MYLENE'S CHARACTER PROGRESSION IN EPISODE 33
When she sees Basara singing to Sivil, her first reaction is fear and judgement.
Despite the fact that she knows Basara has been doing this for a long time now, she still decides the situation is dangerous and she doesn’t ask him for an explanation. She simply decided she didn’t trust him. She sees it, instantly jumps to a conclusion, and seeks out her parents to basically report Basara. Jumping to conclusions is a consistent bad trait Mylene has, and this time it actually caused a lot of harm to someone she cares about. |
In episode 33, "Betrayal and a Girl's Tears", Mylene finally gets to track Basara into the woods and discover what he's been doing there, that being, singing to sleeping Sivil - a percieved enemy Protodeviln.
I really love how her reaction to it was handled, and how it progressed her character and pushed her to change later down the line. |
When her dad tells her he’ll take care of the problem, Mylene finally gets to relax a bit after telling someone what she’s just seen. In that newfound clarity, she finally gets to actually think about what she saw.
That’s when Submarine Street starts playing. It’s not a ‘meanwhile, elsewhere’ type of background noise, as Basara is not singing at that time. Mylene is remembering the song she just heard Basara sing for the first time, and when she thinks about what he was singing, that’s when the doubts start to sink in. At this point in the series, Mylene still doesn’t understand what exactly Basara is trying to achieve (and to be honest, I think even Basara isn’t too sure since everything he’s been trying so far has led nowhere)
But unlike earlier in the show, she now realizes that there’s something there. |
She reports Basara to her father - the military leader of Macross 7, who she knows is obviously also looking out for the Protodeviln.
It’s clear that she is extremely shaken by the entire situation and in her panic, this was what she chose to do. However even at that moment, she doubts herself. Her first choice was to report the enemy, but the more time passed, the more uncertain she was of whether she’s doing the right thing. She seeks approval in her father, but obviously he will approve of what she did. For all intents and purposes, she did the lawful, right thing. And that’s when it clicks that whatever Basara has been doing, it was probably not only extremely important to him, but it obviously wasn’t a betrayal on his part. He wasn’t working with the enemy, which was probably her first conclusion.
She rushes back to the forest because if she can’t warn him, at least she can tell him what happened and, admirably, take the blame. This moment marks a huge change in Mylene, her perception of Basara, the enemy, music and herself.
She's heavily burdened by guilt the entire time Basara is away in the following episodes, and decides to go after him to apologize. I don't think that's something that early show Mylene would do. |