Psycho-Pass - Episode 21 Discussion / Poll

[Triple_R]

For some reason, I can't shake the idea that Makishima's concept of a "a world where everyday things are done in everyday ways" is very close to late 80s/early 90s America.

In other words, a generally relaxed atmosphere where kids go to school, and adults go to work, where you're simply told to "chill out" if you go over the line or get stressed out, and where the law-abiding are more or less allowed to do what they want on their free time. If you go to jail it's because you did something pretty bad, not just because you had a bad brain scan.

[cyth]

Originally Posted by GoldenLand

That seems to be what that part of the ep was implying, and it makes sense, but on the other hand, there was a scene where he talked about how he didn't care what happened after Sybil was destroyed (and I think he was implying that he didn't care if things turned to anarchy, though I haven't checked the relevant ep to make sure). Contradictory stuff.

One argument for Makishima being an anarchist is that, if we go by Saiga's explanation, anarchism tries to deny an inhuman control system in favor of a more human system. (episode 19) Makishima wants a more human connection to the system (he doesn't want to feel alone etc.), so maybe Saiga had him pinned down.

Agreed it's contradictory. A point can be made either way.

Saiga: "We won't know the truth unless we ask Makishima himself. But you're not going to ask him, are you?"
Kougami: "That's right."

This has me worried that we'll never know for sure.

[merakses]

He seemed pretty stoked about slicing Kougami up after their fight.

Nah, it was his usual nonchalant attitude. It was during the fight that he seemed manically excited.

[mechalord]

Originally Posted by merakses

Nah, it was his usual nonchalant attitude. It was during the fight that he seemed manically excited.

It was an even fight between two opposing forces of equal strength... he was excited because of the fight, not the killing. I think he lamented that he was going to be forced to kill Kogami, in order to complete his plan without someone trying to stop him.

[Dengar]

Does it really matter WHY a madman kills people?

[merakses]

What do you think will happen if Kougami manages to kill Makishima before the latter finishes his master plan? In this case, Akane's deal with Sybil is off, and she will be forced to hunt Ko down and most likely kill him. What's worse, Sybil might notice that even after personally killing a person who was very important to her (she negotiated for his life), her hue remains unchanged, and realize that Akane is criminally asymptomatic. With the current situation as it is, I don't think that she could escape from (or even anticipate) a recruitment attempt like Makishima did.

Even with Akane as a part of Sybil, she won't be likely to be able to influence the consensus in most cases, so the general situation probably won't improve much (or at all). All in all, it would be a pretty bleak ending.

There is also another hypothesis - that part of the reason Akane is feeling depressed is because in spite of everything that happened, her PP is still so clear. She might have already noticed the similarity between her, Makishima, and the members of Sybil (although even in this case, I don't think she would be paranoid enough to expect a recruitment attempt. I guess we'll see whether I'm right or not)

Does it really matter WHY a madman kills people?

Objectively, it is better if there is a good reason. Otherwise, those people died in vain, and I think that sucks considerably more than simply dying. Also, Makishima doesn't really qualifiy as a madman, not any more than any person from history who preached (and sometimes practiced) change through radical means.

[Dengar]

I dunno, someone who kills without feeling anything, and enjoys enabling other people to kill more people isn't particularly sane to me.

[Roger Rambo]

Originally Posted by merakses

Objectively, it is better if there is a good reason. Otherwise, those people died in vain, and I think that sucks considerably more than simply dying. Also, Makishima doesn't really qualifiy as a madman, not any more than any person from history who preached (and sometimes practiced) change through radical means.

I'm gonna have to call bullshit on this.


In Colloquial terms, Makishima is a homicidal madman. Not a revolutionary. 90%+ of everything we've seen him do hasn't had anything to do with revolution in the slightest. If Makishima had actually been interested in revolution, he'd have carried out this hyper oats plot years ago rather than wasting his time acting as a sponsor for other homicidal maniacs. Supporting secretive internet fanboy murders, subterranean human game hunts, and turning high school girls into plasticized artwork has about nil revolutionary merit.


