Rau Le Creuset

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Rau Le Creuset
Rau Le Creuset in Gundam SEED
Genetic type:	Clone
Age:	28 [GS]
Nationality:	PLANT [GS]
Allegiance:	ZAFT [GS]
Rank:	White Coat (ZAFT) [GS] Commander (ZAFT) [GS]
Family:	Al Da Flaga, Sr. (genetic father) Mu La Flaga (genetic son) Prayer Reverie (possible clone) Rey Za Burrel (genetic brother)
Height:	183 cm [GS]
Weight:	77 kg [GS]
Blood type:	O
Hair Color:	Blonde
Eye Color:	Blue
Mobile Suit:	ZGMF-1017M GINN High Maneuver Type [GS] ZGMF-515 CGUE [GS] AMF-101 DINN [GS] ZGMF-600 GuAIZ [GS] ZGMF-X13A Providence [GS]

Rau Le Creuset (ラウ・ル・クルーゼ, rau ru kurūze^?)^[1] is a fictional character from the anime series Mobile Suit Gundam SEED. Le Creuset falls into the position of the principal antagonist to the main characters in the series. He is voiced by Seki Toshihiko in the Japanese version and Mark Oliver in the English dub.

Contents 1 History 2 Gundam SEED Destiny 3 Mobile suits 4 In games 5 References

[edit] History

Rau Le Creuset is a unit commander in ZAFT (Zodiac Alliance of Freedom Treaty). Cool, cunning, and mysterious, Rau Le Creuset is an adept commander in his field and an excellent mobile suit pilot. He becomes famous early in the war during the Battle of Yggdrasil as a red coat, in which he used his ZGMF-1017M GINN High Maneuver Type mobile suit to destroy thirty-seven Earth Alliance mobile armors and six warships. This feat earned him the Order of the Nebula, a decoration awarded to ZAFT's most outstanding soldiers. After the Battle of Endymion Crater on the moon, Le Creuset becomes the commander of the newly constructed Nazca-class destroyer Vesalius.

Under his command, the ZAFT vessels Vesalius and Gamow attacked the neutral colony Heliopolis, where the military contractor Morgenroete was constructing prototype mobile suits for the Atlantic Federation. The raid ended with four of the prototype G-weapons being captured by ZAFT and the destruction of Heliopolis itself. The colony's destruction was due to the utilization of heavy weaponry on both sides of the conflict, as ZAFT tried to capture or destroy the GAT-X105 Strike as well as the mobile suit carrier, Archangel.

Apart from attempts to take down the "Legged Ship" (ZAFT's codename for the Archangel), he shares a strange connection with Earth Alliance mobile armor pilot Mu La Flaga and the two are shown to have a rivalry of sorts throughout the war.

Despite his allegiance with ZAFT, Rau bears no loyalty to it, or anyone, for that matter. Fortunately his reputation is high enough that the ZAFT Defense Council Chairman, Patrick Zala, revealed to him the real plans for Operation Spitbreak. He betrayed Zala by giving whatever he was told to an informant named Muruta Azrael, who eventually is found to be the head of the Azrael Conglomerate, a military supplier to the Atlantic Federation, and the leader of the Blue Cosmos rulers of the Earth Alliance. This little betrayal caused a large percentage of ZAFT's earthbound forces to be lost during Operation Spitbreak. However, most members of the Supreme Council and the ZAFT military are either so intimidated or manipulated by Le Creuset that they would never suspect his treason. Only a select few individuals within ZAFT are not so easily misled, and suspected that Le Creuset was up to no good, including Andrew Waltfeld, Siegel Clyne, Athrun Zala, and Lacus Clyne. Rau consolidated his power within ZAFT by sending the extermination squad that would murder Supreme Chairman Siegel Clyne, securing Patrick Zala's position as Supreme Chairman. Although Rau supposedly only answered to Patrick Zala, it becomes quite clear that Patrick was manipulated by Rau to the point that in all practicalities, Patrick was Rau's minion, and not the other way around. By the final battle of the Bloody Valentine War, almost everyone loyal to Patrick Zala remaining in ZAFT was essentially under his complete control. However, Rau did not desire this power in and of itself, but rather achieved it simply as means to an end.

