overthesky: So I finished watching Last Exile. Of co

aichou (

aichou) wrote in

overthesky,
@ 2008-01-09 10:43:00

So I finished watching Last Exile. Of course I've watched it beginning to end many times before, but it always seems new to me every year that I watch it. (Mostly because I forget what happens!) Anyway, spoilers if you haven't reached the end yet.

Every time I watch it though, it never fails. I totally burn out on the last episode. Dio, who is my favorite character, dies* almost immediately into the episode. And while I'm saddened about Alex dying and Claus and Lavi finding their dad's vanships... I just can't bring myself to care that much.

What impact did Dio's death really have on the story? Once he dies, he's never brought up again except for that little "ascending!" scene. What impact did Dio himself have on the story? He shows that not all guilders are bad, sure.. and he shows how removed he is from the reality of the ground-dwellers. But other than that, what was his point? Claus and Alvis made a big deal about being his friend, but in the end they didn't come through for him. And they didn't even seem to care all that much that he died. At the time they were occupied with other things, but couldn't they have had a memorial for Dio at the end or something?

I don't know, it's always bugged me that he died and no one even cared. And that's why I can't enjoy the ending very much.

*Yeah, I know about that thing in the DVD that implies Dio isn't dead. But that isn't really canon, is it? It's just art. If you watched Last Exile on TV, for instance, you never would have seen that art and you would have no reason to believe that Dio lived.

(Post a new comment)

	akiko 2008-01-09 04:27 pm UTC (link)
	For the benefit of any new fans, please put this behind a cut, especially the part with the big spoiler about the last episode. I think a lot of the problems with the ending can be attributed to GONZO's inability to write an ending, or pace a series so that they don't have to scramble to wodge everything together in the last 40 minutes. (Reply to this)(Thread)

	aichou 2008-01-09 04:29 pm UTC (link)
	Sorry, I put it under a cut now. :) (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

akiko
2008-01-09 04:46 pm UTC (link)

Thanks :) I'm really sensitive to spoilers in communities because someone spoiled me to the ending of Banana Fish in an uncut "omg what did you think of [massive freaking spoiler]?" And I was just a volume away from the ending, too. *shakes fist*

I think the whole Dio thing is pretty tragic, really. He never realized what a friend he had in Lucci, and he didn't know friendship until he went to the Silverna. The part where Lavi and Claus didn't make much of it I attribute to GONZO's inability to pace a story well. The last episode needed to be about 10 minutes longer (or a few of those minutes of vanships flying through the obstacle course dropping bombs could be cut to make room.)

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

alienchrist
2008-01-09 06:55 pm UTC (link)

That happened to me too, with Banana Fish. Actually it was years ago before there was any sort of fan presence for Banana Fish and I was looking for a website about it, and in the first page of summaries on a site I visited, there was the ending. I was incredibly upset. T.T

Anyway, I think Dio serves as another way to show what a horrible person Delphine is, but also to add humanity to the Guild, despite the fact they don't even appear to be human. She's willing to destroy his heart in order to get what she wants. Yet the whole situation also illustrates the possible nobility of Guilders in Luciola's sacrifice for Dio.

He's one more facet of the lives that are ruined by the Guild, they're not even benefiting their own people anymore.

I always assume they just didn't know what happened to Dio, though I thought the lack of closure was a major cop out. I think Gonzo expected to have another season at least to work on LE but perhaps the finances got plugged, so they scrambled to end things as they currently stood which resulted in a crappy, confusing ending. I was pretty pissed until I read about the art and I believe the art book which both make implication that Dio survived and was picked up by a passing ship. To be honest I think that's a cop out as well, if you're going to show his death, let him be dead, don't go back on the decision when you realize it was a bad one.