Makishima is primarily an intellectual murder voyeur.

[Triple_R]

Didn't Makishima's original revolution scheme (i.e. the one involving him and Choe) take a lot of planning and work? I vaguely recall Kougami speculating that Makishima's plan there must have required months of preparation and work.

Perhaps Makishima's "other activities" during that time was just a way for him to keep the police distracted from his main activities, while also being a form of entertainment to Makishima.

[Roger Rambo]

Originally Posted by Triple_R

Didn't Makishima's original revolution scheme (i.e. the one involving him and Choe) take a lot of planning and work? I vaguely recall Kougami speculating that Makishima's plan there must have required months of preparation and work.

Yeah, but Makishima has been active for YEARS. In that time frame, the helmet plot is rather a short term excursion.

Originally Posted by Triple_R

Perhaps Makishima's "other activities" during that time was just a way for him to keep the police distracted from his main activities, while also being a form of entertainment to Makishima.

Most of his other activities were done in secret, which in many cases would preclude being able to distract the police. And I don't think you need to distract the police when they're already ignoring anybody with a crime coefficient under 100. No. There's no utilitarian value to a revolution in what Makishima does. Makishima "judges" people because he wants to judge people. For a mix of intellectual/visceral gratification.

I mean, look at the Hyper-Oats plot. Doesn't this come off as a more spur of the moment reaction to finding out Sybil's true nature rather than some long term plan?

[merakses]

Yeah, but Makishima has been active for YEARS. In that time frame, the helmet plot is rather a short term excursion.

Extremely questionable. We have no idea how long the helmets took to design, let alone mass produce and distribute. Claiming that the helmet plot only took a short amount of time is pure speculation.

Most of his other activities were done in secret, which in many cases would preclude being able to distract the police. And I don't think you need to distract the police when they're already ignoring anybody with a crime coefficient under 100. No. There's no utilitarian value to a revolution in what Makishima does. Makishima "judges" people because he wants to judge people. For a mix of intellectual/visceral gratification.

You would need to keep the police busy in order to prevent them from accidentally coming across a helmet, for example.

Also, judging from Senguji, Makishima's games acted as sort of entertainment for his network of sponsors.

In the first half of the anime, Makishima only 'judged' the criminals he was supporting. What they did with the support was entirely up to them, he simply gave them means to follow their free will, rather than being bound by the system's chains. In the second half, all of his murders are done either in order to further his plan, or to prove a very specific point (Yuki)

I mean, look at the Hyper-Oats plot. Doesn't this come off as a more spur of the moment reaction to finding out Sybil's true nature rather than some long term plan?

Finding out Sybil's true nature only gave him one more reason to destroy it. He already had plenty.

Actually, the hyper-oats plot seems more like a back-up plan he had created beforehand. He was surprisingly prepared to pull it off - he knew both where the professor is located, and how to adjust the virus in order to kill the hyper-oats. I don't really think that you can find the necessary information and devise an appropriate mutation in the span of two days, even if it the virus is easy to adjust.

[4Tran]

Originally Posted by merakses

You would need to keep the police busy in order to prevent them from accidentally coming across a helmet, for example.

We already saw all the policemen in Tokyo - there were about two dozen of them.

[merakses]

We already saw all the policemen in Tokyo - there were about two dozen of them.

It's still better for Makishima if those two dozen are out chasing after violent criminals, rather than doing inspections of ministry/company plants, factories, and the like

[4Tran]

Originally Posted by merakses

It's still better for Makishima if those two dozen are out chasing after violent criminals, rather than doing inspections of ministry/company plants, factories, and the like

But they don't do inspections in the first place. They just sit around in the office until either the friendly computer tells them there's something weird going on, or if a body shows up. It's extremely easy to avoid their attention as long as your Psycho-Pass reading is low.

[merakses]

But they don't do inspections in the first place. They just sit around in the office until either the friendly computer tells them there's something weird going on, or if a body shows up. It's extremely easy to avoid their attention as long as your Psycho-Pass reading is low.

