Legend of Galactic Heroes/YMMV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

"But Bittenfeld, knowing it's a trap, decides to plunge in anyways!"

  • Alternate Character Interpretation: Invoked very deliberately with most characters.
  • Complete Monster:
    • Rudolf von Goldenbaum. You'd think that in a series so full of moral ambiguity, there couldn't be such a horrific person. On the other hand, when someone proclaims themself as ruler for life, dissolves the Parliamentary system, puts into place a very strict form of eugenics (basically, if you were handicapped or poor, you'd either be euthanized or sugically sterilized), having anyone who opposed him killed (which, as historical tapes showed, numbered around 4.5 billion killed)...I think you get the point. Needless to say, he went way beyond the reach of any Well-Intentioned Extremist, and it was his tyranny that caused the creation of the Free Planets Alliance.
    • Prince Braunschweig, heir of the Goldenbaum dynasty. Braunschweig acts swiftly to crush any hint of rebellion from any subordinate and shows no remorse at all at any deaths that occur. He continues the Goldenbaum dynasty's despicable policies of eugenics and oppress to the populace, but his crowning achievement of villainy is when protests against the Goldenbaums occur at the colony world of Westerland. Braunschweig simply decides to kill every inhabitant on the world with a nuclear strike. Ironically this has the opposite effect he intended and simply makes the Anti-Hero Reinhard's campaign against him more popular.
    • Job Truniht is a very close contender for this trope. Nearly every other "evil" character in the series has something outside of themselves that they believe in and are willing to fight for. The only thing Truniht believes in is his own comfort and self-aggrandizement. He literally throws his own nation to the wolves for this purpose, and demonstrates zero remorse or regret. Reuental's only real sin was not shooting him sooner.
    • Job Truenicht: " Someone like me can hold power and make others live or die as he likes. If that isn't a flaw of democracy, then what is?"
  • Ensemble Darkhorse: You would expect that either Reinhard or Yang Wenli would be the most popular characters of the show. Granted, they are popular, but who is the absolute darling of ficwriters and discussants? The enigmatic, electronic-eyed and utterly ruthless Paul von Oberstein. This is at least true for (considerably large) Russian fandom where this troper comes from.
  • Foe Yay - How some fans interpret the relationship between Reinhard and Yang.
  • Harsher in Hindsight:
    • Any viewer of this series Post-9/11 would blanch at the similarities between the the Free Planet Alliance's military woes and the handling of the War On Terror, specifically how the war is being run by politicians who have no business whatsoever running a military operation. And this from a series literally two decades old (three, if you consider the novels). Wow.
    • Especially striking examples are Job Truenicht's speeches about patriotism and some Council members' insistence on fighting to liberate the Empire's outer territories from under tyranny and bringing them democracy.
      • It really does drive home what the author said, "In every time, in every place, the deeds of men remain the same."
  • Ho Yay:
    • Say anything you want, the subtext between Reinhard and Kircheis is pretty obvious even to those who are not into slash. (Once upon a time some male Japanese fans complained about LoGH doujinshi with "please, no more gayness, having Reinhard and Kircheis is enough!") The manga version and Michihara Katsumi's illustrations crank up the Ho Yay considerably. (Yes, this is official. Sparkles and all.)
    • It has also been argued that the friendly rivalry between Poplin and Schönkopf has shades of Ho Yay. Particularly the way they compete to out-ladies-man each other.
    • And there's Reuenthal and Mittermeyer who, when possible, seem to spend most of their time together, despite Reuentahl being an infamous womanizer and Mittermeyer being Happily Married. It helps that they share one of the strongest and deepest relationships in the entire show, especially considering Reuentahl's deep psychological issues.
    • Schneider's concern and admiration for Merkatz could be interpreted as this. Alternatively, he simply considers the older man a father figure.
  • It Was His Sled: It's pretty well known just how far the series takes it's Anyone Can Die policy.
  • Magnificent Bastard: Many who vary in effectiveness, but Reinhard is the best of the lot. Coming close is Adrian Rubinsky.
  • The Masochism Tango: Reuenthal and Elfriede, although it's doubtful whether they even love each other or not. (She is a vengeful member of a noble family that was part exiled, part massacred at Reuenthal's order. He is a misogynist whith self-destructive tendencies who sees his own mother in her. They meet when she tries to kill him.)
  • Memetic Mutation:
  • Moral Event Horizon: Oberstein keeps teetering on the edge, and arguably crosses it with the Westerland incident - made only worse by the fact that his actions proved to have an overall positive effect for Reinhard and his followers.
    • Adrian Rubinsky starts out as a ruthless schemer who only cares about profiting from the war. At the end of the show, however, he dies of a malignant brain tumor. Then we find out that his death would trigger bombs all over Heinessen, killing god knows how many people in the process. Any why? Only so he might take Kaiser Reinhard down with him. For someone who was a Magnificent Bastard for most of the show, this act of pointless destruction sure makes him seem like a monster.
  • Stoic Woobie: Oskar von Reuenthal. He has Mommy Issues, which are his Freudian Excuse for never being able to form a lasting relationship with his lovers, knocks up a woman who wanted to kill him, and is wrongfully accused of treason twice, the second time deciding to go along with it because he's too prideful to clear his name a second time despite knowing that he's outnumbered and will probably die. No wonder why he he's Mittermeyer's drinking buddy, who wouldn't want to buy the guy a drink (besides Oberstein and Lang)?
  • Values Dissonance:
    • There are a couple of jokes about Frederica's cooking ability that given that she's both a naval officer and later, a politician would seem a little out of place in a modern, western show.
    • For that matter, Frederica is the highest ranking female officer in the series at Lieutenant. There are no female Admirals on either faction. So much for gender equality. Hildegard von Mariendorf is eventually given a rank equivalent to Vice Admiral, before she ends up as Kaiserin-regent, at which point military rank ceases to matter anyway.
    • While Frederica may hold a relatively low official rank, the unofficial power she commands is rather substantial. As both Yang's wife and his adjutant, Frederica is basically his closest and most important advisor, and inherits his full political power following his death. It also seems likely that, with the end of the war and the new peace, that she will continue to hold a prominent role in Heinessen/Imperial politics.
    • A greater source of dissonance, at least from the point of view of modern liberal democracies, is the willingness to admit that autocracy can be preferable to democracy under certain circumstances. In the end, the Autocracy dominates the entire inhabited galaxy (with Heinessen left as a Democracy reservation), though there are hints that it will become a Constitutional Monarchy through gradual reforms.
      • That'll work, I mean it's not like monarchies are ever overthrown
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