The blue gauntlet knight girls are guards in the underground lab, they do not speak or show any emotion and are more like living statues than humans, they protect wisdom and keep the scientists in the lab from leaving by any means.
Their designs are very detailed and specific for background characters, that's because they are characters we already saw in phase 1 in another form, their identities are:
- Noor
- Koshka
- Rethabile
- Lingji
- Leah
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| Noor |
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| Lingji |
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| Leah |
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| Rethabile |
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| Koshka |
"Once you stop thinking and debating you are not even a human anymore"
They are a result of what happened to the Gauntlet knights who have given up on the responsibility of critical thinking and decided to follow orders without questions, becoming like an automata that is not conscious but simply obeys.
These beings are Angels which obey the will of God, The objective of the 'God' in Ciconia is to destroy the physical body and bring forth the factory world, the factory world itself represents the end of human civilization by the refusal to think critically, it is to accept that the human world cannot be saved and leaving fate to God, -- becoming passive.
Therefore the requirements to becoming a blue gauntlet knight are:
- Reject the responsibility of critical thinking - accepting being a piece
- Accept the factory world is the only possible future
We can pinpoint how exactly each of them has given up on thinking:
--Noor--
Noor is a character who constantly avoids making decisions and leaves the responsibility of thinking to others, such as Rethabile.
As a captain of her team she chooses to be passive and simply carry out the orders that her superiors gave her without thinking or following her conscience, she even tells Rethabile that they should leave fate in the hands of God.
Throughout most of phase 1 Rethabile is actively using her critical thinking to question orders and agreeing with Miyao's ideal of causing missions to fail that don't align with her own values. This makes her humane.
However somewhere in the latter part of the story her attitude completely changes and she accepts that she is just a piece that cannot do anything of her own volition.
--Leah--
Leah is part of Yeladot Shavit, which is one of the most fanatical and obedient to the government kettes, from the very beginning she has been passive and simply following the orders of her superiors, no matter how brutal and heartless they were. The final scene we see of her is when she (despite hesitating), chooses to follow an order to shoot down one of her allies.
Koshka throughout all of phase 1 has rejected authority and decided to do what she feels like instead of following orders, this is true up to the very end, when she ignores the order to shoot.
However she still stops thinking and accepts that she is just a piece, and that the only way a piece can strike back at the player is by throwing away it's cage of flesh -- to commit suicide.
She has given up on thinking about how to save the world and decided to simply exit the gameboard.
--Lingji--
We don't see the exact moment that Lingji has given up on thinking and became a piece but we can see from the last scene that her transformation into a blue girl has already begun as she is wearing the same golden gauntlet as they are.
We don't know what Lingji is talking about in this scene or what she is trying to accomplish but Miyao desperately wants to get through to her. Keropoyo tells him that her shield is on a whole different level.
Similar to Umineko magical fights, the fights between gauntlet knights can be interpreted as debates, in this case the rejection shield symbolizes the ability to reject the information given to you by your opponent. Lingji's shield being on a whole different level means that she has stopped thinking and even considering Miyao's words. She has become a fanatic that no information can get through to.
Furthermore the Golden gauntlet represents Dogma, a set absolutely certain belief that is accepted as true even without thinking.
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The last thing that should be considered is that all of the blue gauntlet knights are women, even though there are also male gauntlet knights that have abandoned critical thinking and became inhumane, however all the gauntlet knights in Vier's lab are women. And they are also hypersexualized, naked with big breasts and a small waist, all looking the exact same except for the head like like a doll, which does not even show eyes. In a almost fetishistic way they are stripped of anything that isn't the subject of the sexual urge, they do not speak or have any personality which makes them as sexual pieces of furniture.
You might think this is just down to Ryukishi's personal taste, who is not shy of sexualizing his female characters, putting them in skin tight costumes with frills and such. However there is one thing in the story which points to this sexualization being an actual plot point. That is the statue of Venus de milo with drawers, that Vier and Toujirou visit.
The Venus de milo with Drawers is a sculpture by Salvador Dali, who is quoted all throughout phase 1, in an essay he explains the statue as:
“absolutely useless … and created wholly for the purpose of materializing in a fetishistic way, with maximum tangible reality, ideas and fantasies of a delirious character.”
A woman with drawers is a living piece of furniture.
On the fourth twilight, gouge the head and kill.
On the fifth twilight, gouge the chest and kill.
On the sixth twilight, gouge the stomach and kill.
On the seventh twilight, gouge the knee and kill.
On the eighth twilight, gouge the leg and kill.
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