Blake's Anime Moments #3: The Death of Siegfried Kircheis

Legend of the Galactic Heroes is an epic series spanning over 100 episodes in the regular series, and eventually perhaps more in side stories that the original author has written at the bequest of rabid fans. The show is a space opera in the truest sense, a series of melodramatic tragedies set against the background of gigantic space battles between capitol ships resulting in the deaths of millions of soldiers. One of the reasons I love Galactic Heroes is that it never attempts to rise above the melodrama, to pontificate about life or elevate itself to the height of great literature, beyond simply reveling in the struggles of its characters against their circumstances. It is pure, flat-out, melodrama set in space, with virtually all the music taken from classical symphonies and operas.

Most of the battles are fought on such a supremely large scale (fleets ships firing lasers at each other from ridiculously long distances away) that the series focuses mostly on the admirals and ship commanders, engaged as much in political struggles as they are in the actual battles. There are some occasional scenes that focus on fighter pilots and hand-to-hand fighters (who use giant battle-axes, for which the series goes to great lengths to create a reason why they can't just shoot each other with laser guns) but these are mostly meant to add flavor to the created universe.

As such there are many memorable moments to choose from, I'm tempted to choose the death of Robert Jean Lappe. Lappe dies in the first half hour of the show, but the consequences of his death reverberate throughout the series, with many flashbacks of memories of times the character shared with one of the series' two protagonists, Yang Wen-Li. In addition, Lappe's widow becomes a political figure in the wake of his death, creating ripples in the political waters that Yang must navigate. Lappe, a military advisor, dies when the hotblooded captain of the ship he's stationed on ignores Lappe's advice, sending the ship into a suicidal maneuver--a large theme of Galactic Heroes seems to be that the virtuous be destroyed by the incompetent and the greedy, for whom social standing is more important than human life.

But it's the death of Siegfried Kircheis that really gets to me. On the opposite side of the war, the story follows the driven Field Marshal Reinhardt von Lohengramm, who seeks to overthrow the Emperor, who took Reinhardt's sister for a concubine when he was a young boy. Admiral Siegfried Kircheis' relationship to Reinhardt falls somewhere between devoted manservant and best friend; the distinction between the two seeming to be lost on Reinhardt, who equally seeks Kircheis' advice and derides him if it isn't to his wishing. Kircheis for his part, isn't entirely altruistic in his devotion to Reinhardt; on the day she was taken from Reinhardt's home, Reinhardt's sister, Annerose, asked Kircheis to look out for her brother, and Kircheis is probably more devoted to her than her brother, ambitions be damned.

As the two of them rise through the Imperial navy, Kircheis never fails not to step on Reinhardt's toes (though in a few scenes it's implied that Kircheis is the better strategist of the two). As Reinhardt becomes more powerful, his decision making in the war becomes less humane, beginning to cause a rift between him and the kind hearted Kircheis. This rift is widened by Reinhardt's political strategist Paul von Oberstein, who sees Reinhardt's favoring of Kircheis as a sign of weakness that may be exploited in Reinhardt's quest for power. Yet, as Reinhardt becomes more and more powerful, Kircheis can be seen as his most powerful link to humanity.

With success within Reinhardt's grasp, he finally relents to Oberstein's wishes that Kircheis, like all the other Admirals, may not go armed into Reinhardt's presence. On that same day, in the audience chamber, when Reinhardt is the subject of an assassination attempt by some captured enemy commanders, Kircheis, naturally, intercedes, but is dealt a deathblow by the would-be assassin. The other Admirals call for medical assistance, but Kircheis bleeds out in a few minutes.

But it's what happens after that, that I find so disturbing. Reinhardt watches the whole procession from his tiny throne in shock. With Kircheis already clearly dead, he finally steps down, and the whole world falls away into black except for him and the body of Kircheis. But in this, Reinhardt's mind, Kircheis is not yet dead, and instructs Reinhardt that he must "win the universe" and that he has kept his promise to Annerose. In this way, Reinhardt subconsciously absolves himself of all the guilt on his part for the death of his greatest ally and emotional support. It also becomes clear in this scene, that more than anyone, Reinhardt loved Kircheis, making the blow that much harsher, which also clears the way for his worst excesses as both an eratic leader and a violent strategist.

When I watched the end of that episode I curled into a little ball on my bed and said, "no no no no no no no no."