Athrun Zala

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Athrun Zala (transliterated as Asuran Zara [アスラン・ザラ] in the original Japanese version) is one of the main characters from the anime series Gundam SEED and Gundam SEED Destiny, set in the Cosmic Era timeline of the Gundam universe. He is played by Akira Ishida in the original Japanese version and Samuel Vincent in the English dub.

Athrun Zala is a Coordinator, and was a member of the elite Rau Le Creuset ZAFT special forces team, which consisted mostly of young elite pilots, known as 'Reds'. They wore the special red uniform that meant that they had graduated at the top of their military cadet class. He is also the son of Patrick Zala, who later became Chairman of ZAFT. Athrun joined the ZAFT militia mainly for vengeance for his mother's death in the Bloody Valentine Incident, which was caused by the Earth Alliance.

He was engaged to PLANT pop idol Lacus Clyne through parental arrangements, and did have an honest friendly affection for her. (According to the novelisation version of Gundam SEED, she was the first girl Athrun ever kissed. He also used to genuinely love her but the feeling diminished as time went on, according to a drama CD)

In both Gundam SEED and SEED Destiny, his friendship with Kira Yamato formed one of the main themes of the storyline.

Bloody Valentine War

Theft at Heliopolis:

As Earth Alliance developed five secret mobile suits to counter against ZAFT's superior military technology, ZAFT planned and executed a raid to steal these five new units, located in a secret military base on the neutral colony, Heliopolis. The mission failed to steal all five units because ZAFT pilot Rusty Mackenzie gets killed during the raid, but Athrun quickly avenges his fallen comrade and successfully takes the GAT-X303 Aegis prototype unit. During the raid he meets with his best friend since childhood, Kira Yamato, a Heliopolis civilian. Kira was forced to pilot the GAT-X105 Strike, the last of the five mobile suits, in order to protect his friends on Heliopolis as well as other civilians. Having piloted the new secret unit, Kira and his friends were forced to embark on the Earth Alliance Archangel ship and enlist in their military, thus engages with Athrun in battle several times thereafter.

Pursuit of the Archangel

Athrun was often seen to be in turmoil over the fact that he must fight with Kira as an enemy. He attempted (and failed) on several occasions to convince Kira to join ZAFT, since Kira is in fact a Coordinator as well. When he confronts Kira for the first time after the destruction of Heliopolis, he shifts the Aegis into mobile armor attack mode and manages to briefly ensnare the Strike with Kira inside. Kira tells Athrun that he refuses to set foot on any ZAFT ship, and Athrun says that if he doesn't come he'll have to destroy him. Athrun tells Kira that his mother was killed in the Bloody Valentine incident, which is why he decided to enlist even though he hates war. This has a profound effect on Kira, nevertheless, he refuses to join ZAFT and makes escape when Mu La Flaga intervenes.

The next time they meet in battle, Athrun is shocked to learn that his Lacus is on board the Archangel and is understandably outraged when the crew says they will not guarantee her safety if he and his comrades attack their ship. Before he withdraws, Athrun asks Kira if it's his idea of justice to fight with cowards who would use innocent civilians as hostages and he vows to rescue Lacus. His words cut Kira deeply, and so he saves Athrun the trouble by smuggling Lacus off the Archangel and back to him. Upon retrieving his fiancee, Athrun asks Kira again to come over to ZAFT seeing as how he is a Coordinator. But still Kira refuses and gives himself the responsibility of protecting his friends who are on the Archangel with him. Although Kira was thrown into the war by chance, he too did not desire to fight with Athrun. The two friends often thought of one another and their unfortunate circumstance.

During this time Athrun was marooned on an island along with another civilian pilot named Cagalli Yula Athha who had been aboard the Archangel. This would prove to be a fateful meeting since Cagalli was also friends with Kira, although neither knew of this fact yet. The two were initially enemies and their opposing view points pertaining to the war strongly clashed during their first encounter. Yet, listening to each other's opinions seemed to cause an inner revelation on both sides. They eventually called a truce with one another and were later rescued off the island by their respective sides, with both sides none the wiser about what happened on the island. However, as they parted, there was more fondness between them. Athrun would later discover that Cagalli was actually no ordinary civilian, but the Princess of the neutral Earth nation of Orb.

