Clannad ~After Story~ - Episode 22 Discussion / Poll [END]

[Master Chibi]

I don't care.

I just don't care anymore.

Is Ushio happy now?

Yes.

Ok, good. That's all I want.

I don't give a damn how it happened because:

CLANNAD IS BEING CLANNAD.

And that's all there is to it.

Enjoy life to the fullest Ushio.

[Ascaloth]

Originally Posted by Master Chibi

I don't care.

I just don't care anymore.

Is Ushio happy now?

Yes.

Ok, good. That's all I want.

I don't give a damn how it happened because:

CLANNAD IS BEING CLANNAD.

And that's all there is to it.

Enjoy life to the fullest Ushio.

Oh psssht.

*throws Ushio-bone to Chibi-inu*

Gogo.

[Sheba]

Would it have been cheesy if you pulled Tom Hanks' line "Earn it"?

[Master Chibi]

Originally Posted by Ascaloth

Oh psssht.

*throws Ushio-bone to Chibi-inu*

Gogo.

*wags tail happily and chases after it*

Arf arf!

[SaintessHeart]

Originally Posted by Master Chibi

*wags tail happily and chases after it*

Arf arf!

*Grabs bone and throws it further away then ties a rope to Chibi's tail*

But I guess it is Clannad being Clannad. Really it is good to have a happy ending in the end, since crying at every episode after their graduation at Ep 10 is pretty ridiculous to end such a story on a tragedy.

[OmegaPhlare]

Okay, I'm just going to come in here and give my 10/10 and leave with no discussion.

The scene where Tomoya calls out to Nagisa before she walks away; we can't know what Tomoya is feeling during that scene, but it must be the most amazing feeling to be able to see your loved one even after they had passed away. This is something clearly impossible in real life, but because it exists in this anime, I am fascinated by it; I love this scene! When Tomoya holds her cheeks and gives her that "same smile", my heart melts. I am seeing this as something more powerful than a kiss scene.

And then, when Tomoya re-awakens in their house where Nagisa gave birth, it was perfect of Kyoto Animation to have shown Tomoya remembering the scene of Nagisa passed away. For that moment, Tomoya had believed he would be repeating the past. But of course, Nagisa's theme begins to play again. It was really a miracle moment.

I think of episodes 19-21 as a consequence to the fact that Tomoya had been thinking that maybe it would have been better if he had never met Nagisa. He said it first, before Nagisa's death, when he told Sanae about it. His doubt had led him to losing her and ultimately losing the precious thing that she gave him. But his decision to call out to her, and embrace those memories of her... When I saw this scene, I didn't think that his world would be reset to that fateful day. No, what I saw was that he had finally accepted that those memories of her were the most important thing to him; that no matter what happens he would never again regret having met Nagisa. Toki wo Kizamu Uta now has true meaning to me.

---

In all, I got my own wish for this series. I wanted so much to see both Nagisa and Tomoya holding Ushio by the hands. In the Clannad Image Thread, there are images where Nagisa is alive and taking care of her family. There is one where Ushio is laying down on Nagisa's lap. There is one where you see two small hands holding Tomoya and Nagisa's hands. There is one where the family is having a picnic and Tomoya is asleep while Nagisa is watching Ushio play. Even the Clannad OST has an image of Nagisa holding Ushio. I was afraid that those images would never be real; that they were just images to feel regret about the events that happened in Clannad.

This is really my personal favorite anime. I don't know if any other anime will capture my heart like Clannad has. I've certainly seen more funny anime, and more epic anime, but this one is right for me. Never has a fairy-tale slice-of-life romance with magic and great side-stories been so perfect in my eyes.

[Ardee]

Here's a meta-fictional take on all this...

Rather than thinking of Tomoya as the target/recipient of the decision points of a visual novel, think of him as making them himself, from *outside* the game timeline, just as the normal game-player is. He went through and picked the Nagisa arc, which led to everyone dying, so he had to start over to try again. And he picked *the same arc* and was rewarded for it! What he did is actually fairly remarkable when you think of it that way. If you go through an adventure game/ VN and lose, and try again, do you assume that the right thing is to make all the same decisions?

I was at first going to equate this story to Groundhog Day, but this is actually almost the opposite. GD was about a guy so rotten that he had to change every last thing about himself to meet his goal. Clannad is about a guy so decent that he just needs the courage to change nothing.

Rudyard Kipling's poem "IF" has a lot that applies to him.

