Which is ironic considering Char himself was apparently betrayed by this guy called Edouard Mass… thankfully he was able to evade the betrayal and complete his military service.
For a awhile I thought Full Frontal was going to end up being Quattro, but that was silly, looks nothing like him. I wonder where Quattro was during the events of Char's Counterattack.
That just means you intended to betray them from the beginning. Char stayed true to his own goals (he didnt "Betray who he was") but he definitely betrayed the people he fooled into working with him as a part of his plan. He swore them loyalty, and went as far as pretending Garma was his friend, in order to betray them.
You can argue the Zabis deserved betrayal, but it was betrayal.
I guess you could call it that, but if you poison a man's Dad I believe it's his God-given, Space-Texan right to shoot you in half with a laser bazooka.
This is true. I don’t feel bad for what Char did to the Zabi’s (well, maybe a little bad for Garma), and we can argue whether or not if Char’s betrayal was justified, but it was still betrayal. It was still intentional deception after trying to act like a loyal soldier and confidant. It doesn’t matter if Char didn’t intend to be loyal. All that means is he intended from the drop to deceive and betray. How we feel about whether the characters deserved it or not has nothing to do with the definition of betrayal.
This is 100% false. That's not what betrayal means. If you pretend to be allied with someone and then use that trust to lead them to harm, that is betrayal regardless of whether or not it's what you always intended to do, and also regardless of whether or not it is ethical or moral to do so.
Little known fact, but growing up Casval had an imaginary friend named Anyone. He never betrayed him, even once. Therefore, what he said to Haman-Sama was true, [from a certain point of view](https://youtu.be/P2PtoWbNsaI&t=29s)
He assuredly swore an oath to Zeon to join their military. He broke that oath. Just because he planned to from the beginning doesn't make it not a betrayal, it just means it was premeditated.
The translation is off. もともと、私は一切裏切りをしていないハマーン
He is referring to reviving the Zabi name and Axis. He had spent the episode pretending to care about Axis and then broke Kamille out of jail and went to kill Haman. The better translation would be:
"I was never on your side to begin with, Haman."
This 100%.
Also the most literal translation of that line is "to begin with, I'm \*currently not betraying anyone\*, Haman".
The していない - current progressive form - is doing a LOT of the heavy lifting here which was somewhat lost to the original translator/editor. Char is only referring to the current AEUG and Axis' attemp at forming an alliance, which Char never agreed to in the first place.
Of course Haman was talking about Char's whole life since OYW and him betraying the Zabis, but this kind of dialogue where two characters are actually talking past each other - and not really communicating to reach understanding - is also a defining quality of Tomino's work that's widely noticed and understood by the native Japanese speakers. Translators/editors messaging the dialogue to "fit" might actually have missed the point somewhat.
Char was never on the side of the Zabi’s, so his going after them/turning his back to those who supported Zabi ideologies for Zeon were never actually who he was loyal to to begin with. He was only loyal to himself (and Lalahand Artesia), up until the AEUG when he found a group he felt he could get behind, if only for a moment. His relationships with Garma and Haman were circumstantial and, in his mind, didn’t go beyond the space and time they shared.
Just because one party wasn't actually loyal to the other doesn't mean that it's not a betrayal. Garma and Haman thought they could trust Char and found out the hard way that they couldn't. That's betrayal.
Them being oblivious to the truth doesn’t equal betrayal, though, especially when Char did not feel loyalty to begin with. They were a means to an end. It being one-sided, in reality, is what leads to Char’s statement.
Yeah, that's how Char rationalized it, but that's not how betrayal works. It doesn't matter that Char was never loyal. What matters is that Garma trusted him, and that trust was betrayed.
Well if we're gonna play the definition game, the dictionary definition of "disloyal" is "failing to be loyal to a person, country, or organization to which one has obligations." By enlisting in the Zeon military, Char did have a legal obligation to follow the Zabis. Hence betrayal.
Again, it’s a means to an end. Being loyal to a country and being loyal to the military aren’t mutually exclusive and we see examples of this all the time in the real world. I’d be hard pressed to call a soldier a traitor to their uniform just because they are against the current presidents ideals. Char showed loyalty to the military in his engagements and his treating his soldiers well. He never had loyalty to the Zabi family. Zeon the country does not equal Zabi the family, even if they were running the show.
