Today on Geek Devotions, Dallas takes a look at Mobile Suit Gundam Hathaway and talks about how past trauma doesn’t need to define your future.
This past week, Netflix dropped the feature film Mobile Gundam: Hathaway. This film is part one of a trilogy of movies based on 1989’s Mobile Suit Gundam: Hathaway’s Flash (Kidō Senshi Gandamu Senkō no Hasawei) written by Yoshiyuki Tomino, the creator of Mobile Suit Gundam. The book and movie follow Hathaway Noa, son of the famed Bright Noa of White Base. In this film, you discover that Hathaway has taken on the mindset of Neo Zeon and the infamous Char Aznable. He believes everyone must become “space-noids.” Part of his deeper motivation is a lot of grief and guilt over what happened in “Char’s Counterattack.”
In Char’s Counterattack, Hathaway had fallen in love with a girl named Ques, butQues sided with the ideals of Char. Tragically, amid the final battle, Ques dies. In the movie, she is shot down by a member of the Earth Federation. However, in the books, something even more tragic happens. Hathaway himself accidentally shoots her down. In either case, the loss of ques deeply affected him, and he never properly took care of his grief and depression. Instead, he allowed the undealt with grief to fester and cause him to become angry with the Earth Federation, especially after seeing some of the terrible things the Federation started to do after the war.
This leads us into our discussion of the day. There’s a lot of individuals who have suffered terrible things in the past. They have been hurt, abused, and abandoned. Sadly, if those emotional scars are not handled correctly, these individuals can find themselves in a state of bitterness that tints the lens they use to look upon life. But, they have to.
In the book of Genesis, we read the story of Joseph. Joseph was a man who was used and abused. His brothers tossed him in a pit and sold him to slavery. They told his father that he was dead. While in slavery, he was wrongfully imprisoned, betrayed, and abandoned. However, out of this situation, the opportunity arose for him to become the man who essentially saved a nation. One day, while serving the nation, his brothers appeared to him, asking for help. They did not recognize him, but he recognized them. He was faced with two options.
- Show them a hand of grace and help them
- Allow bitterness over the hurt and pain that they caused to take over and punish them.
Instead, he decided to show them grace. He didn’t allow his trauma to dictate the type of man he would become. Instead, he leaned into the Lord and allowed God to bring healing and bring hope. Wherever you are in your life right now, don’t allow your past trauma to twist you and cause you to walk a path just as dark as the one that hurt you. Instead, trust in the Lord and lean into His healing.