Fair point. I was just thinking that if something like what happened in episode 3 isn't an exceptional case, Maki's plan could be ruined by a random screwup from one of the employees. However, on second thought, this would be true irrelevant of whether the police have a ton of work to do or not, so 'keeping the police busy' doesn't make much sense as part of his plan.

I dunno, someone who kills without feeling anything, and enjoys enabling other people to kill more people isn't particularly sane to me.

Actually, serial killers are almost always sane. Only a few serial killers in U.S. history were successful with insanity pleas. Psychopaths aren't considered insane (and Maki's personality is closer to a secret schizoid, anyway)

Makishima is actually very similar to real-life figures like Robespierre, Lenin, and Cromwell. All of them committed very questionable actions which lead to the deaths of thousands of people. Yet, hardly anyone would consider them 'insane'.

[Dengar]

I, too, believe that the stuff with the 4chan and the schoolgirls and the robodogs were distractions.


For Makishima.

Why would you even need to distract the police? It's not like anyone even knew he existed.

[merakses]

Why would you even need to distract the police? It's not like anyone even knew he existed.

As I already said:

Fair point. I was just thinking that if something like what happened in episode 3 isn't an exceptional case, Maki's plan could be ruined by a random screwup from one of the employees. However, on second thought, this would be true irrelevant of whether the police have a ton of work to do or not, so 'keeping the police busy' doesn't make much sense as part of his plan.

There is one more thing. All of Maki's 'games' were probably testing the waters for the real thing (the riots). He needed to know whether there really were enough people who, given the chance, would rebel against the system and wreak havoc. Essentially, the whole 'sponsoring murderers' plot was a big experiment to see if the riots could be used as a distraction for long enough in order for Maki & Choe to destroy Sybil.

[GoldenLand]

Originally Posted by merakses

He needed to know whether there really were enough people who, given the chance, would rebel against the system and wreak havoc. Essentially, the whole 'sponsoring murderers' plot was a big experiment to see if the riots could be used as a distraction for long enough in order for Maki & Choe to destroy Sybil.

What in the episodes made you reach that conclusion? Most of the crimes he assisted with had very little in common with riots, so they wouldn't be useful as test cases. He also didn't choose a large amount of people to assist, so it wouldn't be useful as a way of finding out how many people would wreak havoc given the opportunity. Furthermore, he could probably already work out that he could get people to join the riots.

When the murderers disappointed him, like Rikako, he had them killed. It seems clear from things he said that he was hoping for something special from them which they ended up failing to show, boring him. I can't remember anything he said which suggested that they were an experiment in riot creation.

[Roger Rambo]

Originally Posted by merakses

You would need to keep the police busy in order to prevent them from accidentally coming across a helmet, for example.

Why?


There are like. A dozen or so actual police officers in this city. And most of the time they're on standby at headquarters, waiting for someone to trip a psycho-pass or an area stress marker or for someone going missing to make them suspect there was a murder.


There is literally no chance that the cops will just randomly wander into Makishima's helmet production plan if Sybil doesn't detect any increased area stress or crime coefficient or bodies turning up in garbage disposals somewhere. So being involved in ANY other criminal activity other than the helmet plan only increases the chance for detection.

Originally Posted by merakses

Also, judging from Senguji, Makishima's games acted as sort of entertainment for his network of sponsors.

In the first half of the anime, Makishima only 'judged' the criminals he was supporting. What they did with the support was entirely up to them, he simply gave them means to follow their free will, rather than being bound by the system's chains. In the second half, all of his murders are done either in order to further his plan, or to prove a very specific point (Yuki)

And that makes him a homicidal maniac. Not a revolutionary. A revolutionary would focus on knocking down the system. Not frivolous entertainment.

Originally Posted by merakses

Finding out Sybil's true nature only gave him one more reason to destroy it. He already had plenty.

