I can't quite understand why one can say "the first couple of episodes
of the series are somewhat boring". So I will let the one who say this
explain it himself/herself. But the story does start in the episode 1,
where three of the four chief characters are introduced to us, not in
episode 9. If there is any flaws inside the first few episode, it is
because Anime cannot show us the clear picture of the background
quickly enough, though no one can. It is different from the books,
where one can find a nice short "prelude" to the whole story,
explaining what happens from the 21st Century AD to the 8th
Century UC briefly in a few pages. Otherwise the books and the TV
series are not much different, except that in the TV series a few
episodes are concerned with the situation in the Reich in late
Goldenbaum period, which brings an air of Pre-Revolutionary Europe,
(and which one should be more or less unfamiliar with unless one
studies European history).
If one does not know what a good general should do on the
battlefields, one had better go to a library to read about Napoleon
and Wellington. It is especially useful for the understanding of
the military actions in the LoGH. (In a previous message I said the
warfare in the LoGH is actually Napoleonic warfare set in 3-D.) Then
one can appreciate the manoeuvres and the battles in the LoGH more.
We don't have the fantasy of robots. Instead we have armies made up
of thousands or tens of thousand units. Each unit is a warship.
Supposing each warship has a crew of 200, and each army/fleet has
20000 units, if 2 million people die in a certain battle in which 2
fleets are involved, only 10000 fleets in total are distroyed. That
won't be a very huge scale. Of course we have to exclude the very
Battle of Vermillion.
Again, I can't quite understand why one can say "Just huge space
battles set to Wagner". Richard Wagner the Master? I can't remember
when I hear Wagner's music during these battle scenes. To my regret,
the Anime uses too little of Wagner's music in the LoGH. The thing
that I hear most in the LoGH is an excerpt from the Siegfried Idyll,
which can be heard often when Siegfried Kircheis or the memory of him
by others is involved. The Walkuerenritt, which can describe
Bittenfeld's bold charges well, seems to be never heard. Does the
writer of the "Forwarded Message" find any thing wrong with Wagner's
music? If so, speak frankly. Then, as a Wagnerite, I will defend the
Master's total art.
It's really fun and surprise to see how one can imagine that Reinhard
and Siegfried Kircheis are lovers!!! The thing binding them is
brotherhood, not that kind of love implied in the word "lovers". The
one whom Kircheis loves is Annerose. This is mentioned implicitly in
the novel. Of course Annerose loves Kircheis. This is indicated after
Kircheis' death.
Reinhard-Siegfried