Friday, November 9, 2007

A Profile of a Galactic Hero: Admiral Bittenfield















Admiral Bittenfield. Space Patton.

Bittenfield, what can I say about him? He's the wild boar of the LOGH universe, and he is a quite proud of it. He's loud, lacks social graces, but at the same time, he's honest and is one of the great positive characters of LOGH. Which is hard to see at first, since he is often the foil for Yang Wengli to trick taking advantage of his wanton charges.

But the thing about him, is that for the most part his shock warfare works in that keeps the enemy under heavy pressure, and he actually did in the last battle that Yang oversaw, do a great deal of damage to the Republican forces. He manages this feet by at some times through sheer force of will, just keeping his men going at it. He isn't a great strategic genius, but he is competent and this is seen towards the later part of the series in the battles of the civil war of the New Reich, and also during the last campaign of the Iserlohn Republicans in which if it wasn't for the actions of Julian when he was on board the Kaiser's ship would of saw Bittenfield just crush the remaining fleet that had been in battle against the Kaiser's fleet.

He is an interesting character in that he gets character development and becomes important, yet he is one of the few Admirals we don't see a personal side too.

Next time on the this focus of actual Heros, I shall focus on Alexander Bucock, probably the greatest FPA admiral outside of Yang Wengli or Dusty Attenborugh.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Bittenfeld was the only one who opposed Oberstein in a open, direct way (well, other than Reutental when he rebels of course). He has no fears to express his genuine feelings and survives the ecatombe of the final episodes.

I'm still searching for infos on the novel epilogue chapter, supposedly not adapted into anime, and we can only "fan fictionize" what would be of Bittenfeld after Reinhard's death.

But if Mittermeyer is made Prime Minister, with Kesler and Mecklinger mostly behind the lines, then it'd seem like the Wild Boar and Muller would become the main operative leader of the Imperial Fleet, and the most likely first adversaries of Julian in a new war.

Indeed a fascinating plot twist for a pretty bi-dimensional character in a world of extraordinary three-dimensional ones like LOGH.

Silence said...

Muller and Bittenfield working together? If they could get a working relationship going, that would be a pair to rival Reutental and Mittermeyer.

Though, I wouldn't see a war occurring between remnants of the FPA and the Empire for a long time.

Anonymous said...

Yeah, the anime ending foreshadows a long period of truce/peace. And it seems unlikely that Kaiserin+Mittermeyer and Julian will foolishly go to war.

But I've read somewhere that the novel epilogue is on the contrary more ominuos. Do you know more about it?

Also, there are still loose plot ends which might lead to war. Think about the fate of the last Goldenbaum heir, revealed as being still alive in episode 109 or 110.

And what about new warmonger political leaders in the automonous again Free Planets area or Phezzani merchants hostile to the new government? If they were to rise to power, would Julian be obedient like its mentor always was, to the point of risking his own life (because when Yang decided not to kill Reinhard he saved the principles of democracy, but at the same time forfeited the democracy territories to years of autocratic domination, which in itself is a severe contradiction).

Lastly, do you know if there is a map of the starzone which Reinhard gave as independent enclave to Julian? I understand it includes Heinessen, and I guess it can't be as vast as the previous Free Planet Alliance, but what exactly are its boundaries? What about El-Facile?

Silence said...

I only read some parts of the early novels online that had been translated. Though if the unlikly day I get away from Russian enough to learn Japanese occurs, I would like to check them out.

As for warmongers? I doubt they would be able to a threat as long as Julian and Ms Yang were around. Phezzanis would probably be more focused on the New Empire and probably maybe buy their way to freedom again.

As for the map of what Julian got at the end, I don't think I saw one, but I'll go double check the last episodes when I get a chance too. But my understanding is that they gave up everything for Heinessen Starzone and El Facile was given over to the Empire along with Iserlohn.

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