Char's Counterattack - Blog Posts

"At some point, Char's eyes came to hate the light"

If you kitbash the canons, Char messed up his own eyes by dilating them so he could wear his stupid helmet, and I think that's beautiful.

Please let me take you on this journey with me. (lol)

My friend, who had watched every non-parody Gundam involving Char Aznable before inviting me into the Universal Century fandom pit, introduced his character to me originally, explaining that he was hiding his face from his political enemies underneath that iconic helmet.

"Sure, but how does he justify just... wearing that? What's his excuse?"

"He tells people he's got some kind of eye problem. Really, it's that the guy whose identity he stole had brown eyes, and his are blue."

"There are no colored contacts in the space future?"

"IDK, maybe they'd adhere to your eyes weirdly in space."

...And I just accepted that. I occasionally wondered how much of his peripheral vision is cut off from the rather small size of his mask's eye-holes, but whatever, man, it's aesthetic. I didn't think too much more about it until, in the Zeta novelization (which I'm not finished reading), the narration in one of Char's POV chapters describes the Earth as seen from space as "too bright."

"What if he actually has an eye problem?"

As someone who has been told by my own eye doctor to make certain to wear sunglasses outdoors because "people with light-colored eyes are prone to long-term problems from UV exposure," I could see it if he actually had some sort of issue. Anecdotally, a lot of people with lighter-colored eyes suffer from light sensitivity, as well.

When I started reading The Origin, I became more convinced of this interpretation. For instance, during the "beach episode" segment, before we see Amuro reunite with his mom, Mirai and Sayla are lounging on the sand, and only Sayla, who has the same light blue eyes as her brother, is wearing sunglasses. She's been listening to her optometrist!

However, several more books in, there's a panel I cannot find at the moment where we see Char putting in eyedrops. With no actual proof that this is what he's doing—there are all sorts of reasons he might be using eyedrops; he could have seasonal allergies, for instance—I decide that he is just straight up dilating his eyes.

"...Is he... is he doing that so he can see out of his dumb visor?? Does he have to do that every day?? From the time he enters the military academy to the end of First Gundam??"

Although I reached this interpretation with very little supporting evidence, I don't need to be a medical student to figure out that, should I be correct in my assumptions, this is the definition of "play stupid games, win stupid prizes."

When I once again went back to reading the Zeta novelization, I was blessed with the great line, "at some point, Char's eyes came to hate the light."

"'At some point,' huh? Maybe from dilating his eyes every day for like three years...??"

Char Aznable is a doofus who messed up his own eyes and then did not put two and two together to figure out why "at some point" he happened to become hypersensitive to light. The combined narratives of Tomino and Yasuhiko have come together to give me this glorious gift. (lol)

When I suggested as much to that same friend who introduced me to Gundam, she theorized, "What if he suffers from migraines?"

"It'd be impressive that he ever gets anything done at all, if he's that prone to migraines. Let alone piloting murder-death-machines in space."

Whether he gets migraines or not, it's enough of an issue for him that he employs technology to help him avoid intense light sources. According to the Zeta novels, the sunvisors in normal suits' helmets can apparently dampen the light of the stars completely, allowing the wearer to only focus on the brighter, man-made structures. (I believe there are several times he's got his sunglasses on inside of his helmet in the TV anime, as well.)

At another point, we're told that the displays inside of the mobile suits have an automatic filter applied to the camera feed that, in real time, tones down the brightness of intense lights, such as those from explosions. In addition to keeping this filter in place, Char also manually dims the monitors' overall brightness. (Overriding a safety feature, if I'm reading that part properly, lol.)

Later, I got to thinking about Char's Counterattack. We see him occasionally slip on a pair of shades, but he spends the majority of the movie without anything covering his face. After all, Tomino goes out of his way in the Zeta novels to let us know that "his blue eyes were beautiful," and, as the charismatic leader of a rebel dictatorship, why not flaunt what you've got? (lol) Who cares if it means you keep getting migraines? I'm sure being in constant pain wouldn't inspire you to make any questionable policy decisions or anything…

Besides which, showing off his good looks helps differentiate him from the last space dictator, who was a bit of a potato. (Although Degwin also wore red and covered his eyes... Hm...)

Anyway, this has been my rant on Char Aznable's ocular health. A very important matter for Universal Century scholars, brought under the examining glass for the first time. May I never think of it again, lol.