CHAR AND THE THREE WITCHES
Text by Mari Kotani

From First Gundam through Char’s Counterattack, three women stand out as refusing to be tossed about in a male-dominated world: Kycilia Zabi, Reccoa Londe, and Haman Karn.

By and large, Gundam’s female characters have been cast in supporting, almost maternal roles, devoted above all to selfless love, often leading to a high mortality rate for the sacrificial “love interest.” Yet, these three form a lineage of women who defy and betray men, toying with the masculine order at every turn. In Minako Saito’s parlance, they are “evil queens”; in Kyoji Asakura’s, “femmes fatales.” Within a story steeped in a masculine worldview, they storm around with frightening intensity, only to be fated for eventual “punishment,” as narrative convention so often demands. And yet, Gundam being Gundam, it never reduces these “villainesses” to mere caricatures of evil or simple instigators of plot; instead, they exemplify the series’ unique depth. True, they play the role of “evil,” but each has her own rationale, a worldview expanded by distinctly feminine logic. As a result, they all come perilously close to undermining the story’s entire sexual and social order.

We cannot help but wonder: What is the underlying logic driving these three women?

Killing her elder brother Gihren, selling out the AEUG, outmaneuvering Titans, the Federation, and AEUG alike—Kycilia, Reccoa, and Haman share a certain fed-up air toward male power structures and men themselves. Unsurprisingly, each, in her respective series, becomes entangled in a drama of love and conflict with the “ultimate man’s man,” Char Aznable (a.k.a. Quattro Bajeena, real name Casval Rem Deikun). Char, who dedicates himself to the anti-establishment fight, wields the “Newtype” power symbolizing rebellion and, despite constant setbacks, manages to look cool doing it. At first glance, these three women seem the very worst matches for him.

WHY DID CHAR NEED TO KILL KYCILIA ZABI?

Kycilia Zabi is a highly competent politician and exceptional military strategist. Raised in the thoroughly patriarchal Zabi household with her father, Degwin, at its head, she simultaneously occupies a maternal role and wields top-level authority over Zeon’s Earth invasion plan and intelligence network. She knows every corner of her state—its respectable fronts and its grimy back alleys. Notably, she entertains subversive leanings: she protects Newtypes and recruits Casval (Char), despite recognizing him as a threat to the Zabis’ hold on power.

Her decisive break with the family’s toxic patriarchal structure comes after she witnesses the eldest brother, Gihren, murder their father, a classic Oedipal power transfer. When the reins simply move from one son to another, Kycilia—sick of the same old male-centered status quo—shoots Gihren dead.

But to Char, Kycilia always loomed as a terrifying “mother figure,” perfectly aware of the boy’s inner workings, both his public face and his private motivations. Indeed, she proclaims, “I knew you when you were just little Casval!” With that, it’s clear she not only grasps his true identity but likely understands his father, Zeon Deikun’s, political philosophy and how the Zabis snuffed it out—leaving her with a firm sense of Char’s mind and position. Both are anti-establishment figures in the Zeon empire, yet they never truly align as equals. Superficially, it might seem both aspire to seize control, yet, if Char were simply angling for power, killing Kycilia would not necessarily profit him. And she, it appears, underestimated him for that reason.

His act, however, feels less like a rational political or military calculation than an emotionally charged, misogynistic attack. That raw note of “woman-hatred” resonates far more than any sober strategic move.

WHY DID RECCOA LONDE ABANDON QUATTRO?

If the original Mobile Suit Gundam embraces relentless realism, and if that realism is closely tied to its male-dominated worldview, then Zeta Gundam is swept up in the fantastical power of the Newtype, pivoting toward a more occult, dreamlike, or “feminine” perspective. The main character, Kamille Bidan, a young man with a traditionally female name, evokes a transgressive quality reminiscent of the sculptor Camille Claudel, whose complex relationship with Rodin saw her slandered, haunted by obsessions, and driven to the edge of madness. Kamille carries a similar fear: is he nothing more than the second coming of the “great Newtype,” Amuro Ray, forever in someone else’s shadow? That leads him toward a fraught end.

