Dearka Elthman
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Name: Dearka Elthman
Age: 17 || 19 (Destiny)
Birthdate: March 29th, CE 54
Gene: Coordinator (Second Generation)
Bloodtype: AB
Height: 176cm (or 5'10) || 180cm (or 5'11, Destiny)
Weight: 67kg (or 148lbs) || 58kg (or 127lbs, Destiny)
Hair: Blond
Eyes: Violet
Alliance: ZAFT, Clyne/Orb faction
Rank: Elite (red uniform)
Speculative First Officer of the Jule Team (green uniform, Destiny)
Related: Son of Tad Elthman
Pilots: GAT-X103 Buster Gundam, ZGMF-1000/A1 Gunner ZAKU Warrior, ZGMF-1001/M Blaze ZAKU Phantom
Voice: Akira Sasanuma (Japanese) || Brad Swaile (Dub)
Gundam SEED
We meet Dearka in Phase-01, part of the elite Klueze-team of ZAFT, who is on a raid of the neutral
colony, Heliopolis. Coming off instantly as calm, cool and snarky, he becomes pilot of the
Buster Gundam when their mission of capturing four out of five of the Earth Alliance's mobile suits
is successful. He's a close friend of
Yzak, who constantly backs him up with the hostility he
shows toward Athrun Zala, and also makes snide remarks about their other teammate, Nicol.
After
Yzak obtains an injury from a battle against the Strike Gundam, Dearka aids him in the next
battle against Halberton's 8th fleet Armada, and thereafter falls to Earth with him. They wind up
joining Andorew Waldfelt, the Tiger of the Desert, and don't like the idea of being on Earth, or
more so in the desert. Dearka, in contrast to
Yzak, didn't much question Andy's authority directly but
rather spoke his mind behind his back. After Andy was killed and the Archangel moved on, they
met up with the rest of Klueze-team, who by that time had arrived on Earth.
When Raww Le Klueze puts Athrun in charge of their team when they're so eager to keep after the
Archangel, despite preparations for the upcoming Operation Spit Break, Dearka again sides with
Yzak and his thoughts about their newly appointed team leader. Him being too young, questioning
his ability to be able to lead the team, joking to
Yzak about how if they purposely got out of
order that the blame would be on him. When circumstances in the battlefield takes the life of
their teammate, Nicol, Dearka, unlike his other two teammates, seemed to not be as torn up
about the incident and instead tried to calm both
Yzak and Athrun, both of which took it rather
hard.
Mid-series, like a lot of other characters, is where we get a lot of turning-points in the series.
In the battle following Nicol's death,
Buster is taken down by the Sky Grasper, and Dearka
surrenders himself to the Archangel to stay alive. There, he makes his snide remarks to
Miriallia Haww which results him her going into a range and trying to kill him, which ultimately
results in him almost dying, period; when Fllay Allster thereafter pulls a gun on him. Said
snide remark was due to Miri's crying, and him asking if her "stupid, worthless Natural boyfriend
was killed", which was exactly the reason she was crying.
Afterward, he was quite surprised and even a little guilty that he said that, and cleared it
up to her that it wasn't him that directly destroyed the Sky Grasper unit Tolle was piloting.
He stays pretty dormant until more twists in the series lead the Archangel to defect to Orb;
the Earth Alliance declares Orb as enemies, and attacks them to take over their Mass Driver.
Dearka is set free before the battle, gets caught in the middle of it, and winds up helping
the Archangel and Orb in their defense against Orb.
At that time, Athrun wound up in Orb and with them as well, questioning his own reasons as to
why he was fighting this entire time. He mentioned that if they stayed with them, that they would
be fighting ZAFT, but they would also be fighting the Earth Alliance still, and after talking with
Athrun and Kira, he decided to stay with them to help them, also somewhat moved by their cause.
The series moves back to space, and the Earth Alliance, ZAFT, and the Clyne/Orb faction all
cross paths, Dearka and Mwu enter the Mendel colony after finding out ZAFT was nearby, and
run into Klueze and
Yzak. Dearka doesn't attack when
Yzak comes after him, clearly at a loss
at what to do until he lets it be known that he was in the mecha, and still alive. He stayed
calm, explaining that he wanted to talk, but
Yzak was too overwhelmed with the shock of it
all and the feeling of betrayal, so pulls a gun on him. Dearka seemed hesitant, but overall knew
Yzak well enough to know that he wouldn't be able to shoot him. He explains that he went through
things that made him not want to simply take order to kill Naturals from ZAFT anymore.
After that was tension and angst between them, and conflict that he and
Yzak were on opposing sides,
he didn't want to harm him. At the very least he blocks the
Duel Gundam from attacking his
allies, making sure that aside from that, they would not fire at each other. From there, things
started to draw toward an end, where the line between enemy and ally almost disappeared, and
Dearka found himself protecting
Yzak on the battlefield.
In the final battle, Dearka was almost killed by Klueze, who was then piloting the Providence
Gundam.
Buster gets completely totaled, and he's rendered helpless, but
Yzak comes in to
save him, being almost just as vulnerable at that time. Risking his life to save Dearka against
the Raider Gundam, which entered the battle and tried to kill them both,
Yzak uses
Buster's
one, still intact gun to fire a single, lucky shot that destroys it. He's helped back to the
Archangel, and then goes to the bridge to watch as the war comes to an end.