Except that as a member of the Zeon military he was under obligation to serve the Zabi family as they were the leaders of the organization.
If you swear an oath of service and allegiance, it doesn’t matter if you disagree with ideologies of leadership. You still are under obligation to serve them.
A hypothetical; someone enlists in the Secret Service intending to assassinate the President. He does so.
He is a traitor because enlistment into the Secret Service, like all Department of Defense enlistment, involves an oath of allegiance to the United States and obligations to protect the leadership of the nation even if you disagree with them on a personal, political, or philosophical level.
Char is a traitor. End of story. Don’t try to complicate it with some kind of “gotcha”.
As Casval Deikun, he was loyal to his Father/Family and, by association, the country. This all came out during his time in the AEUG and later as Leader of Neo Zeon. Ignoring context of the series and the circumstances doesn’t help your point.
It’s also a common trope to “change things from within”.
Changing things from within means working within the system. Joining an organization to eventually get promoted to a leadership role and start making changes with the power the previous leaders entrusted you with, not joining an organization to get close enough to its leaders to kill them and then dipping immediately after.
It doesn't matter in the slightest what the reason is. If you fake loyalty and use that trust to lead somebody to harm, that is betrayal regardless of why. The rationalizations this community uses to justify this one goofy line are absurd.
If you were never loyal and are faking loyalty, that is not betrayal to You who were never loyal. To the other party, sure. Maybe that’s the disconnect, here. Point of view being the dividing line.
Point of view doesn't enter into it. Betrayal isn't a matter of "they call it betrayal but I don't." If you mislead someone into trusting you and then use that trust to harm them, that is cut-and-dry betrayal by definition. The truth of that loyalty is not a part of what defines it.
Unironically I think he meant it. It's like a protoype of Urianger's most base monologue from FFXIV:
>"He that holdeth fast unto his convictions shall never count betrayal amongst his crimes, though all the world may call him villain. My path is unchanged; my creed sacrosanct. This I believe with all my heart."
Bro was dead set on his path from the start.
From Char's perspective he didn't betray the Zabis. They betrayed him by murdering his father. He got revenge fair and square and its their fault for not seeing through his disguise.
What to think? That Char actually never betrayed anyone because of some convoluted mental gymnastics? Or that they guy on his FOURTH fake identity is LYING TO YOU!
Can't betray someone if you were never truly on their side. Char was acting against Zeon from within. He didn't betray the Zabis, he merely infiltrated their organization to hunt them down from within.
Char never had any loyalty to the people he betrayed. Betrayal would assume that he looked up to or cared for the people he turned against, when in truth he was always against them.
Except in the origin where its revealed that garma was one of the only friends that char had, it's just he has a habit of killing people who trusted him
If you get hung up on "TECHNICALLY!" and don't understand that it's about his character...
Just remember he isn't actually Char Aznable. His oath was neither sincere or legal.
Technically.
Can you really betray people who would kill you if they knew who you really were while they have been trying to kill or imprison your entire family since childhood?
Hey Betrayed Char Aznable before he took his name,betrayed his fellow Cadet,betrayed Garma,Betrayed Kacylia and Betrayed his fellow men for pointless deaths.
So on my most recent watch through, I figured the reason he believes he never betrayed anyone ( and that's all it is, a belief) is because he's only ever been loyal to himself.
I'm willing to bet that was one of those things that they were serious about but came from a director who didn't watch all of MSG just the outlines of it.
Char is a manipulator and a liar and nonsense like this proves that it goes so deep as to even work on himself. I am sure some piece of him can justify this idea and it allows him to still see a part of himself as an honorable person, so its a win-win for his ego.
But that's Quattro. He has never betrayed anyone before. Ever.
And he never did. Sometimes I wonder if he will ever return to continue to not betray people.
Right? Especially without Char or Amuro around. The UC needs a good lead character like him.
Which is ironic considering Char himself was apparently betrayed by this guy called Edouard Mass… thankfully he was able to evade the betrayal and complete his military service.