In Zeta’s world, the big moral binary of “good vs. evil” crumbles: former enemies, like Amuro and Char, now stand side by side. Characters such as Emma Sheen, Reccoa Londe, and Sarah Zabiarov switch allegiances with baffling ease. Jerid Messa, originally a proud, hypermasculine figure, keeps losing to “that girly Kamille,” which eats away at his self-esteem until he can’t function, ultimately devolving into a mere plot device. Where 1st was all about set divisions, Federation vs. Zeon, Zeta revels in shifting identities, eroding the standard gender divide, and letting a swirl of disruptive sexualities break loose.

Reccoa Londe, for her part, grew up in the ruins of war, and the horrors she endured as a child have shaped her psyche. She needs danger, truly feels at peace only in the midst of peril, which is essentially a masochistic drive. She takes on high-stakes missions, spy work, infiltration, direct combat, driven by a compulsion that seems more masochistic than heroic.

Though short-haired Reccoa recalls the noble Matilda Ajan (who met a tragic end in First Gundam), Reccoa in the AEUG is hinted to be romantically involved with ace pilot Quattro Bajeena, until, during an infiltration of the enemy ship, she encounters Paptimus Scirocco and falls for him in a flash. This is Reccoa’s “queer awakening.”

Scirocco wields a potent Newtype ability; indeed, the Newtype realm skews strongly toward women, children, beautiful men, and artificially enhanced humans (a.k.a. Cyber-Newtypes). “Ordinary” adult men, with all their mundane baggage, rarely fit. Paptimus, in particular, is an outwardly gentle man attuned to others’ desires, yet he flips power dynamics with a commanding sadist dominance. On the surface, he seems masocistic, but in truth, he exerts total control. People born into a stable hierarchy often fail to see how that hierarchy shapes every interaction; those who have endured subjugation, however, know all too well that invisible power grips everything. Paptimus, hailing from Jupiter, is precisely such a man. Reccoa, desperate for tension and enthralled by his brand of authority, is inevitably drawn to him. (Had Scirocco presented himself as a typical macho blowhard, Reccoa would likely have dismissed him as just another dull man.)

Ultimately, Reccoa’s actions align perfectly with her personal logic: she rejects conventional heterosexual power roles in favor of a complicated S/M power dynamic, which resonates with her own psychological boundaries.

In the end, Reccoa faces off against Emma Sheen, who is desperately trying to bring her back. “Because I’m a woman,” Reccoa tells Emma by way of explanation. Zeta devotes one of its most compelling scenes to this final duel, leaving us to wonder how, exactly, two women on opposite sides might interpret those fateful words. If Quattro had shown up instead, her “because I’m a woman” line might sound like a scorned lover’s complaint, a tantrum thrown within a patriarchal order. But aimed at another woman, it implies something else: an invitation to see the layered meaning of a woman (or any “deviant” outsider) who steps beyond heteronormative constraints.

On the surface, Reccoa and Scirocco might look like the classic “gigolo-dominatrix” pairing. But once we consider Reccoa’s deviation from standard sexual norms, we grasp the deeper subtext of her leap. Her story is less about heteronormative structures than it is about power itself, coded through S/M.

This also sheds light on Quattro Bajeena. The man who once shot Kycilia Zabi is likewise the man who cannot keep Reccoa from leaving him, no matter how much he shares in their anti-authority stance. Despite his parallels with these women, he never stands on equal footing with them as a genuine comrade. Instead, his romantic relationships fall back into well-worn patterns of male dominance and female subjugation, revealing a contradiction: while Char rails against authoritarianism, he harbors a deep strain of misogyny, excluding women from his vision of revolt. This tension pervades the entire “Newtype” narrative, lending it a dramatic, sometimes tragic depth.

WHY DID CHAR GET SO EMOTIONAL ABOUT HAMAN KARN?

