In Defense of Heero’s Humanity

 

In so many fanfics Heero is pictured as the emotionless, perfect soldier.  This is a particularly difficult view to contend, because in all honestly I have no idea as to where this interpretation came from (look at the above picture!!).  Heero is not lacking emotions.  In fact, he shows them quite often, in his deeds if not his face.  If you have never seen the original Japanese and heard Midorikawa Hikaru do his voice, you are at a disadvantage.  Heero’s voice carries a lot of feeling that the English voice actor is not as skilled in conveying.  Heero has acted surprised, content, angry, and has on occasion told jokes (he may have an odd, subtle sense of humor, but it’s there).  He smiles.  In the beginning, he even laughs like a maniacal madman!  Moreover, by the end of the series Heero is not going to kill himself.  In fact, I think he is the one most likely to survive after all is said and done.

 

From the beginning, what do we know about Heero?

 

Very little is known about Heero—he does not even have a real name.  From his very early childhood he was trained as an assassin (at that time he was only referred to as “boy”).  Later, he came upon Dr. J, and was taken into the preparations for Operation Meteor.  It was at that time that he was given the name “Heero Yuy,” taken from the assassinated representative of peace on the colonies several years before his birth.  He was apparently trained in mobile suit and jet piloting, computer hacking, espionage, hand held and explosive weaponry, fencing, and horseback riding ^_^.

 

In Heero’s past there is one specific event that is well known: the death of the little girl and her dog, as seen in Endless Waltz.  Afterwards, the audience is treated to an argument between Dekim Barton (head of the Barton Foundation and creator of Operation Meteor), and Dr. J.  Dekim insists that Heero must be conditioned to lose every sense of kindness in order to become a perfect soldier.  Dr. J agrees that kindness is unnecessary in a soldier, but contests the idea that Heero’s humanity should be stripped from him.  Thus, it is uncertain what kind of training Dr. J subjected to Heero, other than what was mentioned above.

 

Heero has a very strong idea of what his purpose is.  He tolerates no obstacles to obtaining peace: even the lives of civilians, as was proven when he almost shot down the shuttle Relena was in (ep 1).  In the beginning he seems to have very little sense of personal value, as he takes outrageous risks with his life and even attempts to self-destruct at times.  However, he does have a sense of compassion, as he saves Relena on several occasions and felt a great sense of remorse after the death of General Noventa.

 

So, what did Dr. J do to the poor boy anyway?

 

Heero was not beaten.  First, Dr. J seems like a very practical man.  He hopes for peace and is willing to take steps to secure that peace.  However, he definitely opposed Operation Meteor because of the extreme casualties it would cause, and he rejected the idea of conditioning Heero.  He even speaks of Heero with a great sense of pride.  When Heero infiltrates the Lunar Base, he brags to Prof. G about his “weapon” (ep 15).  He and his comrades helped build the Mercurius and Vayeatte in hopes that the Gundam pilots would be able to use them.  They even sabotaged Libra’s main cannon so that it would not be able to fire consecutively, thus creating less of a chance for massive casualties.

 

All in all, the five scientists have a great confidence in and even respect the pilots they trained.  Moreover, Heero trusts Dr. J, and was willing to destroy his Gundam at a moment’s notice when Dr. J ordered it.  This mutual loyalty cannot be gained through beatings.  Were Heero beaten and conditioned, he would not only show no kindness, but do only what was expected of him.  Dr. J did not order Heero to apologize to everyone in General Noventa’s family; not only is that unnecessary for a soldier with no emotions, but a great risk in that one of those family members might have taken Heero up on his offer.  Dr. J would not have risked the life of his weapon at such an important stage of the fight, just when OZ is starting to take over and gain power.  This implies that Heero chose to do so himself.  A conditioned weapon does not act out of remorse or guilt.

 

Also, Dr. J beating Heero would serve to enforce in Heero’s mind that he was a tool, made only to follow orders.  Physical conditioning is only effective in as much as creating an imbalance of power: “I am the master, you do as I say or you are hurt.”  No kind of mutual loyalty can grow under these circumstances.  Heero is a strong person who is trusted enough to make his own decisions concerning where he wishes to go, and whether or not he will accept his missions.  Obviously while he is on Earth there is no chance that Dr. J will be able to come down and physically force Heero to do a mission—if Heero held any kind of bitterness or resentment toward Dr J, he could have refused. 