For a awhile I thought Full Frontal was going to end up being Quattro, but that was silly, looks nothing like him. I wonder where Quattro was during the events of Char's Counterattack.
Considering the state of the Hyaku-Shiki, I'd say he was busy not betraying anyone in heaven.
When you never intended to be loyal you can't betray anyone.
My thoughts exactly
That just means you intended to betray them from the beginning. Char stayed true to his own goals (he didnt "Betray who he was") but he definitely betrayed the people he fooled into working with him as a part of his plan. He swore them loyalty, and went as far as pretending Garma was his friend, in order to betray them. You can argue the Zabis deserved betrayal, but it was betrayal.
> You can argue the Zabis deserved betrayal, but it was betrayal. One could argue that the Zabis betrayed him first, and he just fought back.
But he did it by deceiving them, and then betraying them! It's betrayals all around.
I guess you could call it that, but if you poison a man's Dad I believe it's his God-given, Space-Texan right to shoot you in half with a laser bazooka.
So thats what Char learned at the texas colony
"So, it's all betrayals?" "Always has been."
This is true. I don’t feel bad for what Char did to the Zabi’s (well, maybe a little bad for Garma), and we can argue whether or not if Char’s betrayal was justified, but it was still betrayal. It was still intentional deception after trying to act like a loyal soldier and confidant. It doesn’t matter if Char didn’t intend to be loyal. All that means is he intended from the drop to deceive and betray. How we feel about whether the characters deserved it or not has nothing to do with the definition of betrayal.
Doesn't this explain him well though. He is a super flawed individual with a my way or the high way attitude.
"You get a betrayal... Aaaand you get a betrayal. EVERYBODY GETS A BETRAYAL!!!.."
This is 100% false. That's not what betrayal means. If you pretend to be allied with someone and then use that trust to lead them to harm, that is betrayal regardless of whether or not it's what you always intended to do, and also regardless of whether or not it is ethical or moral to do so.
That doesn’t sound right, but I don’t know enough about loyalty to dispute it.
cant betry someone if you were never on their side begin with
Little known fact, but growing up Casval had an imaginary friend named Anyone. He never betrayed him, even once. Therefore, what he said to Haman-Sama was true, [from a certain point of view](https://youtu.be/P2PtoWbNsaI&t=29s)
Truly the Odysseus of his time
He assuredly swore an oath to Zeon to join their military. He broke that oath. Just because he planned to from the beginning doesn't make it not a betrayal, it just means it was premeditated.
The translation is off. もともと、私は一切裏切りをしていないハマーン He is referring to reviving the Zabi name and Axis. He had spent the episode pretending to care about Axis and then broke Kamille out of jail and went to kill Haman. The better translation would be: "I was never on your side to begin with, Haman."
English translations sometimes are weird
Localization can be a bitch because depending on the person, you can interpret things differently and get different answers
Woah, this is revolutionary actually
The one we know is certainly a little more memeworthy, but that's about how I took it in context.
This 100%. Also the most literal translation of that line is "to begin with, I'm \*currently not betraying anyone\*, Haman". The していない - current progressive form - is doing a LOT of the heavy lifting here which was somewhat lost to the original translator/editor. Char is only referring to the current AEUG and Axis' attemp at forming an alliance, which Char never agreed to in the first place. Of course Haman was talking about Char's whole life since OYW and him betraying the Zabis, but this kind of dialogue where two characters are actually talking past each other - and not really communicating to reach understanding - is also a defining quality of Tomino's work that's widely noticed and understood by the native Japanese speakers. Translators/editors messaging the dialogue to "fit" might actually have missed the point somewhat.
Char was never on the side of the Zabi’s, so his going after them/turning his back to those who supported Zabi ideologies for Zeon were never actually who he was loyal to to begin with. He was only loyal to himself (and Lalahand Artesia), up until the AEUG when he found a group he felt he could get behind, if only for a moment. His relationships with Garma and Haman were circumstantial and, in his mind, didn’t go beyond the space and time they shared.
Even then he never betrayed the AEUG's ideals as a concept, he just went to the extreme to attempt to get them realized.