A chance encounter with Mu La Flaga and Kira Yamato in the abandoned colony of Mendel revealed his true identity and motives. In a shocking revelation, he exclaims that he is neither Natural nor Coordinator, but rather, something far more disturbing and sinister. His real name is Al Da Flaga, Jr., the direct clone of Mu La Flaga's father, Al Da Flaga.

Considering his own son Mu as "nothing" because he was "diluted" by the inferior DNA of a mother, Al Da Flaga, a powerful and wealthy Earth Alliance politician, conspired with Professor Ulen Hibiki to create several direct clones of himself, of which Al, Jr. would be the first, and the one to be considered his "perfect son" and heir, superior in every way to his brother, Mu, who was to be disinherited. Despite the fact that Coordinators had existed for quite some time, direct human cloning was illegal, but Al Da Flaga believed his wealth and influence put him above the law, and thus, Dr. Hibiki agreed to this transaction in exchange for the funds he would use to finance his Ultimate Coordinator project. By virtue of the Flaga bloodline, Al, Jr. was a person who possesses high spacial awareness ability, a trait he apparently inherited from his "father" and shares with his "brother" Mu. Thus, he possesses superhuman extra-sensory and mental abilities that far exceed that of ordinary Naturals and Coordinators. However, the cloning would not end with Al Jr.; there were two other clones that were accounted for: Rey Za Burrel, who would be seen with Rau in a flashback in Gundam SEED Destiny; and Prayer Reverie who piloted the YMF-X000A Dreadnought against Canard Pars and supposedly died of imperfections due to the cloning process. Any other clones that were created were presumably destroyed when Mendel was abandoned. It is implied that these clones, containing Al Da Flaga, Sr.'s DNA, were the prototypes for the Ultimate Coordinator project in which Kira Yamato was the final product.

However, Al, Jr. was an imperfect clone due to short telomeres within his DNA that caused him several rapid aging problems; at first, this was done intentionally, so that Al, Jr. could catch up to Mu in age and replace him. Once Al, Jr. reached Mu's physical age, they attempted to stop the accelerated aging process but found that they were not able to do so permanently. At this point, Al, Jr. understood that he was an abomination and loathed his own existence and his "father" even more so for creating him. He was forced to take a special drug that stabilized his aging; if he goes too long without taking the medication, he suffers intense pain. Because of the pain of his imperfection, Al, Jr. becomes mentally unstable, deciding that Naturals and Coordinators are both unfit for living, and sees to it that the imminent destruction of both parties, and all mankind, is accomplished. The beginning of his revenge is depicted in the flashback seen in Phase 45, where a young Al, Jr. is heard laughing maniacally as his father is burned to death along with his estate by an angry mob that accompanied him to undertake this grim act of retribution. But it did not end there.

He would assume the name "Rau Le Creuset" - "le creuset" being French for "The Crucible," a reference to Arthur Miller's famous play about the Puritan Witch Hunts, which is symbolic of his twisted mission to "pass judgment on all of humanity by penalty of death" - and join the ZAFT military, where his piloting skills, keen intellect, and uncanny powers of persuasion ensured his rise to the highest ranks of command. He dons his trademark mask not to hide his identity but out of shame and hatred that he looks exactly like the one person he hated most: his father.

Rau believed that every human's sole purpose for living is to be "better" than everyone else, and that all people are miserable, selfish, and shameless creatures who will do anything to "get ahead." He justifies this point of view by virtue of his very existence: he is the direct result of the worst act of human hubris ever perpetrated - cloning. While he believes that humanity will eventually wipe itself out in time, he is not satisfied in merely waiting for that to happen on its own. As he is imminently doomed himself due to his unstable genetic makeup, he believes all life in the universe deserves to perish along with him and becomes hellbent towards making that end a reality. So it comes as no surprise that Rau is effectively able to manipulate any character consumed by mankind's "worst" motivations such as hatred, fear, revenge, greed, ignorance, or lust for power into doing whatever he wanted towards that end, including Flay Allster, Patrick Zala, Muruta Azrael, and, for almost the entire duration of the series, Yzak Joule. To facilitate this plan, he leaks to the Earth Alliance the N-jammer canceller technology used to create the ZGMF-X10A Freedom and the ZGMF-X09A Justice through a disc he entrusted to Flay Allster, a young Earth Alliance soldier (and a former crew member of the Archangel) that he captured during the Battle of JOSH-A. This eventually leads to the use of nuclear missiles again by the Earth Alliance, and the eventual destruction of the ZAFT military asteroid Boaz. With nuclear missiles on the Earth Alliance's side, and the GENESIS superweapon on ZAFT's side, it seemed as though all life will end and his goal fulfilled. It was only by the actions of the Three Ships Alliance at the Second Battle of Jachin Due that that plan was narrowly thwarted and mankind lived to see another day.

