Character analysis: Trowa - portrait of a killer

Trowa, being a professional soldier, is the image of perfection - cool, calm, and collected. And just a tad bit cynical. He can swing from arrogance to tenderness with apparent ease, and doesn't hesitate to lecture someone when he feels he knows better. Which I think he does, often. Having learned life's lessons the hard way, Trowa is quite capable of seeing the greyscales, rather than the black and whites, of life.

Having grown up in a situation where if you didn't act, you get killed, Trowa has turned into a kind of natural leader who will easily see all options and their effect on him and his surroundings long before the others do. He doesn't seem to take charge until it is absolutely necessary though, and more often than not, he'll fall back and observe proceedings, waiting for the right moment to intervene, or direct others in the direction the situation requires. A typical example from the series is the OZ infiltration - Trowa didn't hesitate to contradict Lt. Nichol, Lady Une's right hand man and thus a superior, to make him change his mind, and then stopped the beam cannon himself when Lt. Nichol wouldn't. Despite orders to not intervene.

Assuming many different roles in the series and in his life, Trowa often singles himself out rather than to blend in unnoticed. When he worked as a mercenary in his early years, he was always the best one. When he worked as a mechanic on L3, he impressed the Gundam scientist with his exceptional knowledge of MS mechanics. He was an "undercover" OZ soldier with more opinons needed for the job, and immediately caught the attention and dislike of Lt. Nichol, who singled Trowa out as "abnormal". At the circus, his boss thought Trowa could be a real star with some practice.

Never belittling himself to not stand out, Trowa doesn't hold back to not draw attention from potentially dangerous people. Often he's just being himself, and whether he's exposed or not seems unimportant, he'll handle that situation as it arives. This shows that Trowa has a great confidence in himself when doing his job, whether it be piloting mobile suits, or infiltrating enemy lines. He's good at what he does, and he knows it.

When the situation doesn't require interference, Trowa will stand in the background and observe. The circus performer called Catherine nicknamed him the quiet one, but if she had met him when he interacted with his fellow Gundam pilots, she might just have changed her mind. Unfortunately though - with the perfect soldier thing comes the ability, and sometimes even will, to throw away his life for nothing.

Trowa seems to regard himself as nothing more than an expendable soldier without real worth as a human outside of this role, and one official character guide even goes as far as saying he sees himself as nothing more than a weapon made for killing. This "come what may" side of his personality is something that caught the attention of Catherine, the girl who he came to call sister later on. She scolded him for not dodging the wild throw of her knives, and slapped him after he half heartedly tried to self-destruct. This is when Trowa suddenly found himself a purpose with life. Since he was little, Trowa has wanted someone to protect (cf blind target), and that someone he found in Catherine, and strangely enough - in Quatre.

Even as a soldier, Trowa is very focused on protecting those around him, often to the visible surprise of the ones he has chosen as needing of his protection. While Quatre has the background ideology of protecting his loved ones, it is Trowa who displays it on screen more than once. One can see Trowa's ZERO system hallucinations as a hint to the importance of this. Trowa's hallucinations showed the people he wanted to protect - Heero, Catherine, and Quatre, in that order. When Heero in the past had self-destructed, Trowa was the one to take care of him, and support him during his convalesence. Trowa's desire to protect Catherine in the present can also be seen on screen, as he is on route to protecting her when he experiences the hallucinations. Which leaves Quatre for the future...

Once Trowa comes to trust someone, he'll always believe the best about them, which got him into trouble when Quatre was in no condition to return that trust in episode 25. Despite Heero's warnings, Trowa simply did not understand - Quatre was his friend, surely he could be trusted. More than once he tried in his own way to explain this to Heero, but as it turned out - Heero had been right. Quatre wasn't himself anymore, and this clearly upset Trowa, who asked Quatre about it. Then, when he didn't get the right answer out of Quatre, Trowa decided there was only one way to snap Sandrock's pilot out of his madness. To sacrifice his own life for the blond.

Sure, Trowa may have taken a shot for Heero, but that wasn't what "killed" him. Instead of getting out of his Mobile Suit when Heero ordered him, Trowa decided to spend what he must have thought was his last moments alive by talking some sense into Quatre. Once again following his own beliefs instead of blatant orders, Trowa displayed a rare case of emotions - care, affection, and ultimately the will to die for a friend if it helped him.

Popular in fanfiction and such is to characterise Trowa as totally without emotions, but that is contradicted in the series on more than one occasion, such as episode 25. Many mistakes the cold exterior of the professional soldier in Trowa as a total lack of emotions, but in one of the early episodes, Trowa explains to Heero that he is already acting on his feelings, something Heero had tried to make Trowa understand the importance of earlier. Much later in the series, Trowa becomes the only Gundam pilot who got to admit he was scared, and when he returns to Quatre after having been found again, he explains to Catherine he's doing it because humans are supposed to act according to their feelings. Although Trowa explains to Midii Une (episode zero) that he didn't cry after he had killed his fellow mercenaries, becuase he had used up all his tears as a child, we can see that he starts feeling again in the series.

Perhaps he was feeling all along, only he didn't show it? There is no way of knowing which is the true Trowa. Although he lies in more than one episode when he joined the OZ, and urges Zechs to lie for him in another episode, Trowa doesn't really do very much to otherwise hide his true personality from the surroundings. Much like Quatre's joining the war can be seen as an attempt to get attention from his father, Trowa's behaviour could be interpreted as something similar. Coming from a background where he didn't even have a name, maybe he wants to be someone, be seen and confirmed as a human? His part time job as a circus clown suggests this, and the frequent displays of pointless but stunning acrobatics in the series points in the same direction.

Some would say that it's all an act, the true personality of Trowa is something entirely different. Trowa's Japanese voice actor thought that the true personality of Trowa showed through in episode 25, while talking Quatre out of his madness. Others will argue that Trowa is vastly different on screen, and in off screen situations. Perhaps true, but it would be difficult to tell in the context of the series what he would be without the war, as Trowa has grown up in war, and is surrounded by war in the anime and manga. Most likely though, Trowa will change into a more warm and open character after the end of the series. In Animedia 4/00, one of the creators of Gundam Wing hinted at this, when he explained that all characters will grow more similar as the series progress. Trowa changes to a more open character, and it's intentional.

So what will Trowa be in the future anyway? Having grown up alone made Trowa yearn for the comfort of a family, and he once characterized himself as a traveller who's looking for a home to return to (episode zero). That home he finds in the form of Catherine and the circus, and it's logical to conclude that it will have a calming effect on Trowa. He will settle down, and adapt to life as a civilian - he had already started doing then when confronted with on of his old aquaintances in blind target. Once Trowa has set his mind on something, he becomes very determined in seeking a solution, even though it may lie years into the future. Catherine scolded him more than once for returning to the war when he really shouldn't, but Trowa still followed his own ideas. Ever since he was little, Trowa has had a dream about a home, and now that he found it, it's unlikely that he'll ever let go of it. Let's just hope Catherine is serious about providing him with an adopted family...