Eventually, Athrun and Kira meet in combat once again in their greatest conflict. Angered by the death of his friend Nicol Amarfi at Kira's hands in the last battle, Athrun threw the Aegis's shield at a FX-550 Skygrasper killing Kira's friend, Tolle Koenig. Seeing Tolle dying, Kira activated his SEED mode and launched a series of blows with his beam saber at the Aegis, destroying a hand. The Aegis fell, and Athrun activated his boosters while in the meantime, he too activated his SEED mode. They exchanged blows, with Athrun taking dominace with three beam sabers (one from each hand and leg). The flurry of blows knocked the Strike's shield out and with Kira's SEED abilities, managed to stab through the shield's hole, thus destroying the Aegis's head. Athrun turned into MA (mobile armor mode) and charged at Kira, grabbing him. Athrun would have finished Kira and the Strike off, if only the power remained. The Aegis lost its Phase Shift armor abilities, and wanting to kill Kira at all costs, Athrun self-destructed the Aegis. Kira was believed by everyone to be dead, but he was saved by Astray Red Frame pilot Lowe Guele. Later Kira was brought by Reverend Malchio to the Clyne family and received medical treatment. Both Kira and Athrun survived the explosion, and as chance would have it, an injured Athrun was discovered on a beach after the battle by Cagalli for medical treatment.

When Athrun regains consciousness, Cagalli points a gun at him and demands to know what happened to Kira. In a daze, Athrun laments that he killed Kira and is upset that he had to take such action against his own former best friend. When Cagalli angrily demands to know why Athrun would do such a thing, he snaps back that Kira killed ZAFT comrade after comrade and his anger at Kira finally reached a head with Nichol's death. Cagalli responds by passing on the same teachings her father had long attempted to pass onto her, screaming at Athrun that killing for vengeance will never bring peace but simply more conflict.

Before releasing him back to ZAFT, Cagalli gives Athrun her red amulet as a good luck charm in the hope that it will protect him from death; she says she doesn't want anybody else to die.

Acquiring the After being released back to ZAFT, Athrun was then chosen to be under the direct command of the ZAFT Supreme Council and assigned to pilot the newly developed ZGMF-X09A Justice. He was ordered to track and retrieve the ZGMF-X10A Freedom unit, which had been stolen by a fully recovered Kira Yamato. Athrun was having trouble accepting the fact that Lacus was a traitor, because she was not only involved in the theft of the Freedom, but was also accused of selling ZAFT out to the Earth Alliance. Athrun was eventually able to find Lacus who explained that Kira was alive and the Freedom's new pilot. Lacus also makes a great impact on Athrun as she tells him to think about what he should really be fighting for. Instead of merely following his father's orders or feeling bound to his military duty, he should think for himself and determine what he believes to be right.

Defection from ZAFT

Lacus then tells Athrun that he should have a serious heart to heart with his friend Kira. As such, Athrun follows his original orders to locate the Freedom, by launching in the Justice and arriving on Earth. Before attempting to locate Kira, he arrives at the ruins of the Aegis and the Strike, where he encounters Reverend Malchio, who gives him the latest update on the war and where certain events he experiences would influence his decisions later. Afterwards Athrun eventually finds Kira in Orb, engaged in combat with the GAT-X131 Calamity, GAT-X252 Forbidden and GAT-X370 Raider. Athrun watches the battle from the sidelines, wrestling with his loyalties. As Kira is soon overpowered by the enemy trio, Athrun makes his decision and steps in to save his friend. As the enemy units retreat, the two friends call a truce in order to talk out their differences. They both realize that neither of them want to be each other's enemy anymore. Athrun and Kira both agreed that they want to end the Bloody Valentine War, because it was more important than anything else. In order to do this, both friends would have to abandon their nation's militaries. Uncertain at first, Athrun makes no promises, but eventually aids Kira during the Fall of Orb, instead of battling him and retrieving the Freedom like he was originally ordered to do. Athrun then follows the survivors of the battle, along with Kira, into space.

