Gundam 8 9 10 Early Access

my favorite line of the episode from kai of all people "back in the coffin" as he gets into the guncannon cockpit.

Bane

40 years have passed since the Gundam story started, at that time Viewer didn't realize there were two main characters.

I think you are right that Char genuinely cares about some people. Especially in those first few episodes where the subordinates that are getting killed are implied to have been under his command for a while. I also think Char honestly thought of Garma as a friend. Char cares, it won't stop him from doing awful stuff but it makes him feel a bit bad when he does it.

Generation Wumbo

I'd be careful about implying that Char being honorable and caring about his subordinates is all a ruse. That can still be true despite doing this to Garma. He's a very "ends justify the means" type person, and he has a reason for everything he does.

Man episode 10 is so great. When first presented with Char who seems cool, charismatic, and is shown to care at least somewhat about his subordinates, I got the impression that he was going to be the "honorable rival" sort of character. But over the last few episodes that impression is shown to basically be an intentional ruse. We got some lines implying it earlier but these are the episodes that drive it home. It is notable that in episode 8, when the White Base attempts what is honestly a pretty underhanded scheme (probably a war crime), Char is the one who immediately sees it coming because it is the kind of thing he would do. Then he straight up attempts to and then succeeds in murdering Garma despite admitting that he is his friend. Far from being a gallant foe, he is pretty clearly a "worse" person than basically every other Zeon soldier we have gotten a good look at thus far in the series. Also, I love Garma a lot. He is a really memorable character for being essentially the level one boss for the crew. He strikes a great balance between being kind of a brat and not coming across as necessarily a terrible person. I am glad that he has joined the pantheon of characters like Kaworu who are iconic despite their minor roles and thus get love from the franchise to this day.

Generation Wumbo