Canaan

[Ryllharu]

Shamelessly copied from RandomC:

Alphard was the “land of hope” to terrorists. Siam was training her to work for terrorists. Her families remaining assets were going to help fund the group while she becomes their leader. Canaan is the “land of hope” to everything else. Remember that before Siam was killed, Canaan worked as an assassin too. We already knew they both had the name of Canaan from an earlier episode with Canaan’s Siam flashbacks. Alphard introduced herself to Canaan as “Canaan.”

Disregarding the blatant stupidity of the security forces, and the over the top American President (which made me smile), I liked this episode. This sort of huge blunder had to be done in order to get the plot moving. Should it have been done with more finesse? Sure.

Only Alphard's face should be known, and I have to question that. She's more well known as a prominently wealthy woman of middle-eastern royalty and the head of the Daedala Corporation than as a terrorist. Back in the first episode, the guy driving the truck said that, "You couldn't see the truth 'cause your expectations were too high." No one expects that the leader of the Snakes is a woman, much less one so young and attractive. They expect some bearded, Ali Al-Sarches type leader who looks like he really has years of experience. No one would believe Alphard would have started out as young as she actually did.

As for Liang Qi, she is publicly known as the glasses-masochist's secretary. Of course she is the real leader of that local syndicate, but when she's always introduced as his secretary and only seen lazing about because he would never actually ask his boss to do anything for him, they don't think anything of her either.

Watching Maria abused was kind of tough. She is a genuinely nice person, and watching Liang Qi beat the shit out of her just because she knows it will make Canaan angry was mildly disturbing. In the end, that scene strangely made me respect Alphard all the more. She wasn't too pleased with it either, and seeing her as a terrorist denounce violence for violence's sake was strange. She certainly deserves all the respect she has, though Liang Qi might betray her in some sick twisted love sort of way, given how she clenched her fists. Alphard is just fighting against the belief that she is inferior to Canaan because she never does anything for her own sake, she's just following some plan that some group laid out for her.

I think Hakkoo came out the most interesting however. She doesn't seem nearly as tied to the organization as even Yun Yun was, she may even have escaped their influence completely. She also appears to have one of the strongest Borner powers we've seen yet. With only a few words, she probably came pretty close to killing Minoru. She certainly disabled him for a considerably length of time.