Before deciding to join the Resistance Group with Lacus, Kira and the others in order to end the war, Athrun determines that he wants to talk to his father, Chairman Patrick Zala first. He wants to know of his father's true intentions, whether for good or for evil, before he makes his final decision on which side he wants to fight for. So Athrun returns home to the PLANTs without the Justice and talks to his father about ZAFT's participation in the current war. Athrun's father reveals to him that he intends to drag the war on until all the Naturals are exterminated in this genocidal war. In essence, Patrick Zala had sold his soul to Rau Le Creuset, empowering him to take any necessary military measures to exterminate all Naturals (as revenge for the death of his wife, Lenore), but little did he know that Le Creuset also desired the destruction of Coordinators as well. Athrun is shocked and angered by his father's revelation and is arrested (and shot in the arm by his own father no less) for refusing to reveal the location of the Justice and the Freedom. However, Athrun is later freed by Martin DaCosta (under Lacus's command) and they escape to the Eternal where Lacus is waiting. With Athrun and DaCosta on board, the Eternal then breaks away from its dock and escapes.

Rise of Three Ships Alliance

After his ordeal Athrun defected from ZAFT, abandoning his allegiance to them. He then joins the newly formed Resistance Group called the Three Ships Alliance. Kira and Cagalli are also part of Alliance consisting of the Earth Alliance's "Archangel", Orb's "Kusanagi", and ZAFT's "Eternal".

Along with Kira and the Three Ships Alliance, Athrun was instrumental in ending the Bloody Valentine War. Desiring peace, Athrun fought along side Kira and Cagalli in order to end the war between ZAFT and the Earth Forces. It was during the final stages of the war that he and Cagalli developed a romantic relationship, Cagalli swore that she would protect Athrun as well as Kira (or in her own words, "That guy who's probably my little brother"). While Kira fought with Rau Le Creuset in the ZGMF-X13A Providence, Athrun and Cagalli fought their way into Jachin Due just in time to see his father get shot by ZAFT commander Ray Yuki. As Patrick Zala lay dying in Athrun's arms, he urged his son to fire his ultimate creation, the GENESIS superweapon. Athrun, however, does no such thing. Instead, he personally destroys GENESIS by detonating the nuclear-powered Justice inside it. He was able to survive this detonation without sacrificing his own life because Cagalli reminded him that he needed to stop running and have the courage to live. He immediately boarded Cagalli's MBF-02_Strike_Rouge and escaped the explosion, afterwards they rescued an injured Kira and his badly-damaged Freedom from the depths of space, both of them crying tears of joy at the sight of him.

Second Bloody Valentine War

After the war, Athrun left ZAFT and moved to Orb. He lived by Cagalli's side and became her bodyguard, under the pseudonym "Alex Dino". During the Armory One Incident he was present in PLANT as Cagalli's bodyguard, and got involved in the fighting to retake the stolen units. He later joined the battleship Minerva and helped fighting against the terrorists in the Junius-7 Colony Drop. He and Cagalli then desembarked Minerva at Orb. Before Athrun returned to the PLANTS, he silently and shyly slides a ring onto Cagalli's finger, which leads to an awkward moment between the two before they both regain their composure and share an emotional farewell, Athrun promises Cagalli that he will keep in touch with her (it's not known if the ring was meant as an engagement ring or just as a promise ring).

Return to ZAFT: In the turmoil preceding the declaration of the Second Bloody Valentine War, he returned back to ZAFT to understand the motivations of ZAFT. Here, he met with Chairman Durandal, who convinced Athrun to use his power to keep the world on the right path. Durandal enlisted him back into ZAFT forces, and appointed him with the highest elite-force assignment, FAITH. Athrun had also been assigned the new unit ZGMF-X23S Saviour, and given total freedom of action. With Saviour he returned to Earth and joined Minerva in the battle against the Earth Alliance, now allied with Orb.

