effective -- i.e., never having walked on lava, he'd do a poor job of making one feel that, whatever the strength or development of imagination and experience. Yet, could make it seem as though it snows, brutally cold, the snowflakes melting on noses. Not being a mind reader, he also cannot cause one to see the face of a loved and lost person, unless he's met that person. (However, telepathy and someone choosing to send a mental visual might assist with that.) While a focused illusion might cause the the target to feel true pain, believing they were struck, there would be no injury in reality. Finally, due to his intermittent instability and the envisioning component, until he has sufficiently trained and improved, he will often experience the illusion himself before focusing it on the world or target, and continue to experience reduced effects (good and bad) thereafter while maintaining it. Obviously, all contingent on player permission.
PRICE: The Vidar mask. ...Unless, handily somehow, Kimaris Vidar the giant gundam is an option, thus allowing more of that quasi-proximity for AV walking purposes. Plus, it would be a far more significant thing than the mask.
ACCLIMATION: 7. It may be hard to thoroughly discombobulate someone so fractured. His disinterest would enable him to roll with inexplicable changes, and his crazed focus on accomplishing what he must in his own world would be a solid motivation to doing what he must to effectuate that, including teamwork. However, because of the state of his mind and his overarching drive to get back and avenge, he won't be terribly social, or truly committed (at least initially) beyond necessary. Additionally, though he has piloting and combat skills, it's likely his military training was geared toward a leadership in space role, and less to basic earth survival skills.
SAMPLE;
LINKED SAMPLE: 1, 2.
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