 

But he doesn’t.  Even after the colonies have renounced the Gundams, Heero continues to fight for what he believes in.  He was even willing to destroy his master when it became necessary.  When Heero and Quatre return to Earth in the second half of the show, they are no longer taking orders from their scientists.  Were Heero nothing but a tool, he would have had no idea what to do or which side to fight for.  However, Heero does not hesitate for a moment in choosing a side and fighting for it, for his own sake.  This lack of uncertainty implies that he has been fighting for his own sake all along—not specifically under orders.

 

If he wasn’t beaten, how the hell did he suffer from “over 200 bruises and broken bones”? (ep 3)

 

Because Heero’s past is so uncertain, there is no way of knowing the extent of the work he was subjected to.  If he was doing assassination work at a young age, there is a very large chance for serious injury, being small and relatively weak.  Kids have small bones that are easier to break.  Whoever trained Heero before Dr. J must have realized this.  To beat a child that young runs the risk of making them rebellious.  More importantly, beating your tool until it breaks only renders the tool inoperable.  Whoever was training Heero at the time, be it Dr. J or someone else, would realize that he was too precious a weapon to risk permanently damaging his body.  Therefore, beating is out of the question.  The injuries must have been gained during missions, or even from training--after all, mobile suits were relatively new weapons when Heero first joined Dr. J.  There were certainly complications at some points in the development, and in combat, uncertainty leads to injury.

 

So where did his emotions go?

 

They didn’t go anywhere.  Heero has always had and still has emotions—he just doesn’t have time to express them as much.  He and Dr. J both agree that kindness isn’t necessary during battle.  But Heero also says to Quatre when they return to Earth in episode (??), “Why don’t you play with the dogs….we’re not fighting now, so it’s okay.”

 

This implies that Heero doesn’t believe kindness should be erased completely, even in himself.  Only that it is unnecessary when the actual battle is taking place.  When you’re killing people by the dozens, worrying about remorse is only going to get you killed, and the deaths will have been in vain.  He isn’t given time to feel relaxed during the timeline of the show.  He is mature enough to realize that the war will continue, whether or not he takes the time to show his feelings.  He cannot afford to indulge in selfish fun—that doesn’t mean he doesn’t know how.

 

In defense of Heero’s emotion, I offer these proofs:

 

Heero can be afraid.  He is not often scared, because his own death does not frighten him.  His fear comes in different forms.  Heero was frightened of himself when he saved Relena in episode five, at the school party.  He didn’t understand what it was that made him save her (his shock in reaction to this would also imply that Heero is used to being in control of his actions).  A better example would be Heero’s experience when piloting Epyon.  The mind warping effects of the machine were terrifying even to him; when he returned to Treize, all he could do was collapse.

 

He can feel guilt.  Though I’ve mentioned this several times already, it’s a very important section of the show that so many people seem to dismiss.  After his inadvertent murder of General Noventa, Heero tracks down the remaining members of the Noventa family and offer them the chance to claim revenge.  Even if Heero believes his life is cheap, it takes a certain amount of courage to face up to so great a sin.  This was an action that Heero chose for himself, one that was totally unnecessary for his mission.  The other example is that of the little girl and her dog that he inadvertently killed before Operation Meteor.  He obviously feels a great sense of remorse for what he did, as proven in his confrontation with Wufei in Endless Waltz. 

 

He can be relaxed.  He did, after all, play with the dogs with Quatre.  And he does relax long enough to make jokes with Trowa (“Dying hurts like hell”) and mess with Duo on occasion  (“I never said you had to pilot [Wing Zero]”).

 

Okay, but he still won’t be able to live after the war.  He’s got nothing else.

 

This argument annoys me more than anything.  Heero is a character that grows, just like Relena.  Several times in the show’s early episodes it is expressed over and over that Heero is willing to throw his life away at a moment’s notice.  However, as the story progresses, these incidents occur less and less frequently.  When fighting on Earth alongside the Treize Faction, he even says, “I’m going to fight through this longer than anyone.”  If he were in a hurry to die at the time, he would not have been so adamant about continuing the fight. 

 

MOST IMPORTANTLY, at the end of the battle when he is shooting down Libra’s remains, he says, “I will not die.”  This is one of the ending scenes of the show, and is meant to prove that Heero has regained his will to live.  Had Heero still held no worth in his life, it would have been very easy to let himself die at that point.  It would have been a perfect end: the new “Heero Yuy” would have died assuring the peace that the original “Heero Yuy” could not.  But Heero survives, and even shows up later to give Relena the teddy bear.  Obviously, he is still alive.  A year after the war, he is (obviously) still alive enough to participate in Endless Waltz.  Heero is not going to kill himself.  He has gained an appreciation for his own life.  He doesn’t have to fight anymore—he said so himself.  His past has been laid to rest, and he will continue on living with the kindness he could not expose during the war.

