>There's a certain
>shocking irony in calling Sanya's do a crown of thorns, which is what
>I think stuck out to me most of all in that part of the climax.

Well, if you've never seen them before, and you're seeing them for the first time under the sort of conditions Eila was...

>There were times when I ached for Gryphon's future presence and
>everything he brings to this.

To be honest, I sometimes catch myself wondering whether he's really necessary. I mean, the Operation Hammer team seems to be getting along fine without him. I think a lot of that is because in the last year or so, I've had the problem of the Male Interloper more consciously on my mind than in earlier times, and however benignly, he is certainly that, more or less by definition. (And yes, I realize that there is an entire episode of season 1 showing that the witches themselves don't see him that way.)

The conclusion I've eventually reached, in considering the above, is that it works because—and in all likelihood only works as long as—he's not trying to run everything. Sure, he's taking the lead on some of the project work, and he's not without influence with the command structure, but I don't think his input is more highly weighted on most matters than any of the others', the 501st being the sort of unit that it is. Most of what he's doing, he's doing not to make himself indispensable, but to make the witches' situation better. Hell, in a few cases—e.g., the way Zauberschule is set up, his weapons work with 404 Sqdn—he's deliberately trying to future-proof things so that they can carry on when he's not there any longer. That, and the fact that he's not expecting anything, make his continued presence in the storyline work. If he stopped operating that way, I expect it would get tedious real quick.

Sorry, bit of a digression there, but this has been on my mind for a while and your remark was a good lead-in for getting some of it on the record.

>I want to see everything in this world.
>I want to see this war won. I want these poor girls to finally get the
>justice and the peace they deserve after nightmares like this.
>
>...but, y'know, at the same time I really really want me some more Rin
>and Gumi... and darnit I just want Sanya/Eila fluff.

Yeah, I hear you. I want to see all of that too, and quite a lot more besides. Problem is, I'm only one aging nerd, living in an ever-increasingly insane and exhausting world that has less and less room for incompletely-grown-up grown-ups in it, and it just ain't as fast or as easy as it used to be most of the time. :/

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.