Mwu / Murrue character analysis, then and now

[maple_rose]

After rewatching SEED, and re-reading my old fanfics from 2006, I think that my current views of Mwu and Murrue's characters and their relationship remain largely unchanged. There are a few differences though, now that I'm older (am I more mature? I don't know lol), and have more experience in relationships.

• I don't think Murrue would cry as much as I wrote *sheepish* While she did have a few emotional moments where she teared up, Murrue is still a soldier, and she can keep her emotions under control and keep a professional front.
• Murrue's not as shy or prone to blushing as I used to write her lol. I think she blushed once in the whole series. Considering she's 26, has been in a relationship previously, knows that Mwu loves her back, I don't think she would be shy when it comes to physical contact or showing affection; nor do I think that every time Mwu tries to be affectionate, she would get embarrased and push him away. They're in a mutual relationship, and Murrue's not Tsundere. I think those traits that I wrote her was probably a product of my own shyness back then, having no experience with relationships lol
• I don't think Mwu is as confident in their relationship as I used to think lol. I used to always have him initiate physical contact/affection. I mean, it sort of has canon basis, since he was the one who suddenly kissed her and had been teasing her, and she's generally more subtle about her affection. But I also think that this is Mwu's first serious relationship, and considering the way he grew up (cold distant family, being in the military since 18), I think Mwu is rather aloof when it comes to close relationships. He acts friendly to everyone, but I don't think he ever got really close to anyone. I'm not saying that I think he would act awkward or anything, like Kira and Athrun would, but I think he's not as confident and would know exactly what to do as I used to think (though due to his ego, he’ll probably try and pretend to know what he’s doing lol). In fact, I think Murrue, who has more experience when it comes to feelings, would teach him about compassion.
• Murrue locked her heart away and promised herself not to love again because of her lost Mobile Armor pilot, and Mwu broke the walls around her heart with his charm despite the fact that she tried to push him away. Yeah, I don't see this anymore. This actually kinda bothered me when I re-read my old fanfics. I mean, yeah Mwu is charming and irresistible, and Murrue was seen mourning her lost pilot, and it was brought up a couple times, so I could see why I (and many other fanfic writers actually) could have gotten this idea. But really, if you watch the series closely, nowhere did Murrue reject Mwu's "advances", nor did she stop herself from falling in love. In fact, if anything, I think she flirts back when he flirts with him (which is why they're so cute, aaaahhhh). Rewatching their scenes gave me a new perspective:
  
  • Ep 19 - When he was gawking at her, he was just teasing her, and she narrowed her eyes before walking off; I don’t think she was angry at him, more like *rolls eyes at his joke*
  • Ep 25 - When Mwu pats her back, and she says “stop it Commander, that’s sexual harassment”, I totally think she was teasing him, it wasn’t an attempt at keeping him away.
  • Ep 38 - When he kissed her suddenly, we see her eyes open wide in surprise.That’s understandable, she wasn’t expecting it. But the surprise lasts only a split second, before she accepts it and kisses him back. She didn’t push him away, or try to resist in any way really. I see her line of “I don’t really like Mobile Armor pilots” as more of her trying to divert attention away from her flustered state. It wasn’t an attempt to stop him, or said very seriously. And he knew that too, and rebutted her statement lightly (he didn’t reply with that to convince her or anything; he didn’t need to, at that point she was already in love with him and was probably happy that he took the initiative). It’s another case of teasing each other almost. Because right afterwards they went back to kissing (before the crew walked in on them lol)
  Basically, most of their interactions during the flirting phase are light-hearted. We don’t really see Murrue resisting, rather, she plays along with him, flirting and teasing back. And in ep 23, she even laughs to herself after he walks off. And by ep 31, it’s clear that she already cares about him. Her falling in love with him just happened so naturally that she didn’t really need to do anything, and she certainly didn’t try to stop it.
  
  I mean, Murrue still wears the pendant even at ep 48, so it’s not like Mwu replaced her pilot guy, nor has she forgotten him. We don’t know how long ago he died, but I think her heart has healed enough and she hasn’t stopped herself from moving on or falling in love again. She’s not the type of person to close her heart and stop moving forward (like Shinn). We see this in her early Destiny; through her conversation with Talia and Kira, it seems that even though she has regrets, she has decided to move on and continue to love; remembering her past but not letting it stop her future. That is, until the rest of Destiny happened, and opened all her old wounds.. but I’ll not get into Destiny, because I don’t know how I feel about Neo anymore….
  
• I’m not sure if my views of Murrue being afraid to lose Mwu have changed or not. She doesn’t really show it. I guess when Kira said “Mwu-san’s injured” after coming back from Mendel, we hear her gasp a little. And she clenched her fist when the Strike and Buster were taking a little too long investigating the colony (I actually find it kind of weird that Mwu didn’t even tell anyone when he sensed Rau and chased him into the colony; if Dearka wasn’t like right there beside him, nobody else would’ve even known what he was doing). And in ep 49 when Mwu initially returns in the damaged Strike, she was like “gimme a report later, get in now”. So I guess maybe she was worried. But I don’t think she would cry over it, not openly at least, nor would she ever beg him to stop doing his job.
• Mwu acts childish. I don’t really remember why I originally thought this, but I’m definitely not the only one. Rewatching SEED, I didn’t really get any indication that he acts that way, or would act that way. Yeah he acts relaxed when the situation is dire, and yeah he flirts with Murrue, and reads porn mags. Sometimes he jokes probably at inappropriate times (eg ep 11 court-martial scene), but I think he only does that because he knew he’d get away with it; he’s pretty polite and wears his uniform properly in front of superiors (meeting with Haliburton, at JOSH-A). And sometimes he’s blunt to the point of being tactless to get his point across. But nowhere did I see any indication that he acts immature. Maybe it’s because of his relaxed attitude at the beginning of the series? I suppose I can see him pulling pranks and tease people, but he’s rather reliable and knows where to draw the line. And Mwu is by no means innocent like a child in any area.
  

With this new view of them, I want to start a writing project (I said "start", I have no idea if I can "finish", I've always been bad at doing that lol): the 50 phases of Captain and Commander; basically 50 ficlets set one per episode.