Defection from ZAFT

Not long after watching the epic battle between Shinn and Kira during Operation Angel Down, resulting in the destruction of the ZGMF-X10A Freedom and the supposed sinking of the Archangel courtesy of the Minerva's Tannhäuser Positron Cannon, the distraught and disillusioned Athrun also realized that Chairman Durandal and Rey Za Burrel were preparing to frame him as a traitor after being tipped off by Lacus look-alike Meer Campbell, having failed to fully conscript him to their cause. Athrun escaped from ZAFT's Gibraltar base in a stolen blue ZGMF-2000 GOUF Ignited mobile suit with the help of Minerva CIC officer and gifted hacker Meyrin Hawke. Stating that Athrun and Meyrin are working for Logos and have stolen ZAFT's top military secrets and its plan to attack Logos headquarters at Heaven's Base, as well as getting a reason to eliminate Athrun, Chairman Durandal ordered Rey Za Burrel and Shinn Asuka to pursue the defected Athrun with their respective new units. Although Shinn was shocked and reluctant to shoot at first, he eventually went into SEED mode and destroyed the GOUF Ignited unit, presumably killing both Athrun and Meyrin. Athrun and Meyrin were last seen injured and unconscious and taken in by a defected EA ship led by Ledonir Kisaka, the former Kusanagi co-captain in the First Bloody Valentine War. Athrun then recuperated from his ordeal on the Archangel, watched over by his old friends, Kira and Cagalli.

Lacus Clyne's words got through to Athrun during ZAFT's invasion of Orb and he soon regained his confidence and decided to launch with the Infinite Justice, wearing an Orb pilot suit to join the battle.

Battle of Orb:

Athrun Zala on the bridge of the ''Archangel

'' Athrun fastidiously went into battle despite not yet recovering from his wounds, knowing he had to assist Kira who had been fighting the Legend and the Destiny all by himself. He arrived just as Shinn had gained a target lock on Strike Freedom and was about to fire Destiny's long range beam cannon. Athrun suddenly appeared in the Infinite Justice and threw two beam boomerangs to distract Shinn from firing on the momentarily vulnerable Strike-Freedom.

Athrun rammed Infinite Justice into Destiny. Shinn was both surprised and angry that Athrun survived their last encounter where Athrun was supposedly killed when his blue GOUF fell into the water and appeared to have exploded after Shinn had stabbed it in the torso with his anti-ship sword. Athrun demanded that Shinn stop attacking Orb and questioned his motives for war. Urged by Rey to attack and convinced that Athrun was indeed a ZAFT traitor, Shinn charged at Athrun with one of his beam boomerang acting as a beam saber, and then threw both beam boomerangs at Athrun. Both beam boomerangs were knocked away by Athrun's leg beam blades and beam shield. Shinn went SEED mode and charged again at Athrun with his Arondight anti-ship sword. Athrun also went SEED mode (for the first time during the Second Bloody Valentine War) brandishing Infinite Justice's joined double beam sabers to answer Shinn's anti-ship sword and sliced off Destiny's right arm, causing a small explosion. Shinn was stunned at having been bested by someone he considered weak until this point.

After the ZAFT forces retreated, Athrun lost consciousness and lost control of Infinite Justice and was falling down. Kira in Strike Freedom caught Infinite Justice in mid-air and prevented a crash. When Kira removed Athrun's helmet and flight suit, Athrun's wounds had re-opened and was bleeding profusely. Kira then ordered a stretcher to bring Athrun to Archangel's sick bay. Since then, Athrun was still recovering from his injuries under the care of his friend Meyrin Hawke.

Battle of Messiah: Assault on REQUIEM

Following Lord Djibril's attack on the PLANTs using the Requiem beam, Minerva returned to space on Chairman Durandal's orders. There will be another conflict between ZAFT and Lord Djibril in space. Athrun, Kira, Lacus, Murrue, and now Neo (aka Mu La Flaga) will also go to space aboard Archangel and vowed to stop Chairman Durandal from implementing his "Destiny Plan," a radical method by using genetics to eliminate wars and conflicts among the human race. Meanwhile Cagalli would be back in the political office sorting out the war and the issues that plagued ORB while she had been away.

While in space, Athrun, with assistance from Kira, destroyed the first relay station from the requiem. However it was discovered that the requiem had yet another relay station it could use and thus the Clyne faction decided to put all their resources in an effort to destroy the requiem itself before it would fire on Orb and annihilate it.

In the final battle Athrun came upon Lunamaria in her Impulse. He had no intention of fighting her, however she persisted in her efforts to engage him, forcing Athrun to disable her mobile suit in a short lived battle between the two. Shinn arrived on the scene and naturally believed that Athrun was attacking Lunamaria, his love interest, indiscriminately. Thus the scene was set, the former ZAFT ace vs the current one with both combatants piloting their trademark units. The two fearsome warriors went all out as they fought in a prolonged duel.