Actually, the hyper-oats plot seems more like a back-up plan he had created beforehand. He was surprisingly prepared to pull it off - he knew both where the professor is located, and how to adjust the virus in order to kill the hyper-oats. I don't really think that you can find the necessary information and devise an appropriate mutation in the span of two days, even if it the virus is easy to adjust.

Which again cancels out the idea that Makishima is some kind of revolutionary. A revolutionary who realized he had the means of destroying the system would have immediately done that. Especially since the *backup plan* involved a far lower risk of detection, involved a softer target, and arguably would have had just as serious consequences as destroying the Sybil mainframe.


Makishima is a homicidal maniac.

Originally Posted by merakses

Fair point. I was just thinking that if something like what happened in episode 3 isn't an exceptional case, Maki's plan could be ruined by a random screwup from one of the employees. However, on second thought, this would be true irrelevant of whether the police have a ton of work to do or not, so 'keeping the police busy' doesn't make much sense as part of his plan.

I'm pretty sure it's rather unusual for factory workers to murder their coworkers with killer robots. I don't think that's a reasonable statistical concern.

More to the point. Even if it DID do some good...I don't think it'd outweigh the danger of having Makishima's identity uncovered by the cops for affiliating with so many killers.

[merakses]

And that makes him a homicidal maniac. Not a revolutionary. A revolutionary would focus on knocking down the system. Not frivolous entertainment.

If he was indeed doing it in order to please his sponsors, his games were indirectly helping the revolution - they helped him build relations with his (pseudo) allies, and we can assume that those allies provided him with goodies and favors which helped the revolution.

Which again cancels out the idea that Makishima is some kind of revolutionary. A revolutionary who realized he had the means of destroying the system would have immediately done that. Especially since the *backup plan* involved a far lower risk of detection, involved a softer target, and arguably would have had just as serious consequences as destroying the Sybil mainframe.

Destroying the hyper-oats immediately would have gone against his desire to give the people a chance to express their free will.

Think about it - if Sybil is destroyed directly, there will most likely be a mass wave of crime and riots. However, people will still stand a small chance of limiting the damage done and creating a (somewhat) working system. It wouldn't be easy, and it isn't particularly likely, but the possibility is there. However, if he destroys the food supply, people's lives will be outside their hands. The amount of casualties will be determined almost entirely by how quickly the government manages to start importing food, and what amount of it. This way, the fate of the nation will depend entirely on the actions of a few individuals, and on the international response.

Makishima is a person who values free will above everything else. It's only natural that he would rather not choose an option which will render most people's free will irrelevant, if he had a better alternative - even if that alternative was riskier. He is also overconfident - he probably never expected the assault on Nona Tower to fail.

Makishima is a homicidal maniac.

Except that he doesn't have mania. Are you referring to the second meaning of maniac? (A fanatic, a person with an obsession)
The homicidal part is obvious enough. Once again, it was shared by any radical revolutionary from our history.

What in the episodes made you reach that conclusion? Most of the crimes he assisted with had very little in common with riots, so they wouldn't be useful as test cases. He also didn't choose a large amount of people to assist, so it wouldn't be useful as a way of finding out how many people would wreak havoc given the opportunity.

They didn't have to have things in common with riots. What he is testing is whether given the chance to break the system's rules unpunished, people would take it - "I've asked many people about their suppressed free will, and observed their actions all this time". Also, it seems that he had a number of 'pawns' at any given time (Gusong remarked in episode 4 or 5 that Mido was Makishima's current favorite, which implies that he wasn't the only one enjoying his support), and he had been doing these 'experiments' since Touma's capture, which was a few years back. That means that the amount of pawns he had probably wasn't that small.

Furthermore, he could probably already work out that he could get people to join the riots.

Yeah, he probably could.

When the murderers disappointed him, like Rikako, he had them killed. It seems clear from things he said that he was hoping for something special from them which they ended up failing to show, boring him.

It seems that he expects his 'pets' to 'grow'. Both Rikako and Mido committed the same kind of murder every time, so he discarded them.