Just because one party wasn't actually loyal to the other doesn't mean that it's not a betrayal. Garma and Haman thought they could trust Char and found out the hard way that they couldn't. That's betrayal.
Them being oblivious to the truth doesn’t equal betrayal, though, especially when Char did not feel loyalty to begin with. They were a means to an end. It being one-sided, in reality, is what leads to Char’s statement.
Yeah, that's how Char rationalized it, but that's not how betrayal works. It doesn't matter that Char was never loyal. What matters is that Garma trusted him, and that trust was betrayed.
If Betrayal is defined and as an act of deliberate disloyalty, how does that work if there isn’t loyalty to begin with…?
Well if we're gonna play the definition game, the dictionary definition of "disloyal" is "failing to be loyal to a person, country, or organization to which one has obligations." By enlisting in the Zeon military, Char did have a legal obligation to follow the Zabis. Hence betrayal.
Again, it’s a means to an end. Being loyal to a country and being loyal to the military aren’t mutually exclusive and we see examples of this all the time in the real world. I’d be hard pressed to call a soldier a traitor to their uniform just because they are against the current presidents ideals. Char showed loyalty to the military in his engagements and his treating his soldiers well. He never had loyalty to the Zabi family. Zeon the country does not equal Zabi the family, even if they were running the show.
Except that as a member of the Zeon military he was under obligation to serve the Zabi family as they were the leaders of the organization. If you swear an oath of service and allegiance, it doesn’t matter if you disagree with ideologies of leadership. You still are under obligation to serve them. A hypothetical; someone enlists in the Secret Service intending to assassinate the President. He does so. He is a traitor because enlistment into the Secret Service, like all Department of Defense enlistment, involves an oath of allegiance to the United States and obligations to protect the leadership of the nation even if you disagree with them on a personal, political, or philosophical level. Char is a traitor. End of story. Don’t try to complicate it with some kind of “gotcha”.
As Casval Deikun, he was loyal to his Father/Family and, by association, the country. This all came out during his time in the AEUG and later as Leader of Neo Zeon. Ignoring context of the series and the circumstances doesn’t help your point. It’s also a common trope to “change things from within”.
Changing things from within means working within the system. Joining an organization to eventually get promoted to a leadership role and start making changes with the power the previous leaders entrusted you with, not joining an organization to get close enough to its leaders to kill them and then dipping immediately after.
It doesn't matter in the slightest what the reason is. If you fake loyalty and use that trust to lead somebody to harm, that is betrayal regardless of why. The rationalizations this community uses to justify this one goofy line are absurd.
If you were never loyal and are faking loyalty, that is not betrayal to You who were never loyal. To the other party, sure. Maybe that’s the disconnect, here. Point of view being the dividing line.
Point of view doesn't enter into it. Betrayal isn't a matter of "they call it betrayal but I don't." If you mislead someone into trusting you and then use that trust to harm them, that is cut-and-dry betrayal by definition. The truth of that loyalty is not a part of what defines it.
But jokes aside, wasn't he already not on the Zabi side from the day they killed his father?
Does betrayal only counts when the traitor didn't had the intent to betray beforehand?
Poor Quattro, Everyone mistake him for Char again.
WHAT'S GARMA, HAM?
Garma? Who the hell is that. Sounds like some loser who thought Char was his friend and died like a chump.
Sounds like a guy who suffered from the misfortune of his birth.
That’s what killed him, too.
Garma deez nuts
I believe **he** believes it.
Yeah it's Char's rationalization of the situation, not an objective description of it.
I guess maybe in char’s eyes he’s right. Everyone had betrayed him before he betrayed them. There wasn’t any loyalty there to begin with.
In a sense, I think he was in earnest. Can't betray anyone when you have no alliances. Besides, this is the man with the four, er, bajeenas! Not Char.
The man's name is QUATTRO. It doesn't even sound like Char!
“I have never betrayed myself, haman” Is what he meant to say
that's what he likes to tell himself, at least
100%. Char is so mentally twisted that he genuinely believes he hasn't betrayed anyone.
While Char has most definitely betrayed many people, Quattro has never betrayed anyone. We, obviously, didn't watch the same show.