However as the battle progressed it became evident as to who would emerge victorious. Athrun took everything Shinn had and slowly began to disarm him, quite literally. He did so despite Shinn being in SEED mode while he himself was not.

In one final burst of rage, Shinn charged in at Athrun. Lunamaria suddenly appeared in between them in an attempt to stop the two from fighting but Shinn did not acknowledge her. Athrun went into SEED mode and halted Shinn's final assault destroying both of the Destiny’s arms and wings as a result. Following that, he destroyed one of the Destiny’s legs. The resulting explosion propelled Shinn downwards onto the moon’s surface, and essentially disabled the Destiny all-together.

Athrun left the badly damaged Destiny and Impulse to each other, seeing as they were no longer a threat. Shortly there after, he utilized the multiple beam cutters on the Fatum-01 backpack to disable the Minerva's sublight engines thus rendering it dead in space.

Athrun, along with Neo in the Akatsuki, made their way past ZAFT's last defensive front and both penetrated the Requiems positron deflector. At the very last second, just as the weapon was about to fire, together they destroyed the core of the Requiem. The threat to Orb was eliminated.

His final act in the battle was to board the MESSIAH and ensure Kira's safety. He arrived just in time to see Durandal get shot by Rey Za Burrel. He and Kira both got off the MESSIAH safely afterwards. Later, when retreat flares are fired from all surviving ships, Athrun rescued Shinn and Lunamaria in the Infinite Justice.

Aftermath

Afterwards, at the ravished Orb memorial previously visited by Shinn and Kira in episode 8, Athrun and Shinn (accompanied by Meyrin & Lunamaria) are paying their respects when they are joined by Kira and Lacus. Athrun introduces Kira to Shinn and Lunamaria as the pilot of Freedom. Shinn was stunned by the identity of the pilot whom he tried to defeat numerous times, and previously met before without that knowledge.

Kira makes an overture to Shinn to shake his hand and to make peace with him. Kira stated that no matter how many times some humans desired the destruction of other people based on differences that could have been accepted, yet neglected, Kira was prepared to restore peace and to ensure that humans, Coordinators and Naturals alike, never again go down the path of mutual destruction and asked Shinn to join him in the fight of the world he truly wished for. A crying Shinn agrees.

The three pairs go their separate ways with Meyrin accompanying Athrun.

Quotes

• "I can't exactly fight a war with a big smile on my face." (Gundam SEED, PHASE-11 "The Awakening Sword")
• "My name . . . my name is Athrun Zala. I am the son of Patrick Zala, the man who helped fan the flames of a war that spiraled out of control and poisoned the whole world with his hatred. I believed what my father said, I fought in the war, I killed the enemy, I fought my best friend, and even when I realized how wrong he was, I couldn't stop him, and I lost everything." (Gundam SEED Destiny, PHASE-10 "A Father's Spell")

