Aldnoah Zero ep11: the princess you’re trying to murder is in another castle, your castle

It’s always interesting to see a person break out of the cocoon of denial.  It’s often a painful process, where the person has the feel the pain and see the results of their delusion to come out.  They have to feel pain from within that cocoon, or see the damage wrought outside of it to people and things they care about.  So I found it a tad perversely entertaining to see Princess Asseylum’s cocoon finally crack under her latest crisis.  No longer could she hide behind hope, that people that pledged to be her protectors and comrades held her hopes and interests in mind.  Nay.  In contrast, the couldn’t want her dead more.  You can’t hide or deny reality, especially when it’s trying to kill you.

Well that was one of the most fun episodes I’ve seen from a show that debuted this year.  I find myself constantly fluctuating between the positive and negative with this show.  But I really had no complaints about an episode that got right down to business and never stopped being exciting.  My thoughts on the pace of this show and how it did a weak job of world building or conveying the true situation of the world in the show as this chaos raged aside, we got a fun race for survival as Saazbaum’s bold gambit of crushing the main Earth resistance and the only thing or person that could discredit his whole campaign takes place.  The show wastes little time and getting downright vicious.  It takes little time for the landing castle to arrive and penetrate the base’s thickest defenses.  After that, it’s merely a matter of using the missiles as entryways into the base and beginning the slaughter.  And it takes little time for the “word” slaughter to become fact as 50% of the forces suffer casualties in a matter of minutes.

As all this death and carnage continues, we see that Princess Asseylum is finally starting to get it.  All the questions she’s gripping with have “yes” answers.  Is she a pawn for war?  Do the Orbital Knights not give a sh*t about her?  Does this mean that her message carries no weight?  And I’m impressed when her disbelief turns into what appears to be righteous indignation.  She’s tired of all this effort and her beliefs being tossed to the side for glory and at the expense of her good name, and her life.  And it’s a good thing too, because I wasn’t sure how Inaho would be able to save their asses this time minus her help.

As the bases defenses are picked apart and slowly die, Inaho is able to put together a plan with knowledge and volunteer of the princess.  It’s a bold plan that doesn’t take into account much personal safety, as the idea is to drop directly onto the landing castle with only clouds, decoys and chaff for cover.  Once that task is accomplished, the plan is to clear a way for the princess and bully their way into the depths of the castle to have her shut off its power source.  I liked having Inaho’s sister step up and point out how harsh and reckless this plan is.  I think it’d be natural for her to want to protect her brother despite his talent and good luck so far.  Plus, I believe most any soldier would be nervous going through with this.

The plan fortunately comes together, but with heavy and mounting sacrifice.  And it’s only the very early stages of the plan, too.  No sooner do they set up the princess for her descent onto the landing castle than Saazbaum himself shows up to shoot down the Deucalion in seconds.  The bold plan is made to crash the ship directly into the landing castle itself (suicide likely in several ways).  From here on out, it’s just a matter of skill, luck and circumstance.  And maybe Slaine will finally make a difference again, after chasing the princess for so long and always being a step or two behind.

Overall, a really fun, action filled episode.  There were some nice scenes, my favorite being the the princess’s attempt to make it to the Deucalion and board it.  I was for sure that her attendant would be killed the moment that the princess successfully made it on the ship, but instead they shared a nice emotional moment.  Who knows if they’ll ever meet again.  But it was definitely strange to see the two of them apart.  I thought Rayet would also get blown away; she still may not have long to live herself after nearly killing a main character and being obsessed with revenge.

Hopefully in the next episode, we’ll get a good conclusion.  Though I can’t imagine everything being resolved in a satisfactory fashion in the time allotted.  Which leads me to believe that there’s a chance I’d have to wait some months before the show picks up again to give me answers.

Vexing.

Further Reading:

• Aldnoah Zero ep10: some issues with forgiveness and reality