[Master Chibi]

Originally Posted by SaintessHeart

*Grabs bone and throws it further away then ties a rope to Chibi's tail*

*snarls, then begins to whimper*

Originally Posted by OmegaPhlare

The scene where Tomoya calls out to Nagisa before she walks away; we can't know what Tomoya is feeling during that scene, but it must be the most amazing feeling to be able to see your loved one even after they had passed away. This is something clearly impossible in real life, but because it exists in this anime, I am fascinated by it; I love this scene! When Tomoya holds her cheeks and gives her that "same smile", my heart melts. I am seeing this as something more powerful than a kiss scene.

I have to admit, I loved that part as well, especially the cheek / face holding part, absolutely adorable and endearing. I only wish the series had more moments like it.

[Snooker]

I prepared myself for ultimate sorrowful episode but finally..oh,hard to explain
by word...''When two worlds collide''? ? ?However,actually quite solid episode.

[Generic Asian Guy]

Spoiler for episode 22 reminded me of...:

The Butterfly Effect.

[SnackPacs]

Omega hit it for me too...

If you can't feel some sort of appreciation for the ending from all the other crap, if nothing got you...

And Tomoya's pure, raw and true emotion behind his crying out for Nagisa, then you are a cold, heartless bastard inside.

Let's put this fantasy aside and ignore what's happened:

That right there, was pure love.

That if you were to ever go back, to go through all the potential tragedy again, you'd do whatever it took to be there again. Tomoya had no knowledge whatsoever that because he was back there, that he would be guaranteed another chance, or so I think...

Blah, what am I saying?

That screaming out he did, it was enough for me. That 'love' behind it, I hope someday I can experience something like that, no matter how little a chance I have.

Even if it were in a dream, it'd be the most satisfying thing ever. To have someone care for me enough like that...

I think that's what we all want and why most of us enjoyed it. Because it shows a true human desire.

And I too wish the anime had more scenes like that. We knew they loved each other but we never got enough purely satisfying scenes like that. It was proof a kiss didn't suit the show, that love shows itself in so many abnormal and unexpected ways...

[MeoTwister5]

Cookies to OmegPhlare.

In all honesty, we watch with so many lenses in front of our eyes that instead of clarifying what we see, it only further clouds that which would have been clear for the start.

I've made that mistake with a lot of shows, and after watching a lot of them again after putting aside any artificial constructs and rigid requirements I found a new degree of appreciation for a lot, something I couldn't do when I always had to judge them based on something.

Sometimes just watching something for what it is is the best way to watch after all.

[Kaioshin Sama]

Originally Posted by alu546

Dear God, you shouldnt have to play a game to get the anime it is based on in the first place.

This is a good point actually and I suspect that this ending is something that probably works far better for the game then for the anime because there it is more likely to feel like a reward that would take on a metaphysical nature with regard to the relationship between the player, Tomoya and the so-called magical realism. Here though it's just us watching an anime and it's only one run through in order to get the reset. As such I don't really see how anybody earned this ending or how any non-game player could really get that impression, instead it ends up looking like it was just given to the characters because they've suffered a lot.

And as some have pointed out, while we did see those orbs in past episodes, and the illusionary world has been present since the beginning, there was really little implication as to what they all could do beyond some vague hints that they had a tie to some of the characters in the story and their fates. One was of course free to guess at what they do, but that really doesn't stop it from coming across like a last second event of the Deus Ex variety (even if that isn't quite the case) that they just happen to be able to rewind time as a last second explanation.

I remember when Code Geass R2 pulled something similarly magically realistic and seemingly Deus Ex in it's 21st episode while only vaguely hinting at the nature of what truly happened and leaving it up for the viewer to figure out (and really it wouldn't have taken much effort on the part of the viewer to figure out what happened) and boy did people freak and call it "bad writing". Still do actually, and rarely does anybody try to rationalize what happened there the way they do here. I can only hope that the reason that what happened with Geass Episode 21 doesn't happen here is that the people here are more mature and restrained and not because people just prefer to take it easier on KeyAni because they are popular.

So again this all probably worked far better in the game where you as a player are apparently supposed to go around collecting these things, where time really does get reset each time you play a new game, and where you get to alter events through your own input until you earn said happy ending. That probably works just fine, but here it would have been nice to see Kyoani better integrate this concept into the anime so that non-game players can get the maximum impact out of it without having to play the game to truly understand the nature of "earning" the happy ending or to just not bother with it at all. Instead....

Spoiler for Higurashi:

what Kyoani did here was like the equivalent of if Deen had done their adaptation of Higurashi but never bothered to show that Rika was going back into the past and suffering through alternate realities with the same BAD END variations in order to try and earn her right to live beyond the summer.