Haman Karn inherits Kycilia’s political machinations and Reccoa’s commanding “dominatrix” aura. From the latter half of Zeta into ZZ, she becomes the biggest (or “worst”) villain in the series.

While Zeta drifts ever further into occult territory, away from First Gundam’s realism, ZZ cranks the absurdity up to delirious extremes. In a world where Haman stands at the center, even formidable masculine figures like Bright Noa or Mashymre Cello become subjects of ridicule or pawns to be redefined, their once-inviolable “manliness” laid bare. And at the same time, ZZ features women warriors driven to a near-mad seriousness. In this bizarre realm, men are ridiculed, women teeter on the brink of madness, and the fairytale vibe is worlds apart from First.

Because ZZ’s protagonist, Judau Ashta, is a Newtype in this topsy-turvy setting, he is conspicuously more “boyish” than Amuro or Kamille, and even he isn’t spared from a cheeky, playful depiction. Meanwhile, the mobile suits themselves, once just “things” in human form, start to appear as psychic vessels, possibly even new lifeforms in their own right. That ZZ flirts with the notion of “mobile suits turned human” is part of its wildly imaginative worldview.

Hailing from the asteroid belt, Haman Karn arrived in Zeta shrouded in mystery. We only glimpse a photo of her younger self, apparently with Char, as our single clue to her past. By the time of ZZ, she reigns like a queen in the kingdom of near-madness, a kind of feminist-fascist force reading everyone’s political stance and personality like a machine, pivoting strategies without missing a beat. She masters the Qubeley, that sinister, psycho-wave–amplified mobile suit, drives forward the production of Cyber-Newtype soldiers, and seems to thrive in survival at any cost. As her presence grows, so do the psychic overtones, and the mobile suits themselves look ever more alive.

Though Haman Karn styles herself an ultra-capable leader, using Dozle Zabi’s orphaned daughter, Mineva, as a puppet for legitimacy, her mere appearance provokes a visceral hostility in Quattro (Char). No matter the scenario, Char can’t hide his spite whenever the subject is Haman. Meanwhile, Haman, seeing Char and Judau as fellow Newtypes, keeps trying—almost pesteringly—to get them on her side. The irony is that Char’s hatred might stem from their similarity: Char’s Counterattack clearly mirrors much of Haman’s strategy. Char’s grand speeches, his self-loathing at playing the clown, his plan to force humanity’s evolution by drastic means, these all echo Haman’s approach in ZZ, right down to inadvertently fueling more conflict while claiming they want to save Earth. They’re two sides of the same coin, but never aligned.

Throughout the saga from First Gundam to Char’s Counterattack, Gundam posits an otherworldly force called “Newtype,” ostensibly the next stage in human evolution. But the storytelling piles onto this strange “new existence” a host of familiar social structures, especially romance and motherhood, leading to logical contradictions that spark astonishing tragic drama.

For instance, Char’s bond with Lalah Sune is theoretically about forging a new meaning to “Newtype” in the space era, yet he defaults to reading it through an old-fashioned heterosexual lens, a choice that ultimately claims Lalah’s life.

Haman Karn similarly struggles with wanting someone “strong,” be it Char or Judau, while scorning any “Oldtype” man as unworthy. She never bows to the old male power order, but she cannot help falling into the “man-woman” dynamic with those few Newtypes she deems equals, repeating the same archaic patterns she otherwise despises. One recalls her final admission, “I just wanted to meet someone truly strong,” a line that seems heartbreakingly out of place for such a cunning tactician.

So in the end, both Char and Haman exist as twin symbols of the rebellious, critical energy embodied by Newtypes, yet neither can escape the old gender power structures embedded in their relationship. Char becomes emotionally attached to Haman because of his “misogyny.” Haman, drawn to her equals precisely because they’re alike, can’t help getting caught up in the “man-woman” dynamic when it comes to Char or Judau.

However capable she may be as the “queen of queerness,” we cannot help but feel a twinge of disappointment in her final unraveling.

Source: Gundam Episode Guide Vol.3 (pages 010-013)
(Released: 1999.12.25)