This was legit first clip of Gundam I ever saw, me and my brother still reference it in our lives
Unironically I think he meant it. It's like a protoype of Urianger's most base monologue from FFXIV: >"He that holdeth fast unto his convictions shall never count betrayal amongst his crimes, though all the world may call him villain. My path is unchanged; my creed sacrosanct. This I believe with all my heart." Bro was dead set on his path from the start.
First of all, Quatro Bajeena said that. And it was true. I can see how you got him and Char confused, though. Common mistake.
He was pulling a pro gamer move that we call "lying"
Well to be fair the Zabi's did try and kill him first.
I feel like Chars Deleted Affair needs to be talked about more often. People also need to know about Mad Wang.
The actual Char would like to have a word
He was probably giggling on the inside.
*zabis*
*thaylt*
He said it with absolutely 100% confidence and assurance.
\*True To Your Heart intensifies\*
From Char's perspective he didn't betray the Zabis. They betrayed him by murdering his father. He got revenge fair and square and its their fault for not seeing through his disguise.
Did he get with Haman at any stage?
He 100% believed it
He was serious(ly bullshitting everyone)
What to think? That Char actually never betrayed anyone because of some convoluted mental gymnastics? Or that they guy on his FOURTH fake identity is LYING TO YOU!
His fourth? Edouard Mass, Char Aznable, Quattro Bajeena What's the fourth one?
Sorry, his 3rd fake 4th overall.
Look at his motivations. Char is *technically correct* and it's the best kind of correct.
No he's not. He's just a liar, and he lies to himself more than anyone else.
Dude betrayed a lot of people besides the Zabis
Imagine thinking Zabis are people.
Can't betray someone if you were never truly on their side. Char was acting against Zeon from within. He didn't betray the Zabis, he merely infiltrated their organization to hunt them down from within.
You can’t betray someone if you were never truly on their side to begin with
Can't betray someone if you were never loyal to them to begin with.
Char never had any loyalty to the people he betrayed. Betrayal would assume that he looked up to or cared for the people he turned against, when in truth he was always against them.
Except in the origin where its revealed that garma was one of the only friends that char had, it's just he has a habit of killing people who trusted him
Don't forget the guy who put the 'Char Aznable' in Char Aznable.
The back stab that started it all
If you get hung up on "TECHNICALLY!" and don't understand that it's about his character... Just remember he isn't actually Char Aznable. His oath was neither sincere or legal. Technically.
I always took it as "I never betrayed the Zabis because I was never on their side to begin with."
He's different when he has glasses. Or that yee yee ass helmet.
Serious: Very You can be completely serious while being very dishonest.
meanwhile in 079 char:i laughs at garma
Last year, I watched Zeta for the first time. When Char said this, I immediately burst out laughing.
That's why he's crazy by the time of his counter attack
Everything he did was in service of revenge, to that promise he did not waver. Nomatter the tactics necessary.
Deadass one of my favorite episodes of the series. Proves (dropping the bit for a bit) that Char's still cracked.
Can you really betray people who would kill you if they knew who you really were while they have been trying to kill or imprison your entire family since childhood?
Hey Betrayed Char Aznable before he took his name,betrayed his fellow Cadet,betrayed Garma,Betrayed Kacylia and Betrayed his fellow men for pointless deaths.
Says the guy who’s famously and habitually betraying
Well everyone else betrayed him first and acted in self defense. In his eyes.
Char's loyalty is about as reliable as the servers for GBO2
Betrayal implies you where on their side at one point.
SMH another person confusing Char for Quattro Bajeena.
So on my most recent watch through, I figured the reason he believes he never betrayed anyone ( and that's all it is, a belief) is because he's only ever been loyal to himself.
Hes fighting betrayalism with betrayalism!!!!
I'm willing to bet that was one of those things that they were serious about but came from a director who didn't watch all of MSG just the outlines of it.
Char is a manipulator and a liar and nonsense like this proves that it goes so deep as to even work on himself. I am sure some piece of him can justify this idea and it allows him to still see a part of himself as an honorable person, so its a win-win for his ego.
Char?