This is something I can't really write off in order to claim that Kyoani "perfectly" handled this ending in every way imaginable. IMO they could have done a heck of a lot better in many ways that didn't just seemingly involve trying to please the game players.

Back to sleep for me and hopefully tomorrow we can talk about Maeda's writing, which some people seem to think is brilliant and "perfect", but I tend to find relies on him putting all of his eggs in one basket (emotional rollercoasters) and his fans willingness to accept anything and everything he throws at them without question. I can certainly understand Myssa's implication that his work would probably make a literature professor cry. To me also writing that hinges on appealing to one's emotion is almost always weaker in nature then writing that appeals to one's sense of logic and reason. I wouldn't call his writing especially poor or bad, but I wouldn't even think of calling it strong or even really all that good from a critical standpoint.

[panzerfan]

I feel that this is getting to the point of beating on a fairly dead horse, so I would suggest leaving it as such. Discussion on Jun Maeda's writings should take into account of the original visual novel scripts and any preliminarycalls would just make you a bigot almost and slap your own arguments in the face if one is only sighting from opinionated feedbacks as sources.


I want to go back onto a topic previously mentioned before, being Many World Interpretation of Quantum mechanics, just because it seems that tearing apart at something in this field is in many ways the same as tearing apart at Jun Maeda's script as an exercise of subjective opinion.

In Clannad Afterstory, all of you are confronted with the assumption of conterfactual definitiveness, being how you can speak meanfully about how definitive you can be on the results of all the possible routes taken by Tomoya in this instance even if you the audience that have not seen the visual novel will never have the chance to see them at all. The thing is, we wind up with the issue of these other paths actually yielding results (in the form of those light orbs) when in the anime this was resolved by aggrogating results onto one sum of paths. Does that feel like a logical fallacy given how that the audience is expected to just get visual novel path outcomes without even having knowledge of all of them?

Maybe a better way to illustrate this is how that if Tomoya chooses to not call out Nagisa, then everything that happened subsequently would not have happened... yet what if the actual outcome comes into question in itself? To make matters worse, what if it's possible to choose 'Call out Nagisa' in an alternate universe? Wouldn't that essentially remove the consequences of those choices? This essentially removes the importance of the audience observer of any importance out of the results.

Then there's the Dewitt approach where it states that all the many worlds much exist simutaneously. Here, reality is really just a bunch of still shots, not unlike the moment of pause evident in episode 22. Mind you, the whole idea of timeframe being relevant is suddenly tossed out the window, which works with the visual novels actually but would shatter in the anime setting given the relevance of time axis.

Lastly, there's the approach of using Feynman paths as in path integral formulation. The philosophical impact here would be that we are taking a sum of all all histories/possible paths in the reaching the conclusion of episode 22. This essentially leads us to the constraints of Quantum field theory applied to this whole thing with the timeframe set at the 6-7 years starting from the day of Tomoya's meeting with Nagisa over the foot of the hill to the moment where Ushio falls. Our reality here is limited to the examination of this time loop, with the world that has ended being a sore thumb of an anomaly in this mess.


(here's to killing schrodinger's catgirl)

[Kaioshin Sama]

Originally Posted by panzerfan

I feel that this is getting to the point of beating on a fairly dead horse, so I would suggest leaving it as such. Discussion on Jun Maeda's writings should take into account of the original visual novel scripts and any preliminarycalls would just make you a bigot almost and slap your own arguments in the face if one is only sighting from opinionated feedbacks as sources.


I want to go back onto a topic previously mentioned before, being Many World Interpretation of Quantum mechanics, just because it seems that tearing apart at something in this field is in many ways the same as tearing apart at Jun Maeda's script as an exercise of subjective opinion.

In Clannad Afterstory, all of you are confronted with the assumption of conterfactual definitiveness, being how you can speak meanfully about how definitive you can be on the results of all the possible routes taken by Tomoya in this instance even if you the audience that have not seen the visual novel will never have the chance to see them at all. The thing is, we wind up with the issue of these other paths actually yielding results (in the form of those light orbs) when in the anime this was resolved by aggrogating results onto one sum of paths. Does that feel like a logical fallacy given how that the audience is expected to just get visual novel path outcomes without even having knowledge of all of them?

