Kamille Bidan
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| Kamille Bidan | |
|---|---|
| Mobile Suit Gundam character | |
 Kamille Bidan with RX-178 Gundam Mk-II. |
|
| First appearance | Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam |
| Last appearance | Mobile Suit Gundam Double Zeta |
| Voiced by | Nobuo Tobita (Japanese) Jonathan Lachlan-Stewart (English) |
| Profile | |
| Age | 17 [Zeta] 18 [ZZ] |
| Date of birth | UC 0070 |
| Nationality | Green Noa I |
| Known relatives | Franklin Bidan (Father, deceased) Hilda Bidan (Mother, deceased) |
| Information | |
| Allegiance | Anti Earth Union Group [Zeta] |
| Mobile weapons | RX-178 Gundam Mk-II [Zeta] MSZ-006 Zeta Gundam [Zeta] RMS-099 Rick Dias [Zeta] |
Kamille Bidan (カミーユ・ビダン Kamīyu Bidan?) is the main protagonist and hero of Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam, the sequel to Mobile Suit Gundam.
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[edit] Biography
Kamille was a troubled young man, growing up with his dysfunctional family in the colony Green Noa 1 during a time of prejudice and oppression. The neighboring colony, Green Noa 2 (later renamed Gryps) was then the field base of the tyrannical Earth Federation's Titans elite unit, a counter-insurgency organization to which his malevolent (and thus deeply resented) father, Franklin Bidan, was employed as well as his mother, Hilda. His father did the programming of the RX-178 Gundam Mk-II, while his mother researched the armor material.
Kamille particularly hated his feminine-sounding name - and thus tried to assert his manhood by learning martial arts and developing a hobby in amateur mobile suit creation. This he might have inherited from his parents: both were Federation officers and among the main engineering team that designed the Titan's prototype unit, RX-178 Gundam Mk-II.
After a scuffle with a Titans officer Jerid Messa (who insulted Kamille's name as "girlish") at Green Noa 1's spaceport, Kamille was detained at the Titans' base on Gryps. During an AEUG raid led by Quattro Bajeena to steal the new "Black Gundams", he escaped his confinement and helped the AEUG steal all three Mk-II units. Under the tutelage of Quattro and former Titans officer Emma Sheen, Kamille later became one of AEUG's top pilots while maintaining his civilian status - first in his stolen Mk-II and later in his personally designed Zeta Gundam.
During the course of the war with the Titans, Kamille witnessed the death of both his parents, first love and friends. As such, though a generally nice person, he tended to act on his emotions and personal judgement rather than logic. This had placed him in deep rivalries with men like Jerid Messa and Paptimus Scirocco.
Kamille's life was changed again when he met a strange young female pilot with similar emotions (both resented their names) in Hong Kong. Her real name was unknown, and was referred to as "Four Murasame" (she was the fourth test subject from the Murasame Institute, a Newtype research group). The two found themselves drawn to each other for their common issues, fell in love and were torn apart time and again. Being a cyber-newtype, Four was mentally unstable and attacked Kamille anytime her Psyco Gundam is nearby. Like Lalah Sune before her, she cements Kamille's side of the rivalry with Jerid: while finally escaping Titans clutches, she was killed by Jerid in the attempt to save Kamille's life. Ironically, despite this potential cause of antipathy, Kamille later shows no real signs of a genuine hatred of Jerid: he treats him much like any other Titan pilot, this likely developing because Kamille thinks that hating Jerid is, at this point, useless. An exception would be during the Gryps Conflict, where Jerid challenges him just as one of Kamille's friends dies, and Kamille promptly slays Jerid.
As the battle of the AEUG and the Titans approach its fateful conclusion in the Gryps Conflict of U.C.0088, Kamille began tapping the mysterious "bio-sensor" in the Zeta Gundam as his Newtype abilities grew, and unleashing a power never before seen. In his final battle with Scirocco, Kamille proved to be the stronger mind, having gained the strength of all the people he loved who had died during the war. Despite having his PMX-003 The O impaled by the Zeta Gundam, a dying Paptimus Scirocco still managed to unleash a mind-crippling blow to Kamille Bidan, leaving him mentally crippled.
This left him comatose for most of "Mobile Suit Gundam ZZ". Near the end of the series, Kamille awakens and again displays powerful Newtype abilities, such as telepathically talking to Judau and his crew, much like Amuro did to the White Base in the original series. Despite this, he is still noticeably under some influence of the attack. Kamille is never shown again to pilot a mobile suit. By the end of Mobile Suit ZZ Gundam, Kamille has apparently recovered his mental faculties and may have found a chance for a peaceful life along with his childhood friend and love-interest, Fa Yuiry. They are last seen in the epilogue of ZZ Gundam running along a beach. In the manga Moon Crisis, Kamille is briefly seen practicing as a doctor on the Moon, with the loving Fa by his side.
Kamille exhibits the highest amount of raw Newtype ability and energy of almost any UC protagonist. It has also been said that Kamille is the strongest newtype in the whole UC era. As comments made by the Gundam creator himself, Yoshiyuki Tomino claimed this in 1989.
[edit] A New Translation
Gundam creator Yoshiyuki Tomino noted on the official website of Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam: A New Translation that he intended to revise Kamille's fate at the end of the Gryps Conflict to something a little more optimistic, in order to better balance out the series' bleak tone and to better reflect Tomino's current outlook in life. The 3-part film adaptation and recollection of the original TV series and met rather wide success in Japan, with the omission of Scirocco's crippling mind attack and the movie ending with Kamille and Fa in a long embrace at the conflict's conclusion. Tomino has made it clear that what happens after the new ending is up to the fans' imaginations, though it is considered an alternate universe to the main Gundam history, as Kamille's new ending potentially retcons the events in Mobile Suit ZZ Gundam.
[edit] Roots
In an interview for the laserdisc release of Zeta Gundam[1], Tomino states that Kamille was named and modeled after Camille Claudel, a sculptor and lover of Auguste Rodin who became deranged and ended her life in commitment.