In the Special After-Phase, which takes place at an unmentioned time after the war's end, Dearka
is back on PLANT with
Yzak, who is in a council uniform, and is escorting him into a meeting
room. Their positions were temporary until they returned to battle in Destiny, and it looks as
if Dearka is somewhat of a bodyguard of sorts, still in his red elite uniform. Gundam SEED
Destiny contradicts this bit, as it's mentioned that him and
Yzak went through some sort of court
martial, which makes one wonder why they would be in those positions. While one could argue
that these positions came AFTER said court martial, as the OVA's time period was unspecified,
Dearka was in his red uniform, as opposed to green, which is what he wears in Destiny, so
it doesn't seem to point to that, either.
Gundam SEED Destiny
We re-enter Dearka in Phase-05, as
Yzak's right hand man upon the Nazca-class battleship,
Voltaire.
Yzak's team was sent to demolish the ruins of Junius Seven, which were on a crash
course to Earth due to the tampering of extremist believers of Patrick Zala. Dearka was sent
out to lead the rest of the Jule-team to setting Meteor Breakers up all around the
destroyed colony. The Minerva was sent in to aid them, and was at the time carrying Athrun
Zala on board, and they're bombarded by said extremists.
Same old same old, upon the reunion with Athrun;
Yzak calling him a bastard, telling him not to
order him around since he was the commander now, something all too familiar with Dearka because
nothing's really changed at all. Fighting in his
Gunner ZAKU Warrior, they manage to stop the
attack of the extremists and Phantom Pain, but not quickly enough to finish the demolition of
the Junius Seven ruins. They fall to Earth, causing mass destruction of the planet, and as the
Minerva descends to Earth along with it, Gilbert Dullindal boards the Voltaire to be escorted
back to PLANT.
The Earth Alliance launches a counterattack on PLANT after these events, and the Jule-team
joins in the mass defense against them. As they hold one team off, the Alliance sneaks a second
team in from a different direction, armed with nuclear missiles. Shocked, Dearka and
Yzak rush
in to try and stop them, but are unable to make it. Luckily, ZAFT was armed with a new weapon,
the Neutron Stampeder, which took all of the ships out.
Pretty soon, Athrun was facing indecisiveness at Gilbert's offer to allow him back into ZAFT,
pretty new mobile suit and all. He gets a visit from Dearka and
Yzak, and he explains that
if he wants to go out, his stay was still considered a visit by someone from a foreign country,
and with recent events it was a precaution of sorts, so they were sent for that reason, also
because somebody knew about the relationship between the three.
They go to visit the graves of Nicol, Miguel and Rusty, and talk about the events that have just
taken place in the world. Dearka and
Yzak explain that it can't be helped that ZAFT had then
declared their right to aggressive self-defense, because the Alliance still intended to destroy
PLANT with nuclear weapons. When Athrun is asked to return to ZAFT again, it's explained that
both Dearka and
Yzak faced a number of problems after the first war, but Gilbert stood by them
and said that youths such as themselves shouldn't be punished for the actions started by their
leaders, and that because of what they've been through, that they should be the ones entrusted
with the future. That's why he's still in ZAFT, because he knows he could make something of
it for the sake of PLANT and his friends, just like
Yzak does.
In the early 20s, Miriallia Haww suggests that she can't stand it when people try to nitpick
and complain about the choices she makes with her life, and that she would dump anybody who
tried it. Seeing as she mentions dumping Dearka within five minutes of saying that, obvious
signs as well as a Newtype article point to that happening between the two, who had dated sometime between SEED and Destiny.
In the mid 30s, when LOGOS is pronounced as the background cause of all of these conflicts
by profiting on the economy of warfare,
Yzak is visibly irritated by these events. When he
snaps at a group of soldiers taking the situation lightly, Dearka tries to calm him down
and remarks that his head is going to explode one day, with his temper.
Around the time that Lacus Clyne finally reveals herself to the world against Meer who had been
impersonating her up until then, ZAFT forces are sent out to battle against the Alliance, who
had deployed strange, cylinder shaped things toward PLANT. Dearka launches with the Jule-team
determined to destroy these things that the Alliance are trying to protect. They turn out to be
part of the Requiem, a giant laser on the moon that then fires and destroys six PLANTs; four direct
hits, two more from the impact of the four. Dearka and
Yzak barely make it out of the way of
the Requiem's beam, and then watch in helpless horror as over a million and a half people are
killed in front of their eyes. Dearka and the Jule team passionately follow
Yzak's order to
take out the Gounods before the Requiem can fire again at all costs. When ZAFT sends a counter-attack
from that, Dearka and the Jule-team fight as hard as they can.
In the final battle, Dearka playfully asks
Yzak what they were doing, and if they planned
on launching and getting themselves killed.
Yzak calls him stupid and tells him that he shouldn't
have launched if he's going to think like that, and then follows him out to the battlefield.
They run into Athrun again, and Dearka tries to calm
Yzak down, who is angry that he came back
like this again and explains that they were all out there and aiming to do the same thing;
destroy the relay station, so it doesn't matter what he's doing out there, and they should
go and just do it together. And they do.
Dearka follows
Yzak to cover to Eternal, under the fact that it was a ZAFT ship, and warn them
away from the Messiah before it fires. As they protect the ship, we get a small revisit of
SEED's Phase-50, Dearka-gets-attacked and
Yzak-screams-his-name, but luckily Dearka is safe.
When the battle comes to an end, and once everything settles down, Dearka stays aboard the
Voltaire and watches the ship while
Yzak escorts her back to PLANT. At the end when she is
escorted into the council room, fans speculate that one of the soldiers in line on the side
that resembles Dearka is in fact, him.