Maybe a better way to illustrate this is how that if Tomoya chooses to not call out Nagisa, then everything that happened subsequently would not have happened... yet what if the actual outcome comes into question in itself? To make matters worse, what if it's possible to choose 'Call out Nagisa' in an alternate universe? Wouldn't that essentially remove the consequences of those choices? This essentially removes the importance of the audience observer of any importance out of the results.

Then there's the Dewitt approach where it states that all the many worlds much exist simutaneously. Here, reality is really just a bunch of still shots, not unlike the moment of pause evident in episode 22. Mind you, the whole idea of timeframe being relevant is suddenly tossed out the window, which works with the visual novels actually but would shatter in the anime setting given the relevance of time axis.

Lastly, there's the approach of using Feynman paths as in path integral formulation. The philosophical impact here would be that we are taking a sum of all all histories/possible paths in the reaching the conclusion of episode 22. This essentially leads us to the constraints of Quantum field theory applied to this whole thing with the timeframe set at the 6-7 years starting from the day of Tomoya's meeting with Nagisa over the foot of the hill to the moment where Ushio falls. Our reality here is limited to the examination of this time loop, with the world that has ended being a sore thumb of an anomaly in this mess.


(here's to killing schrodinger's catgirl)

Yeah, a) I don't think it's necessary to delve into quantum mechanics in examining all of this and b) In making this more complex then it needs to be and in taking such a detour in your argument I'm not even sure what point you are trying to make at all.

Or are you just applying different theories to the situation to see what you come up with without actually trying to prove any of them? It sort of seems that way upon further examination.

[panzerfan]

To illustrate my own stance, I am tempted to say that it's back to sleep for me and hopefully tomorrow we can talk about the follies in MWI, which some people seem to think is brilliant and "perfect", but I tend to find relies on putting all of the eggs in one basket (temporal rollercoasters) and the fans' willingness to accept anything and everything Bohr throws at them without question. I can certainly understand Kaioshin's implication that Clannad based on this work would probably make a physics professor cry. To me also underlaying hypothesis that hinges on appealing to one's locality is almost always weaker in nature then thesis that appeals to one's sense of logic and reason. I wouldn't call this argument especially poor or bad, but I wouldn't even think of calling it strong or even really all that good from a critical standpoint.

But alas, this isn't too civilized for me to really say such, as that would imply commenting merely for its own sake. Mind you, the personal irony isn't lost to me, but I am not totally set for irony as I genuinely want to steer away from the dues ex machina fallacy that the plot presents by resorting to something at least more tangible than 'miracle' to rationalize things. Perhaps where I have decided to look at the realm of abstraction that's as vague of that very plot the anime works from? I wonder...

[bladeofdarkness]

i have to say one thing about the epilouge
tomoyo looks amazing for some reason
hard to discribe it
but she just looks amazing for some reason

[MeoTwister5]

I got a D in college physics but whatever.

I want to go back onto a topic previously mentioned before, being Many World Interpretation of Quantum mechanics, just because it seems that tearing apart at something in this field is in many ways the same as tearing apart at Jun Maeda's script as an exercise of subjective opinion.

In Clannad Afterstory, all of you are confronted with the assumption of conterfactual definitiveness, being how you can speak meanfully about how definitive you can be on the results of all the possible routes taken by Tomoya in this instance even if you the audience that have not seen the visual novel will never have the chance to see them at all. The thing is, we wind up with the issue of these other paths actually yielding results (in the form of those light orbs) when in the anime this was resolved by aggrogating results onto one sum of paths. Does that feel like a logical fallacy given how that the audience is expected to just get visual novel path outcomes without even having knowledge of all of them?

What panzerfan is trying to say (at least what I THINK he's saying) is that he's calling into question the usage of Counterfactual Definitions by people in stating that a certain ENDING or PATH that the story could have taken would have been "better" or "worse" in a definite sense, even if such an end or a path was never actually taken. As he has stated, the 13 different paths (not really definite paths but light orb resulting paths) did produce a definitive result in the form of said orbs.

For me however, the series attempted to negate the logical fallacy of making incomplete assumptions based on incomplete information by including in the series the various paths Tomoya could have taken in a compressed and altered form that would gone in parallel with one definitive path rather than having him split off into all 13 different paths. So rather than have him experience all 13 paths which pretty much violates time space I assume, the viewer gets to see him experience the essence of these 13 paths being integrated into the predetermined Nagisa path.

Am I on the money? Meh physics is a hard subject. I'm a goddamn biologist.