Trivia

• Athrun has a talent for mechanical tinkering, and has created numerous robot pets for his friends and acquaintances. The multitude of multicolored Haros that fill the Clyne residence are Athrun's creations, as is Kira's mechanical pet, Tori (also known as Birdy; "tori" in Japanese means bird).
• Among the Le Creuset team members, he's the only pilot whose views on Naturals differ from his parent's (and with the most dramatic consequences).
• Athrun is an expert marksman with pistols (his aim with heavier guns seems to be much more mundane). He was always able to hit the heads and hearts of the flashing targets during the shooting demostration to Lunamaria in Destiny Episode 7. Also, during his escape from ZAFT, he managed to shoot Rey's rifle out from his hands though it took him a while to do so. This trait may be a pun, for his best friend (Kira) was bad with firearms. In a further extension of the pun, when the two pilot their mobile suits Athrun appears to prefer close-combat while Kira prefers guns.
• Athrun's given name means "dawn" or "daybreak". This may be a nod to his love interest, Cagalli Yula Athha, who has several links with "dawn".
• Athrun was honored with the medal, "The Order of the Nebula" and promoted to the FAITH Special Forces as a top gun pilot. He is also the first member of the Le Cruset team to command his own team (the second being Yzak Joule in GSD).
• He has the somewhat dubious honour of being the only character in the Cosmic Era who self destructed his mobile suits not once but twice. (He detonated the Aegis to destroy the Strike and self destructed the Justice to destroy GENESIS.)
• He also had the dubious honour of defecting at least once in each series (Seed and Seed Destiny).
• He also has the distinction of being one of the characters to consistently wreck any suit he pilots. His first three Gundams all wind up destroyed and the Zaku and Gouf suits he briefly piloted also ended up severely damaged. Infinite Justice is the only suit he has piloted that wasn't badly damaged by the end of the story. In an extension to the joke, Kira too consistently wrecks the MSes which he pilots.
• In his debut in both Justice units, he helped Kira out of tight spots. Coincidently, during both battles, they were fighting in Orb and Kira was in his second battle piloting his unit.
• Athrun used to tutor Kira in school on the moon when they were little (information from Suit CD). Also, he's actually younger than Kira.
• In the English version, Kira and Athrun are voiced by Matt Hill and Samuel Vincent respectively. The two of them also work together regularly providing the voices of Ed and Edd from Ed, Edd, n Eddy. (It should also be noted that Tony Sampson, the voice actor who plays Eddy from that show, also played Miguel Aiman in the English version of Gundam SEED).
• In the English version, Athrun and Patrick Zala are voiced by Samuel Vincent and Andrew Kavadas. The two of them previously worked together on Inuyasha providing the voices of the Peach Man and the Nimenka Tree in episodes 57 and 58.
• In the novelisation of Gundam SEED, the sketch by Hisashi Hirai in the introduction section of books 2 & 3 depicted him with a (somewhat) cunning smile, a marked difference from his actual personality.
• There is a place in Libya called Al Athrun.
• In the manga series , the events of GSD are told through Athrun's POV. Also, Kuori Chimaki's artwork depicts him as a more mature, yet (oddly) effeminate figure. Using Athrun as the narrative figure is a concept the animation has revisted for the compilations.
• Athrun's Gundams, from the Aegis onwards, all have a very high, almost mohawk-like sensor on their heads. This design trait is usually credited to The Gundam Geminass, from Last Outpost/G-Unit, a side-story to Gundam Wing originally published in 1997. However, that is inaccurate, as the first Mobile Suit to display such a design trait was the XM-07 Vigna Ghina, from 1991's Gundam F91, two years prior to G-Unit's publication.
• Athrun is the only pilot in Gundam Seed and Gundam Seed Destiny that is undefeated in SEED mode.

{| align="center" class="toccolours" width="640" |- !colspan="2" style="background-color:#ccccff;text-align:center;"| Cosmic Era characters |- ! align="center" | OMNI Enforcer | align="center" |Flay Allster | Shani Andras | Muruta Azrael | Natarle Badgiruel | Clotho Buer | Morgan Chevalier | Lord Djibril | Al Da Flaga | Edward Harrelson | Neo Roanoke | Stellar Loussier | Auel Neider |

Sting Oakley | Orga Sabnak | Tolle Koenig | Canard Pars |- ! align="center" |

ZAFT | align="center" |Nicol Amarfi | Shinn Asuka | Rey Za Burrel | Meer Campbell | Siegel Clyne | Rau Le Creuset | Gilbert Durandal | Dearka Elsman | Talia Gladys | Lunamaria Hawke | Meyrin Hawke |

Courtney Heironimus | Yzak Joule | Heine Westenfluss | Patrick Zala |- ! align="center" | ORB Union
TSA/Terminal | align="center" |Cagalli Yula Athha | Uzumi Nara Athha | Jean Carry | Lacus Clyne | Martin DaCosta | Dearka Elsman | Mu La Flaga | Meyrin Hawke | Miriallia Haw | Yzak Joule | Kojiro Murdoch |

Murrue Ramius | Rondo Ghina Sahaku | Rondo Mina Sahaku | Yuna Roma Seiran |

Andrew Waltfeld | Kira Yamato | Athrun Zala |- ! align="center" |Miscellaneous | align="center" | George Glenn | Lowe Guele | Ulen Hibiki | Prayer Reverie |-