Sword and Mirror - a Lacus Clyne Analysis
“First… decide. And then do it. It’s the only way to achieve anything.”
Do you want to read ~8.000 words of Lacus Clyne character analysis? I hope so, because that’s what I got for you today.
When I watched SEED, I was wholly convinced I would dislike Lacus and everything she stands for. I have never been more wrong. Lacus is a tricky character to grasp - the show narrates her story largely through themes, blank spaces and parallel storytelling. As a result, I understand how she can seem quite flat on a casual viewing. I promise you right now, there is more to her role in the story than meets the eye.
In a 2020 interview, Director Fukuda said: “I do remember [Writer Morosawa] saying that the idea of Lacus Clyne was that she would be a mirror of other people, and that was why she was necessary to reflect other people’s hearts.”
The primary mirrors for Lacus are Flay in SEED and the Durandal/Meer combo in Destiny, so these will be our focal angle for unraveling her character - because the question is not just “what does the mirror say about other people?” it is also “what is inherent to Lacus that is able to reflect these (often negative) characters so well?”
Lacus’ story includes a lot of interesting ideas about power, agency, and gender performativity. I am here today to make my case to all of you, to present to you the Lacus I came to love - a girl who would love to be ordinary, but who cannot ignore the ideological power her image has become entrenched with.
(Because tumblr is a functional website and won't show posts with links in tags, I will add my source links in a reblog.)