Maybe a better way to illustrate this is how that if Tomoya chooses to not call out Nagisa, then everything that happened subsequently would not have happened... yet what if the actual outcome comes into question in itself? To make matters worse, what if it's possible to choose 'Call out Nagisa' in an alternate universe? Wouldn't that essentially remove the consequences of those choices? This essentially removes the importance of the audience observer of any importance out of the results.

The classic Grandfather Killer paradox? The layman explanation (if anyone else is reading this) is that if one went back to kill one's grandfather for some reason, then you wouldn't exist to kill your grandfather because you would have never been born.

I'm sure you're already well aware MWI tries to explain a possibility as to why this could happen, dropping Tomoya into his other-dimensional self to take over and enact a different future. While I understand you're reservations towards MWI, I'll explain my take at the end of this post.

However should a Dimensional shift have even occurred that doesn't entirely negate the importance of the experience. The consequences still in a way exist insofar of the universe where the choices were made because the shift would have occurred only after Tomoya have made them and the consequences have come into their own existence, and for me have become independent of Tomoya existing post-choice in the universe upon which it was made.

As for the observer, not sure if I'm misinterpeting this, but they aren't exactly pulled out of the equation because they are to some degree sharing in the temporal perceptions of Tomoya albeit from an outsider view. Simply put should Tomoya have undergone a shift towards another dimension, the observer follows him and brings like Tomoya whatever experiences they have seen in the preceding universe.

The fact of the matter is for me, both observer and Tomoya experienced the outcomes of the events that have transpired in the universe where everything up to episode 21 have occurred.

Then there's the Dewitt approach where it states that all the many worlds much exist simutaneously. Here, reality is really just a bunch of still shots, not unlike the moment of pause evident in episode 22. Mind you, the whole idea of timeframe being relevant is suddenly tossed out the window, which works with the visual novels actually but would shatter in the anime setting given the relevance of time axis.

I personally, to a degree anyway, believe in the possibility of simultaneously occurring universes running in parallel to our own as a possible explanation to the nigh infinite possible outcomes to a single event. However I don't think that it's saying that a defined time axis becomes irrelevant, rather than each time axis linked to a specific event in time itself produces an also nigh infinite number of times axes(sp?) branching out from this moment that exist in the multitude of worlds that may exist as parellel worlds mirroring the existence of the again nigh infinite number of consequences. In simpler terms, that it is this time axis link that links you to the immediate aftermath of a specific choice of another parallel world that shows the "what if?" scenario.

Lastly, there's the approach of using Feynman paths as in path integral formulation. The philosophical impact here would be that we are taking a sum of all all histories/possible paths in the reaching the conclusion of episode 22. This essentially leads us to the constraints of Quantum field theory applied to this whole thing with the timeframe set at the 6-7 years starting from the day of Tomoya's meeting with Nagisa over the foot of the hill to the moment where Ushio falls. Our reality here is limited to the examination of this time loop, with the world that has ended being a sore thumb of an anomaly in this mess.

At this point it's all too complex for me, the mathematics and explanations of Path Intergration will make my brain asplode.

At the very least of my understanding however is that Feynman's approach suggests teleology, or in simpler terms a study of purpose of systems. This at least makes it easier for me with my background in philosophy.

And yes, the philosophical aspect is again the sum of all paths towards the conclusion upon which all the necessary paths would have gotten to regardless. From here on it seems to become a problem of metaphysic+teleology more than anything.

The problem for me arises when we start questioning again if the end result being episode 22 is itself the ultimate purpose of existence of all the necessary paths your above paragraphs suggests to imply, a fact I tend to agree with. From this point I'd have to disagree with your assumption that the Illusionary World sticks out like a sore thumb that defies reality. Because, from metaphysical point of view, there is no questioning that it is an integral component upon which the reality of the end rests upon. Thus by extension, the teleological imperative of the Illusionary World is then answered, by concluding that the IW is itself a necessary existence for the impending end.. While we may question the validity of whether the IW is a simultaneous parallel world or if it is simply an anomaly, the fact remains that it has a teleological and metaphysical grounding.

----------------

It took me 45min to type this. God help us all.

[panzerfan]

*Disclaimer: by no mean am I trying to say that you just witnessed Quantum Mechanics the Animation. Don't blame me for the death of nekomata or whatnot since this is all for the sake of realism (TM) some are demanding.

My own leaning is towards the sum of all paths as well, but the origin of the world that has ended and the end of that period becomes the sore thumb in my mind. I suppose that here's where putting physics and anime together == god kills catgirl axiom applies, but if one can chronologically fit the world that has ended as a branch to the time constraint beginning from the reference point of the meeting over the bottom of the hill, perhaps a much less magical conclusion can be drawn to appease those that demand realism out of the "catch episode 22" question with all pun intended. This becomes an anomaly due also to potential causality problem with where this should go, and we actually even have an information paradox to contend with given that an explanation of where did all that energy and matter involved with the history to 'world that has ended' go when it literally collapsed?

