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Originally Posted by Triple_R
I think Roger Rambo's arguments here are strong, and do a good job of explaining why it's very likely that all (or at least most) of these brains are sociopaths or psychopaths.
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It's mere speculation at best. People who don't fit "mankind's conventional standards" can mean many things. Personally I took it to mean that Sibyl wants all the unique personalities it can get, because the more different people there are in the system, the greater expansion of thought the collective conscience Sibyl will have. Makishima is obviously interesting to them because Sibyl is unable to understand him. If he is added to the system, then Sibyl will gain more understanding of humanity.
That's why I compared Sibyl to a sort of "philosopher king." This collective conscience will possess more wisdom than any single human being.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Triple_R
Here's the key thing with a Gen-wrote work. You have to remember he's writing from within the Japanese context, where order and social harmony tends to take precedence over individualism and free expression.
I think Gen aims for Orwell-esque social commentary with his works, but it can be hard for us non-Japanese viewers to see it because many of us live in countries that arguably could use more collectivism, not less. Psycho-Pass may seem totally mind-blowing and subversive to the average Japanese person. But for many of us, it's preaching to the choir.
Gen likes taking things that probably look great to his target demographic (i.e. the Japanese people), and then he slowly pulls back the curtain on his creation and says "Not so great after all, is it? Maybe we should think twice about what we as a culture/society put the highest value in."
The Puella Magi system looked awesome on the face of it. You get one wish - Any wish you want! And you get superpowers and a cool outfit! And you get to be a hero! What is there not to like? 
Kiritsugu wanted to bring permanent peace to the world. This has been the dream of countless people. But you and I know how that turned out...
And here we have a system that weeds out malcontents and purports to brings about perfect social harmony (and in fairness, it does achieve something approaching that at least). Many of us in the west could see the red flags almost instantly, but for the average Japanese person, this might seem wonderful.
With Sibyl, I think Gen is probably saying you can go too far in aiming for perfect order and social harmony. |
I should say that Gen didn't craft the Fate/Zero universe, and that is all Nasu so it is not the best thing for comparison (The ending of the show actually has little to do with what you're thinking, but hopefully they adapt HF to show you one day why what happened actually did happen).
That aside, you are definitely not wrong about it being a commentary on Japanese society. I keep saying Makishima is a champion of free will, but not necessarily justice. He is an agent of chaos, that does not value the group, but the expression of an individual's will. That's what I think makes this show meaningful.
However, if Sibyl ends up being this system that is ridiculously evil then the message gets weakened. Sibyl has to be a logical system for the themes to hold any weight. Sibyl does have a collectivist mindset, that's why they remove latent criminals from society. But at the same time, they have the wisdom to know full well what these people are capable of. Sibyl is a form of absolute justice. Yet, absolute justice might not be so great if we start to regress as sentient beings.
I just think if we interpret Sibyl as some sort of system that is just filled of psychopaths, then the story sort of collapses on itself. It would be unbelievable that a system full of purely psychopathic people could actually function in a logical manner and have society in the show actually accept it.