 

How did Heero get so cool if he wasn’t conditioned?

 

I believe that most of Heero’s “conditioning” was self-induced.  He has been given the name of a famous peacemaker—quite a legacy to live up to.  If he fails in his mission he will have failed not only for the sake of peace, but for himself, and the ideal his name represents.  He was not given the name “Heero Yuy” for revenge, but so that the objectives of the original Heero Yuy would be filled out, thus giving honor to the deceased.  It is this knowledge, this expectation that drives Heero forward.  He cannot accept failure.  He has too many people depending on him.  For someone who never had a name in the past, to be given such an important name would have been like a treasure to him.  It’s something he has to take care of.

 

In episode ?? Heero is in a library, trying to find information on his namesake.  We know this because he said, “OZ deleted all the information on Heero Yuy,” (or something to that extent).  This, if nothing else, shows that Heero at least cares about the name he was given, and was hoping to find out more about the old peacemaker.

 

However, this importance placed on the name also makes Heero into a hypocrite.  In order to gain peace, he is slaughtering.  In order to avoid that guilt Heero tucks his feelings inside, letting them sleep until a time when he will be able to mourn those he killed, and celebrate the peace he has created.

 

Interpretation of Heero’s Image Songs

 

Take Off to the Sky

 

"On a bench dyed in twilight

Is an abandoned doll

'If you lose your dreams everything will end'

Someone murmured"

 

 He has dreams--he's not emotionless

 

"Only wish

Suddenly from the bottom of my consciousness

It's only life

The feelings that fire my passion"

 

He has feelings--he's not emotionless

 

"And now, fiercely, in my body I can feel

Each hidden heart beat

The passion I struggled for, the wings I embraced

Take off to the sky"

 

The wings I embraced--the act of "embracing" the wings would imply that he chose this way of life. He is not merely conditioned.

 

"I have nowhere to return to

And I'm wandering through this town

Without being able to become gentle

Without even knowing what I believe"

 

Throughout the show Heero is searching for his own answers, his own beliefs.  He can't become gentle--he doesn't have the chance to.

 

"And now, tenderly, in my heart, I can share

Each deep sin

In this universe the future unwinds endlessly

Take off to the sky "

 

Heero recognizes his sins, can share them with another, at the same time going forward into the future.  This is not the song of someone expecting to die at the end of the war.

 

Even If You Smile

 

"Searching for the frozen yesterday,

In the darkness of quietly sealed up memory,

With wings that are lost, injured, and broken

Feeling empty I gaze into the sea of the milky way

You who have lost a place to return to,

For what do you fly?"

 

Up until now Heero has been "lost."  He has no real place to return to, no reason to fight the way other people do.  He's not like Trowa, who can say, "I have a home."  So why fight?

 

"The distant dream is drifting, knocking far away.

For who are you flying?"

 

Again, there is a lot of confusion and pessimism, but he know the dream is there.  He just isn't sure why he fights so hard.

 

"For instance, even if you smile, the wind blows by without noticing.

Let's fly from this confining present,

where there is neither joy nor pain, towards tomorrow."

 

He's admitting here that though in the present there is no joy or pain, in tomorrow there will be.  He's not emotionless--only searching for a better time to show it.

 

Flying Away

 

“Beyond the burnt-out horizon, a single ray of the morning sun is shining. 

Even if you are hurt, don't forget your smile. 

Let's search for the tomorrow when we will meet again.” 

 

I think this song pretty self-evident: Heero sees that at the end of the war he will bring peace.  Even if now he has to hide his feeling, he won’t forget it.  And by saying, “we’ll meet again,” he’s implying that he’ll live long enough for that to occur.

 

In Conclusion

 

Heero is not a perfect soldier—Dr. J tells him as much himself, on the Lunar Base.  He is a product of his own dreams and desires.  He acts on his own: “I have no objection to acting upon emotions” is his famous quote.  Kindness is not allowed in battle simply because it gives way to grief, which will solve no problems.  Heero grows in the show from being a confused boy trying to follow different ideas, to a mature young man who has accepted the peace he helped to create.  He will not die—he is going to live as he always has, by acting on his emotions.

 

On To Duo Maxwell

 

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