I guess to really go wild, my own guess is that Hawking's own way out of his own information paradox to form the theoretical basis of what happened I suppose with that world and how it correlates to the 'majority' of the paths. This is where the whole topic goes completely beyond me however. His idea was on the line that either the world that has ended is literally another self-contained alternate universe where information of Ushio and Tomoya just bleed into (preserving informational enthalpy overall) and I guess Tomoya and Ushio got hurled into some sort of a black hole(?) with the observer audience getting the Tomoya POV instead of a 3rd person view of the whole spectacle... *Lost at this point, mostly as the part where it seems that universe comes out of black hole singularities...

Originally Posted by MeoTwister5

Tomoya's consciousness into 2 halves so it can simultaneously participate in 2 worlds.

This also adds to the headache due to consideration of Quantum Entanglement... is Tomoya and Robot Tomoya really communicating with each other or programmed to interact the same way or... EPR paradox, where looking at Tomoya is enough to predict all of what robot Tomoya is going to do? I don't quite comprehend how many world circumvents this thought experiment actually.

Originally Posted by MeoTwister5

For me it's much more logical to believe that dimensional shifting is more a possibility than splitting a mind, when one considers the fact that time and space is a measurable phenomena as compared to the idea of consciousness which is already so abstract as it is.

This issue would go away I guess if a strong explanation can be given of how that we have locality preserved through the view of how we look at Tomoya's global state relative to the end of the world local state. Consciousness would open a can of worm and it would lead everyone off on a massive tangent.

You're right. It's good that at least the global state didn't blow itself to bits.

[MeoTwister5]

Originally Posted by panzerfan

My own leaning is towards the sum of all paths as well, but the origin of the world that has ended and the end of that period becomes the sore thumb in my mind. I suppose that here's where putting physics and anime together == god kills catgirl axiom applies, but if one can chronologically fit the world that has ended as a branch to the time constraint beginning from the reference point of the meeting over the bottom of the hill, perhaps a much less magical conclusion can be drawn to appease those that demand realism out of the "why 22" question. This becomes an anomaly due also to potential causality problem with where this should go, and we actually even have an information paradox to contend with given that an explanation of where did all that energy and matter involved with the history to 'world that has ended' go when it figuatively collapsed?

If we were to strictly fit IW into some chronological relationship with everything else, even as a separate universe, it would most likely fall as a world postdating the death of Ushio. IIRC, IW girl mentioned before the IW got nuked into oblivion that the two of them existed as 2 different people prior to the IW, and spoke in a past tense. This suggests to me that the IW was the result of Ushio's death and possibly Tomoya's own, the exception perhaps being Key's choice to run it in parallel. Otherwise, evidence points to the IW being an eventual result of the bad end.

Bear in mind of course that this for me is a more likely scenario than the IW occurring after meeting on the hill because while it would require Tomoya to jump dimensions, it follows a more linear series of events. From a strict order:

Ushio's death -> Illusionary World -> Time Loop -> Hill meeting

rather than:

Hill meeting -> Clannad Events parallel to IW -> Time Loop

For the sole reason that if both IW and Clannad ran in parallel, it's assuming that you split Tomoya's consciousness into 2 halves so it can simultaneously participate in 2 worlds. This sort of idea if closely related to the "limited souls" problem that if the universe had a limited number of souls, how exactly can there be an infinite number of people, unless you split a soul into a infinitely smaller number of souls to have more people. THAT'S a metaphysical problem I'd rather not touch.

And looking on the bright side of things, at least the contradiction didn't cause the Clannadverse to asplode on itself.

This also adds to the headache due to consideration of Quantum Entanglement... is Tomoya and Robot Tomoya really communicating with each other or programmed to interact the same way or... EPR paradox, where looking at Tomoya is enough to predict all of what robot Tomoya is going to do? I don't quite comprehend how many world circumvents this thought experiment actually.

Not necessarily because, for me anyway, I don't really believe that the consciousness is split. For me it was real Tomoya before Robot Tomoya, shifting towards the IW after Ushio dies. For me it's much more logical to believe that dimensional shifting is more a possibility than splitting a mind, when one considers the fact that time and space is a measurable phenomena as compared to the idea of consciousness which is already so abstract as it is.