(Reply to this)(Parent)

keekum
2008-01-09 09:13 pm UTC (link)

i was disappointed with dio's death as well, but i was satisfied with the implications in the art that he survived. i've found that i rarely ever get the exact ending that i would have wanted, especially with anime, but that's probably for the best because the endings i want are usually incredibly cheesy. the most believable (and perhaps the most moving) endings are almost inevitably bittersweet.

(Reply to this)

drdazzlement
2008-01-09 11:00 pm UTC (link)

I didn't really notice until now that the characters didn't really acknowledge Dio's death. I think what one must realize is that these people knew him for only a few weeks. Even though they became closer to him than any other Guilders, he's still only a person who kind of annoyed them, molested Claus, and then they threw a birthday party for. He wasn't anybody's best friend on the ship.

I appreciate his death in that I don't think Dio would be completely alive without Lucciola. I know that the DVD cover thing implies he is alive, but I, too, ignore that because I can't think of the two not having each other (as friends, lovers, whichever way you take it, they had an intense bond). In essence, I thinkDio could have saved himself; he had the vanship after all, but instead he let himself fall because he had lost his best friend.

It did make me sad though. Not as sad as when Lucciola died, however D:

(Reply to this)(Thread)

aichou
2008-01-10 04:11 am UTC (link)

I think that's why I prefer to think too. Even if he did survive, there's no way he would be happily frolicking in the wheat with everyone else. I don't think he would be the same person he once was for a very long time, if ever.

First he'd have to deal with the guilt... he thinks he ordered Lucciola to jump out. And even if the others told him what really happened, I think he would still feel guilty that Lucciola died because of him. Plus, how would he feel when he remembers the last thing he did to him was slap him across the face? It just seems depressing to me. It's a lot for someone like Dio to have to get over. Not to mention he'd have to start his entire life over with people he doesn't really know that well... it would be a hard transition.

I like to think Dio and Lucciola are off having fun adventures in Heaven. XD I bet Dio would enjoy having angel wings and floating around on a little cloud.

(Reply to this)(Parent)

yaoichick
2008-01-10 01:29 am UTC (link)

I felt like Dio's role was to be the "insider" into the Guild for us. He was our window onto that world. He also was a foil for other characters: Claus, Alex and Delphine. By Dio's very presence Claus worked harder to succeed, Alex was faced with his painful past, and Delphine... well, she dug in her heels!

It's fun to talk about Last Exile again. One of my all-time fave animes. And I also agree that Gonzo seemed to flounder a bit with this story, as though they ran out of time to work it all out. *shrugs*

(Reply to this)

siderealstrings
2008-01-14 01:50 am UTC (link)

You know, it's been a while since I've watched Last Exile, myself, and I can't really remember... what happens to the Guild in GENERAL at the end? I remember being under the impression that it wasn't totally destroyed, which was to me the biggest plothole. I was all around pretty confused, so maybe I just went totally off in the wrong direction in my interpretation. They lost a lot of ships, I suppose, but they seemed to have a pretty tight grip to just be utterly destroyed like that. So while it bothered me that Claus and Lavie, such loving wonderul people, were totally whatever on the disappearance of Dio, I was sort of left scratching my head about... well, the prospect of the entire world descending into chaos when faced with the leadership vacuum left by the Guild's disappearance.

Thoughts? Or perhaps corrections on my memory of the end?

(Reply to this)

meganbmoore
2008-03-04 03:32 am UTC (link)

I just watched the series for the first time this last week, and am combing through the community.

I think that Dio represented another kind of innocence that ended up being destroyed. He was a spoiled brat in a lot of ways, but in others he was a very pure, naive soul. He was openly and friendly with everyone, and craved friendship, always curious and always wanting to learn He craved friendship and freedom, but was forbidden both by his society. The Guild is shown to be petty and evil, but in Dio we see someone who isn't like that, but instead, someone who was forced to become evil by the guild.

(Reply to this)

Username:		Create an Account Forgot your login? Login w/ OpenID
Password:
	Remember Me
	English • Español • Deutsch • Русский…