In the final battle of the war, Rau piloted the ZGMF-X13A Providence, the final ZAFT Gundam. Because of the Providence's sheer power, Rau managed to easily cripple the Strike and the Buster and shortly after destroyed an escape shuttle that launched from the Dominion that contained Flay Allster, after which he has a final battle with Kira Yamato in the ZGMF-X10A Freedom.

During his fight with Kira, Rau manages to cripple the Freedom using the powerful DRAGOON System installed in the Providence. However, the young Coordinator makes a comeback and in one final desperate attack, mortally wounds Rau by impaling his cockpit with a double-sided beam saber, and the Providence is then vaporized during a misfire of GENESIS, along with Rau. Rau dies with a smile on his face. Is it a smile of relief that his tortured existence has been ended, and that he was proven wrong by Kira about humanity's desire to continue on in search of peace and harmony, or was there a darker meaning behind it?

Two years have passed since the Second Battle of Jachin Due, but with the start of a new war between the Earth Alliance and PLANT and the subsequent use of nuclear weapons, Rau's words echo in Kira's mind: "This is a world where people's hearts are filled with hatred, where fingers have no purpose other than to pull triggers..." Rau's plans to end all of humanity may have died along with him, but Kira's fight is far from over...

[edit] Gundam SEED Destiny

Although Rau dies at the end of Gundam SEED at the hands of Kira, Rau still makes a few appearances as a "character" of sorts in Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny. Kira is still haunted by his memory of Rau, and he has devoted himself to ensure that no one like Rau ever threatens mankind's future to live in freedom ever again.

Most importantly, in Phase 29, Rau materializes as a ghost playing a metaphysical game of chess against his former friend and doctor, Gilbert Durandal, who is now Chairman of the PLANT Supreme Council. This game of chess is a recurring metaphor throughout the series for their conflicting beliefs about humanity's future in the universe. Rau asks Gilbert why he feels humanity is worth saving, and pities him for believing that anything other than disappointment and shame will result from his efforts, mockingly reminding Gilbert of his own miserable failure to "save" him. Gilbert swears to Rau that he will do anything to ensure the continued survival of humanity, no matter what the end "cost" of that survival might be.

It could be suggested that Durandal may have had schizophrenia, and that his recurring "conversations" with Rau are the result of delusions and hallucinations induced by said disease. However, there is very little known about Durandal's behaviour and actions to suggest this.

[edit] Mobile suits

Apart from being an excellent commander, Rau Le Creuset backs up his intellect through his experience as a mobile suit pilot. Throughout the series, he takes part in various operations, but mostly stays behind on the Vesalius. Like Char Aznable, he pilots a custom-colored mobile suit with ruthless efficiency, all the while doing it without a pilot suit on (with the exception of the Providence). Some of the mobile suits that he piloted throughout the Cosmic Era are:

• ZGMF-1017M GINN High Maneuver type- custom mobile suit adjusted for higher performance than the standard GINN. Won his ace status in at the Battle of Yggdrasil
• ZGMF-515 CGUE - high-performance mobile suit issued to ace pilots and team commanders such as him
• AMF-101 DINN - atmospheric flight mobile suit, used by Rau on Operation Spitbreak
• ZGMF-600 GuAIZ - latest ZAFT Mobile Suit incorporated in the last months of the war; used a silver commander's version, heavily damaged by Kira Yamato in the ZGMF-X10A Freedom
• ZGMF-X13A Providence - the last of ZAFT's nuclear-powered Gundam designs during the First Bloody Valentine War, equipped with the DRAGOON System; piloted in the final battle of the war. Heavily damaged by Kira Yamato's ZGMF-X10A Freedom and destroyed by GENESIS.

[edit] In games

In SD Gundam G Generation series and Gundam Wars card game, due to a more user friendly setting, he is listed as a Newtype instead of a different ability of spacial awareness. However, this is not the official story settings.

[edit] References